Tickets please
Most people seem to hate airports, but not me. Instead of seeing them as hotbeds of uncomfortable, germ breeding, luggage losing, crowd dodging, flight delaying, interminable waiting rooms of hell, we need to change the lens. And as someone who once took a toddler and newborn to the UK and back BY MYSELF, the sheer absolute joy of solo travel will never diminish. Going to the toilet on your own schedule, reading a book, listening to a podcast, doing a puzzle, having a second cup of coffee or maybe even a juice, browsing the duty free you’ve been through a thousand times, buying items you only ever buy in airports. Plus, as a writer, airports are a rich source of inspiration. My next novel has a big airport reunion scene, and I loved writing it from a traveller’s perspective, coming out of customs, pushing your trolley down the ramp past a sea of faces and signs, the airport cafe shining like a mirage in the distance after weeks of enduring British coffee.
There’s so much to be nostalgic about, like the bafflingly complex international Covid Vax certificates we all needed. Going further back, there was a time when you didn’t have to plan your travel outfit based not only on comfort but on ease of disrobing. And the jostling for position like relay runners waiting for the baton amongst the anxious clutch of semi-clad travellers, desperately keeping track of the family jewels rolling around in the plastic trays until they’re ejected out of the holding area. Most frustrating is the fact that airports set different rules with varying levels of technology. That old, battered silver bangle which had never set off anything in its life is suddenly activating sirens worthy of DFAT SWAT teams at the other end. Beware of wearing knits with metallic thread through them as this will lead to a very thorough patting down. And whatever you do, don’t try and lighten the mood. Recent travellers will have noticed the addition of stern warnings on the monitors throughout Sydney airport. ‘Jokes about bombs are not funny. Crack one and you could miss your flight.’ Have to confess, the first time I saw that sign I thought it was a joke. The Loony Tunes Acme bomb and clusters of red TNT dynamite which Wile E Coyote et al all employed proficiently has definitely lost its comic relevance.
Years ago, some friends travelling with their two small children were leaving the US to come home and had their names called over the airport loudspeaker system. They rushed over to the desk, hoping for an upgrade, and were immediately escorted to a small windowless back room. The plastic, Disneyland branded, still sealed, toy wild west gunslinger gun and holster they’d bought for their son accusingly sat on the desk before them. They escaped with a severe ticking off, minus the toy, and only just made their flight.
Notwithstanding airport hiccups, travellers need to be alive to possibilities of booking mix-ups amidst the excitement of planning. A recent meme that Salzburg Airport in Austria has a help desk specifically for people who intended to fly to Australia went viral, though it was disappointingly shown to be a false alarm joke ad for a tech company. Evidently this is a common misconception Austrians get all the time - it’s said they very often respond to the question where they are from with ‘Austria, but there are no kangaroos there.’
As with all things, the devil is in the (destination) detail. It’s easy to make a mistake based on each airport’s unique three letter attribution. I’m visiting my daughter in Spain soon and just caught myself in time from booking a flight, not from Bilbao Spain (BIO) but from Billings, US (BIL). Spare a thought for the traveller who believed she was en route to Sydney aboard a propeller plane from Halifax, US. Alarm bells started ringing when the plane landed in Nova Scotia’s Sydney—a small coal and steel-mill town with nary a kangaroo to be seen. Ghanaian man Emmanuel Akomanyi left Sao Paulo, Brazil on his journey to Guyana—a South American country up on the Caribbean coast—where he was to study medicine after receiving a prestigious scholarship. Alas, Emmanuel’s next flight took him instead to the central Brazilian city of Goiânia, over 1,800 miles away. Puzzled and penniless, he ended up staying a week thanks to the support of kindly Goiânian strangers.
In case of disaster, my motto is to make the best of it. A quick Google reveals Billings sounds quite nice – it’s a city in Montana at the northwest edge of the Yellowstone River Valley, with sandstone cliffs and numerous parks and trails. If I’d ended up there, I’d be quite happy. And it would make a great post for this column.