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  • > She was anxious, because you instilled a sense of panic in her.

    That's not why she was anxious! She was anxious because, according to author's own account, this is someone:

    a) flying for the first time

    b) hardly speaks English

    c) is in a foreign country

    d) solo responsible for 4 grand kids running around

    etc.

    Blaming the airport staff who have to optimize for the greater good is quite something.

    by andsoitis
  • > b) hardly speaks English

    > c) is in a foreign country

    So you don't want tourists to your Country? You do realize 95% of the World lives outside the US? and at least 80% lives in non-English speaking Countries? Creating a horrid experience for them would mean losing huge chuck of that wealth flowing into your Country. Especially so when their income levels are rising drastically compared to a US Citizen (in terms of % change in disposable income as many are from low cost of living countries).

    by kshri24
  • I think the point is that they have zero empathy
    by martyvis
  • while your ignorance is bliss for you, it is a punishment for the rest of us. now get in line and wait for your boarding group to be called.
    by handwarmers
  • Airports by nature of flying being expensive will always be filled with people with zero idea about how airports work.
    by mschuster91
  • The fact that airport staff are forced to be cattle dogs given the lack of airport prior capacity planning is exactly what the author is trying to convey.

    It touches on a “race to the bottom” that European low cost carriers have have shown that people don’t care about airport stress in the shadow of cost — which lends to the enshittification of the whole overall experience.

    It’s so bad that people are starting to /pay/ to have less stress by visiting airport lounges, which are now starting to be, themselves, overcrowded due to the increase in demand.[1]

    [1]. https://web.archive.org/web/20260714133432/https://www.globa...

    by sifex
  • > Blaming the airport staff who have to optimize for the greater good is quite something.

    I don't think it's actually as noble as "optimizing for the greater good", but rather "optimizing for getting through the day in one piece". Which, in my experience, is why (polite + friendly + reasonable + firm) is the right register to use in pretty much every interaction with airport staff. You're asking them to do something (not telling), but your presence is ideally vaguely net positive (friendly, smiling, relaxed), you're asking for something that's within their authority to do, and there's a vague threat that you're not going to back down if they say no off-hand (their day is going to have a larger hassle-increment if they say no vs. if they say yes).

    Written out it kind of reads as cold and calculating, but I think every element of it is the best for everyone involved. You don't end up feeling like you just acquiesced to getting screwed by United or Delta, they get to have a nice friendly interaction that ideally makes those 10 minutes of their day suck less than it could have with an asshole customer.

    by tonyarkles
  • > optimize for the greater good

    Greater good my posterior. The grandma was in the wrong place at that time because they optimised the experience to extract the most money out of the flying public. They were boarding the people who paid extra, and since she didn't they couldn't let her board. Because if they do why would anyone pay extra for their "higher class" more expensive tickets. They could have said "passport?" and then pointed her towards the gate. But doing so as a policy would net the corporation less profit. So they don't.

    In other words the grandma's distress was by design. You can avoid the indignity of turned away from the gate by coughing up more money. She quite literally "didn't know her place" both in the queue and in the hierarchy.

    by krisoft
  • Now boarding - remain seated. Gate closing!

    The author gave plenty of other reasons why someone might be stressed out by what's communicated at the airport.

    The whole point is that airport staff (and especially leadership) are maybe not so great at "optimizing for the greater good" always.

    by vintermann
  • In Lexington, KY I was chided for taking out my laptop "You don't need to do that" and then at Dallas Fort Worth I got chided for not taking out my laptop. Kafkaesque is the best word I have to describe it. Turns out Lexington has nicer/newer scanners and somehow I'm supposed to know which scanners you need to take your laptop out for.

    Additionally I want to make a scene every time I hand over documents and get told "I don't need this" since if I hadn't provided that ID/Passport/Boarding pass there was an equal chance I'd get berated for not providing it. There is zero empathy for the traveller. If I walk forward I get yelled at, if I wait to be called I get yelled at, it's infuriating. Everything about the airport feels like a lose-lose scenario to me.

    I don't fly that often and every time I do I hate the airport experience so much because I feel like I'm constantly doing _something_ wrong.

    The security theater of the TSA is just the moldy cherry on top of the shit sundae that is flying.

    by joshstrange
  • what i do in tsa lines is just watch the people in front of me and the directions given to them. It's kind of hard to ignore actually.
    by chasd00
  • I'm pretty sure this is a purposeful "feature" of security at least for North America. They don't want anyone getting comfortable with the process and constantly make changes to ensure this. I'm not sure what this is supposed to accomplish other than to make air travel less comfortable.

    I recently flew and the airport had gotten the new scanners since the last time I had gone somewhere. The signage was confusing as only some of the lines had signs that specifically said you didn't have to take out your electronics on "this lane only". Even with the new scanners they were pulling out half the bags for additional screening and only had one person doing the additional screening.

    Coming back from overseas I saw how it was supposed to work, walked up and they directed me to a line and a specific bin loading station, had someone remind me to ensure my pockets were empty, walked through the scanner and my bag was already waiting for me, took all of 2 minutes.

    by starky
  • My favorite but of airport-ese that emerged post-9/11 is that on most US airlines you can now have 1 carry-on and 1 personal item.

    As far as I can tell the difference between them is that a personal item can't have wheels.

    by mikeocool
  • The personal item has to fit under the seat in front of you
    by dooglius
  • One of the best investments I ever made was the original Patagonia MLC wheelie. It stands for Maximum Legal Carry-on. They have a black hole version now which I am not familiar with but I assume is the same quality / usefulness. I had a few jobs where I commuted regularly on CRJ 200's and this bag fits in the overhead with no issue. The ability to pop out the straps and wear it like a backpack makes the gate agents much less concerned about the size.
    by leetrout
  • Usually the rule is that the personal item must fit under the seat in front of you, the carry-on may be a bit larger.

    I have boarded with a wheeled carry-on + wheeled personal item (a backpack with wheels) in the past, but every time the gate agent tested the personal item for size.

    by gabrielhidasy
  • My last four flights have each made me gate-check my carry-on at the jetway.

    They could've saved a lot of time and labor by just letting me check it like I would have before they started charging $30-50 each way for it.

    by ceejayoz
  • A couple of weeks back I was flying out of Chicago O'Hare. The guy in front of me had a carryon suitcase, a laptop bag, and a fanny pack attached to the carryon. The employee checking us in told him that the fanny pack was considered a second personal item. He had to remove it from the bag and wear it on him. Then it became part of his attire and that was A-OK.
    by malshe
  • One time in 2013 I was flying from San Francisco to Phoenix with a layover in LA. I purchased my ticket directly from United, the flights had a UAXXXX flight number, and the printed tickets I got when I checked in had United branding on them.

    I got to LAX and I proceeded to try to find my UA flight, but the flight number was nowhere to be found. I waited a bit and when it still didn’t show up on the monitor, I asked a gate agent. The agent looked at my ticket and told me to keep waiting.

    Eventually I started to get worried as my departure time was approaching. I asked another gate agent, and this time I was informed my flight was not a United flight at all! It was a US Airways flight. Also, it was in a completely different terminal. Also, at LAX to move between terminals you have to exit security and hike across parking structures and parking lots. There was no way I would make my flight.

    I looked at my ticket and sure enough, in small print it said “operated by US airways.” I hadn’t even noticed this, but even if I had, how was I supposed to know that this meant it was literally not a United flight at all?

    Thankfully a friendly customer service agent took mercy on me and got me booked on an American flight later that day.

    I later learned from a flight attendant friend that this was called a “code share” and it was subsequently changed to make it more user friendly.

    There are a million things like this I don’t even think about anymore because I travel so much. But when I think back to those days of early adulthood I remember how stressful and confusing airports could be.

    by pkrecker
  • I suspect airports could be a whole lot simpler if the notions of "security" and "border control" didn't exist or were otherwise relaxed.
    by Retr0id
  • Last time I flew, it was with United and I highly recommend their app. Clearly designed by people who know airports suck. It automated everything, from checkin and tickets, kept me updated on flights and gates, mapped them out and told me how long it would take to get to the gate and where security lines were the longest. Even tracked my checked luggage.
    by xvxvx
  • Not a big fan of having to load up an app to do something that should be (an in some cases, used to be) effortless. At some airlines, the gate agents are now starting to expect you to use the app for things, and they'll give an annoyed snort if you ask them for information. Sorry, Tiffany, but your airline app doesn't work on my phone because United's lazy software engineers cut off support for Operating Systems older than the previous version.
    by ryandrake
  • > Even tracked by checked luggage.

    Which would be great if it was actually accurate. Took a United flight two days ago. Checked two bags. App only reported one bag loaded onto plane. Spent the flight anxiously wondering if the other bag had been lost. Both bags arrived fine.

    I'd rather have no information than unreliable information.

    by martinpw
  • i think that 90% of these problems would be solved by an easily accessible, standardized map of each airport.

    When i attempted to find airport maps, I was met with a mess of mobile apps, mobile website pdf's, and an enormous amount of text.

    Just... give me an easy to use map. Call out the obvious use cases like "how to transfer terminals" and "your bags will/will-not be checked through".

    by superxpro12
  • maybe this doesn't work in every airport but you can hold up your phone with the camera on, point it down the hallway, and get step by step directions to get to your gate.
    by chasd00
  • Everything you’re saying is how I feel as a native English speaker and it drives me absolutely nuts. People in airports are obsessed with telling you what you can’t do.

    The one thing that kind of works for me is, “Well, what should I do?” when they bark orders about what I can’t do.

    “You can’t have your boarding pass in your hand!”, when you’re in the x-ray. “Where should I put it now?”

    Oh well, it turns out I actually can have it in my hand. Thanks.

    by VeninVidiaVicii
  • Am I crazy or are the general workers at most US airports of dubious quality at best?
    by neko_ranger
  • This is not a US-only airport staff issue. I am on the road most of the last three decades and it is international. It is one, binding "quality" in every country. Most the airport staff's core competency rests elsewhere in almost all airports.

    I am hedging because i have had nuggets of exceptional service and support here and there, even in nightmarish hellscapes like Heathrow. Flight attendants are a whole different area of joy and fears...

    by WaitWaitWha
  • Look, our culture does not reward excellence, so those people are doing the least possible to not get fired. That's kind of the whole American thing in general at this point. Nobody is doing great outside of technology workers, and even then, only some of them. You're not going to have a great experience in general from people here. There are always outliers, but those are individuals who have found some internal motivation to go above and beyond, and it's not a systemic thing.
    by MPSimmons
  • > general workers at most airports

    Yes, exactly. But actually, given what they must be paid they do an admirable job. I can’t truly blame someone for not giving a shit, it’s just frustrating for me when getting on my flight depends on them doing so.

    by Aeolun