the user experience of a small-market airport
There's a big difference between a big-market airport like SFO or ORD and a small-market regional airport. These days, I vastly prefer small-market airports to their bigger brothers. Okay, I might laugh at the security guard on a Segway in Columbus (when you can walk across the whole airport in eighteen steps, a Segway seems rather superfluous), but those quirks are so much nicer than the cattle-prod experience at the big airports.
You learn a lot of things when you fly. A few weeks ago, I learned something in New York. There, my United flight from LGA to IAD got cancelled. United rebooked me on Delta, flying into DCA (which was completely in my favour, since I was headed to Alexandria). This was the proximate cause of this travel lesson.
LGA has a small-market airport within it. It's the strangest thing. Delta Shuttle has its own little terminal (not Delta, mind you, just their shuttle flights -- and there's some commuter airlines and private aircraft too). It's buried out in the middle of nowhere. You get there via a slow shuttle bus, and then you think that you're suddenly in a small-market airport. The parking lot is close to the terminal and has lots of parking.
Inside, there are two agents. There is a lonely self-check kiosk, but it's off in a corner ignored by everyone. The agents are nice, and they check you in instead of making you deal with the annoying kiosk. Even better, they sorted out the problem with my itinerary that they inherited from United without blinking an eye, even though they hadn't caused it and they could have simply sent me back to United who had made the original mistake. I wanted to kiss them.
Then you get to security. Now this, this is what airport security should be like. There was no line. The agents are friendly and relaxed. Since I was technically on a just-purchased ticket, I got marked for special screening. The TSA agent asked why I had the extra screening, and I explained that I was rebooked from another airline. She smiled and said that she'd get me through as fast as she could. She pointed out that there was another shuttle flight to DC that I might be able to make. Even with the full pat-down and luggage once-over, I made it through security in less than a minute. That's roughly the time that it took to remove my laptop and shoes, then return them. The guy after me had a full bottle of water in his bag, and the agents kindly took the time to explain the rules to him, let him know that he had plenty of time to get to his flight, and point out some seats where he could drink his water before coming through security.
Delta was just closing the door to the aircraft when the gate agent saw me walk up. The gate agent asked if I was going to DC, I said that I was on the next flight. He said that I could take this one if I didn't want to wait the hour for the next flight. I told him that he was my best friend in the whole wide world.
This used to be the flying experience. I sincerely miss it. I've had similar experiences at small-market airports (you know, the ones with four or five gates), but it's a long-forgotten memory at the big airports. I miss having friendly airline employees there to help out when something goes wrong.
The user experience of airports doesn't need to be as bad as it is. There still are a few places where it's so much better than everywhere else. We can learn lessons from those few pockets, and try to ensure that they're not crushed out of existence.
(Edited on Tuesday, 25 August 2008 to include a Wikipedia link to the LGA terminal in question.)
Comments
Anonymous
August 25, 2008
Nadyne, this was at LGA? I had no idea there was a "mini" Delta Shuttle terminal!Anonymous
August 26, 2008
Yup, it does. It's the Marine Air Terminal at LGA. I'll add this link to my post, it's got some fascinating details about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_Air_Terminal