Small airports suck

Small airports suck, but big airport inefficiency works in my favor!

My flight to O'Hare was late, but so was the in-bound flight for my connection.

So far as I can tell, it was because there was no crew at O'Hare (surprise, surprise) for plane at gate.

Probably the first shred of good fortune I've ever had here.

(Knock on wood until my knuckles are bloody.)

 

My worst small airport experience was in Hamilton during the blackout of 2003, I had a flight that connected there from Edmonton on my way to Montreal. Flew into Hamilton about 2 p.m. and shortly there after the power went out. It was me and about 1,000 others crammed into this tiny glass enclosed hangar with no air conditioning and 35C (95) heat outside. Pretty sure it was well over 40C (104) inside. We were stuck there until after 8 p.m. when they discovered there was power in Brantford, Ont. and found hotel rooms for us there for the night. I do have to say the West Jet staff was great, kept us watered and kept passing out cookies, and somehow kept their sanity together. They also covered the cost of transportation to and from the hotel and the hotel itself. I will now fly West Jet whenever possible. But my memory of Hamilton is being stuck in that sweatbox for about 6 hours.

 

I had like a 7 p.m. flight out of Vegas one time and I got done early (and was out of money) so I went to the airport. Airtran was closed from 2-5. So I had to sit at the check-in area for three hours and wait for someone to check me in. Boo.

 

They can be bad (like flying out on an early morning flight and TSA isn't open yet) but they can be nice too. A friend of mine flew out of Marquette, MI right after 9/11 when everyone was still getting used to the increased security. He got to the airport two and a half hours before his flight, checked in, noticed the line to get through security was actually really short, and went home to have a snack and watch TV for an hour. He went back to the airport 30 minutes before the flight, zipped right through security and was off. You couldn't do that at a hub.

 

I missed a flight once and spent 16 hours in the Sacramento airport.

 

I love small airports. Of course, I'm on the other side of the security issue and folks at small airports are generally happy to see gas-guzzling Black Hawks parked on the ramp.

There are usually some kids who want to climb on it and dads who want to swap war stories, etc., when all I want to do is get to the hotel and bar.

 

About 6 a.m., waiting in front of the Valley River Inn in Eugene, Ore., for the hotel shuttle to the airport. The driver was in no hurry. I said to him that I had to get to the airport in time for the 7 a.m. flight to San Francisco. He said he had to wait for a few more people, but not to worry.
He was waiting for the crew for that flight. When they showed up, the captain looked at me and said, "Good morning, how are you today?"
I said, "Doesn't matter how I am ... I just hope YOU'RE good."

 

I'm disappointed that you didn't.

 

The smaller the better.

 

TSA in Lincoln, Nebraksa was hilarious the one time I flew out of there. Going there, I checked my bags, so I had a bunch of regular sized toiletries in my luggage. On the way back, I carried on, forgetting the regular sized bottles. TSA scanned the luggage, saw the bigger bottles, and said, "Ahh, they look like they are about empty, which is close enough to the size limit for us. Just don't tell anyone at the next airport we said that."

 

I'm all for any airport where I can park 100 yards from the terminal and it doesn't take me 45 minutes to get through security because a passenger is using 15 bins for their carry-ons and everyone else has to wait.