Tips for Air Travel - 2002

As I write on the cusp of the years, let me wish each of you the very best for 2002. In view of recent events and typical current news coverage, my column includes tips for air travel in the new year compiled from firsthand experience on my recent trip to Portugal via Dulles International and Newark/JFK.

The airlines have reduced personnel, security has increased and delays seem more the norm than on-time departures. There may not be any noticeable changes for months; perhaps we’ll never return to the “good old days.”

Essentially, the airlines aren’t really serving us passengers now, they’re attempting to conform to regulations in the hope they’ll save us from disaster. We have to play the game. We can look on our contributions as our patriotic duty or as an expedient to air travel or plain old common sense. Whatever we call it, let’s just do it.

Check-in lines are longer and slower but there are two common denominators for each waiting passenger: a ticket and a picture ID. Why not have them out and ready for the agent? I stood in line for over an hour and watched numerous travelers reach the counter and waste time looking through purses, pockets, carryons in search of the required items. What did they do while they waited in line, count ceiling tiles?

Security is tighter and it’s slower. But there are some givens for every passenger in every line. Pockets need to be emptied and purses need to be x-rayed. Computers have to be removed from their cases. Jackets and coats have to be screened; they cannot be worn through the metal detector; some airports require shoe removal. My observations revealed more than half the traveling public doesn’t immediately adhere to the above criteria even though none of this, except scanning shoes, is really new.

Contents of carryon bags are also restricted (see below). There are security areas that now have large stashes of tweezers, scissors, corkscrews, pocketknives, knitting needles, etc. No one cares that your penknife was a graduation gift forty years ago or that your knitting needles belonged to your great grandmother. They’re not allowed in carryon luggage. If you want them at your destination, pack them with your checked baggage and work crossword puzzles on the flight in place of knitting or whittling.

Carryon bags are limited to one item that will fit under a seat or in an overhead bin and a single personal item such as a purse, brief case or computer. The maximum is two and shopping bags count as one of them. Granted, the agent at the check-in counter should reiterate this rule but generally he or she won’t. Security might also recognize a single passenger with too many items but it’s not likely unless there’s an “upfront” person who scans those in line. That leaves it to the gate personnel and they catch it when the plane is boarding or it might possibly be the flight crew who sees the overloaded passenger. Taking more than is allowed causes unnecessary delays and rearrangements—the guilty passenger isn’t going to win any popularity contests.

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