First Flight
by Mark H. Anbinder14850 Magazine > October 2001 Issue > First Flight
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![[IMAGE] Airport Parking Lot](t_parkinglot.jpg)
Much of Ithaca Tompkins Regional Airport's short-term parking lot, just across the access road from the terminal building, has been cordoned off due to security concerns.Over Pennsylvania, 6 Oct 01 -- It's been almost a month, but this is my first opportunity to fly since September 11th. As people started talking, that day, about never being comfortable flying again, I knew I would fly -- and like it -- again.
Flying has just been, for too long, a part of my life. As long as I can remember, I've flown with my parents, on family vacations frugally and conveniently attached to business trips, and even without them. These days, children not accompanied by parents are guarded by cautious and litigation-wary airlines, but years back, it was just an adventure.As I write this, I'm at 28,000 feet, en route to a conference in Indiana. The flight, booked days before last month's tragic events, has a couple dozen people on a Boeing 737-400 with room for five times as many people. The Philadelphia airport, though, where we connected en route from Ithaca, was reassuringly mobbed. (I've only flown through Philly once before, so I can't say how the crowds compared to the norm.)
Departing Elmira
This morning's departure, my first out of the Elmira-Corning Regional Airport, showed that even if the current climate isn't great for the air travel industry, it's great for airport security jobs. Beyond the typical two middle-aged men staffing the X-ray conveyor belt and walk-through metal detector, the security gate had a woman checking tickets and photo IDs, two men with handheld metal detectors giving each passenger a close examination, and at least one person just watching, in addition to the airport's National Guard and sheriff's department representatives.
The security checkpoint was closed when we arrived, as though the airport didn't want passengers in the gate area until just before boarding time. The result was a small crowd waiting to be checked when they did open the checkpoint. Like Ithaca's, Elmira's airport is a small one with just a few departure gates, and a relative handful of flights per day, so they probably just don't have to deal with a constant stream of passengers.
The good news was that our early arrival at the airport, nearly two hours before our scheduled departure, gave us time for a proper breakfast in the airport restaurant, along with a Sheriff's deputy, taking a break with a cigarette and eggs a few tables away. (Note to gourmands: the sausage patty on the English muffin breakfast sandwich isn't all that flavorful, so go for the French toast, or be prepared to add salt and pepper to your breakfast.)
Parking was the other oddity at the Elmira airport. Since the FAA has ordered public vehicles not be permitted to park within 300 feet of airport facilities, many airports, especially smaller ones, have had to reduce, or even close entirely, their parking lots. The Ithaca Tompkins Regional Airport has had to close most of its short-term lot, and Elmira's lot is closed entirely. Cars are parked in a field across the road from the airport, the rows and spaces marked off with plastic tape and flags.
Hustle and bustle in Philadelphia
"They're letting us have knives again," said the waitress at the brewpub in the Philadelphia International Airport's B concourse, as she set out plastic forks and knives for our meal. The eatery was nearly full at 1:00 pm on a Saturday, a good sign for an airport that carries far more weekday than weekend traffic. The statement makes me reflect that, uncharacteristically, I don't have my tiny Swiss Army pocketknife, whose scissors have for years let me clip my fingernails at whim. (It's in my checked luggage, as are my keys, which I won't need until Thursday.) The occasional compulsive nail clipping is a habit that, if not socially acceptable at mealtime, is at least far healthier than the nail picking it replaced a few years back, thanks to Ann Landers and her rubber-band habit-breaking technique.
America's penchant for flying is returning to normal, judging by the general hustle and bustle at this airport -- or at least heading in that direction, however slowly. Philadelphians are coming and going, and other travelers are bouncing off Philly en route to other places. If the flight to Indianapolis is only about 20% full, that seems more an aberration -- or simply a reflection on the destination, which one imagines garners more crowds during racing season.
Signs
No one looks particularly nervous, as undoubtedly many air travelers did a few weeks ago, when the FAA cautiously lifted its unprecedented nationwide flight ban.
October's complimentary Attaché magazine, which went to press on September 12th, begins with US Airways chairman Stephen M. Wolf's essay, written the day after the terrorist attacks, when that ban was of unknown duration. Wolf talks about the fragility of our national liberties, referring to the already-evident unwarranted attacks and threats against Americans of Arab descent. He also talks about the strength of our national solidarity, quoting Cornellian E. B. White's words from over fifty years ago:
Mass hysteria is a terrible force, yet New Yorkers seem always to escape it by some tiny margin: they sit in stalled subways without claustrophobia, they extricate themselves from panic situations with some lucky wisecrack, they meet confusion and congestion with patience and grit -- a sort of perpetual muddling through.
Every facility is inadequate . . . but the city makes up for its hazards and its deficiencies by supplying its citizens with massive doses of a supplementary vitamin: the sense of belonging to something unique, cosmopolitan, mighty, and unparalleled.
Never's a long time
As I sit here, contemplating my easy decision to fly again compared with the decision so many have made to stay grounded (forever or not remains to be seen), I remember what I thought the afternoon of September 11th, after I knew my Manhattan-transplanted brother was safe. Either this is going to make him move back to Ithaca as soon as he can arrange it, I thought, or it will cement his resolve as a New Yorker, and keep him there forever. Forever's a long time, but I'm sure I belong in the air, and I'm sure for the first time, today, that Jeff belongs in Manhattan.
![[IMAGE] Airport Parking Lot](parkinglot.jpg)
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