"... that makes the incline of jetways such a shock; its salty, sugary, and alcohol-infused cuisine; its detached social ambiance; its modes of travel (the long slog down the moving walkway, the hum of the people-moving carts, the standing-room-only shuttles, the escalators, the diddly-dup diddly-dup of roller bags, and — oh, yes — the airplanes); its fauna (emotional-support animals) and flora (plastic ficus); its mysterious system of governance; its language.... [W]hy Gate? Well, apparently there once was an actual gate, which stayed closed until the propellers of the plane were safely tied down and the passengers were free to pass through and board from the tarmac.... Take concourse. It’s from the Latin, meaning 'flowing together,' and outside Airportland it generally refers to an open area where passageways meet and people gather. In French, concours means 'contest.' At the airport, the concourses are simply wide corridors, usually designated by letter, but if you like you can think of them as flowing, since they’re usually filled with a stream of humanity, and it often feels like a contest simply to reach the gate without incident....."
From "The Language of Airportland" by Lucy Ferriss (Lingua Franca).
26 comments:
Part of the lingu franca, by omission: very few airports have a Gate 13, just as almost no airplanes have Row 13.
While emotional support animals can be a burden to fellow-passengers on a plane, I welcome nutritional support animals, such as a Vietnamese pot-bellied pig, which could be shared with fellow-passengers in the event of an emergency. If they had one on the Minnow, life as a castaway could have been more enjoyable.
Steve,
I'm definitely in favor of emotional support bacon!
Gilliigan would’ve just messed it up.
Airports have Gate 13 and airplanes have row 13.
The first airport I remember had a low chain link fence with a gate, when it was just Greensboro airport and not Piedmont (soon to be Central North Carolina) Triad International (snort).
Small airports have a ring-ding machine and a coffee machine.
"I welcome nutritional support animals, "
Isn't that what your fellow passengers are for? a la Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571?
Gilbar, they make too much mess inflight.
i do have to admit; if i was on the SS Minnow, the idea of eating Ginger (or Mary Ann) would be very tempting ;)
diddly-dup diddly-dup captures the sound perfectly! Like me, that writer has spent more time in airports than is good for him.
Do they really have to call it the “terminal”?
Another uninteresting article. In high school the author's parents and teachers told her she was talented. So she became a write dedicated to writing drivel.
In Trivial Writerland people look to Latin and French to find the deep meaning of words when the simple truth is in plain sight.
No discussion of “Deplane”. (And I’m not referring to the Herve Villechaize usage.)
I spent a good part of yesterday in airportland.
After going to the trouble to get PreCheck for both of us, the Spokane Airport closed the PreCheck line and the TSA guy at the PreCheck desk handed us a yellow card, which of course we did not read as the line was moving. Then, after we had put our carryons in the machine, they announced we had to do it all over as if no PreCheck.
TSA could not be lower on my list of useless people but, if there was a lower rank, they would be on it.
I used to have an office in a building near the Orange County Airport. The TSA office was in the same building. There was a little cafe outside the building that people used for lunch. The TSA drones would fill up all the chairs and sit there smoking and not buying anything.
The cafe owner sold it. They had killed his business.
Do you mean the John Wayne Airport? Or the Santa Ana Airport? I always get them confused with the Orange County Airport
No, I meant the Eddie Martin Terminal.
Airports have Gate 13 and airplanes have row 13.
Next time you get on a plane, check. I can't remember the last time I've seen a row 13 (and I fly A Lot).
Same with terminals.
Not saying they never do, but most don't.
I lived in Airportland for several years. My fellow business travelers and I could do the routine almost sleep. If we could be granted one wish, it would be: No leisure travelers before 10AM on Mondays. We could have gone through security and gotten that plane boarded in ten minutes and been back in dreamland, if not for the disorganized horde of amateurs getting in our way.
Phoenix Sky Harbor has three terminals labeled 2, 3 and 4. What happened to 1? That's another story. Terminal 2 has a gate 13. Terminal 3 does not currently have a gate 13 in use. Terminal 4 has gates A13, B13 and C13. And if you fly American, you can choose many flights with seats available in row 13. Lotsa opportunities for bad flying luck out of Phoenix.
On a lovely flight on Northwest into Chicago, connecting to the next flight required all 250 of us on the big jet to walk to an escalator, go down it, exit a door, and walk to another terminal. I was about #75 on the escalator, and as I was descending I saw about 65 people standing in a crowd of ever-increasing density at the base of the escalator, instead of moving on out the door.
I gave the crowd my best imitation of an airline customer service rep, yelling, "Everyone at the bottom of the escalator needs to move away right NOW! You will be crushed by the people on the escalator if you don't MOVE AWAY NOW!"
They didn't. I got to the bottom, cut right to avoid the next people coming down, and wormed through the increasingly upset crowd of idiots to the door as fast as I could. After I went through, the rest followed like the cattle in an abattoir they were imitating.
Hey Skipper
I am on a plane frequently and in various airports here and abroad. Go to any airline's website and check out the seating arrangement. Ditto the airport maps.
Most major US airports have greatly improved their terminals in the last decade. I am not sure the writer is that much in airports
We flew out of A 13 in Spokane. That explains it.
I only fly Southwest anymore.
I flew Southwest to Baltimore one time. There were two in flight passenger emergencies. I heard, "Is there a doctor on the plane?" I thought, "Oh shit!" but a guy in front of me volunteered. We landed at Kansas City to put the passenger off and took off. An hour later, "Is there a doctor on the plane?" The same guy volunteered. We landed at Atlanta.
Finally got to Baltimore after 7 hours. Longest domestic flight I've been on since the DC 7 was retired.
I live in Atlanta, which is known for its large airport, and about which it could be said (as JFK said of Washington DC) that it's "a city combining Northern charm with Southern efficiency." I like "Airportland" because it is one place in Atlanta where things, most of the time, seem to WORK.
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