Airport Problems: Getting to New York

In preparation for my departure from Seattle to New York today, I decided to discuss my flight and how early I should arrive to the airport with a couple of family members.  I am the kind of person who likes to get to the airport two hours early, take my sweet time checking bags and walking through security, and I usually even have time to buy a water bottle and sit down by my gate for a few minutes.  That time and leisure is something I actually really enjoy about the airport, and it’s probably why I generally have positive flight experiences.  The family members I chose to speak with, however, feel strongly that time spent past security is wasted time.  I don’t usually change things like airport timeliness just because suggests that I do, but for some reason I was in a welcoming mood when I had this discussion so I decided that I would try it their way for my flight this morning because they were so incredibly sure that an hour was plenty of time to even be bored for a little while on the other side of security.

Flight time: 6:00 AM.

Time I would get to the airport: 4:15 AM.

Their suggested arrival time to the airport: 5:00 AM.

I knew that my task would be harder than they so reassuringly suggested when it was 5:05 and I still wasn’t inside the airport because of the backed up traffic into the Departures section.  I calmed down, though, because my Mom decided to drop me off at Arrivals and I would just take the elevator to the Departures section… And so I did.  When I turned the corner from the elevator and saw the Southwest Airlines baggage check-in line, I pretty much lost hope instantaneously.  There were hundreds of people standing in double or triple the roped lines they usually have, and the line actually extended around the corner of the entire check-in place to the security area (for those of you who have been to Sea-Tac, that will be easier to understand).  Basically, though, I figured that hundreds of people in line + 45 minutes until take off ≠ me on the plane.  So instead of waiting in line, I went to the Business Priority section, which had about three people in it, and said to the guy at the counter, “My flight is in 40 minutes, any way you could check me in here?” to which he responded, “I’m not going to check you in just because you came late to the airport.  Go wait in line like everyone else!” Obviously I didn’t follow his advice, so instead I tried to go to the outside baggage check area.  Sadly, there were about one hundred people in line there too and time was only ticking away. 

I’m pretty sure this is when I started crying, but it might have been a minute or two before or after.  I approached the baggage checker and repeated the same question to him except words were separated by breaths and tears.  He responded by saying, “I can’t let you cut the whole line, but if these people in the front section let you go ahead of them that’s fine by me.”  I barely even said two words to the group of people (mostly because the crying made it hard to speak) when they told me to go ahead of them (I love Seattleites!!!).  The guy started checking me in, and in the middle of speech about how I made the baggage check cutoff time by two minutes and I need to be more careful, he told me that as long as my bags were only 50 lbs each I would be fine.  I really didn’t have time to go through that whole weighing process, so I started crying again and said, “I’ve weighed them each many times and this one is 47 and this one is 46” (that wasn’t totally true, by the way).  I don’t know if it was the tears or his seemingly trusting personality that got him, but he just put the bags on the belt and sent me on my way telling me to run. 

I definitely sprinted towards security, because I realized that the time was now approximately 5:33.  Good thing there were hundreds and hundreds of people in all of the different security lines! I decided to ask a TSA woman if she could help me get through faster, and she said that only the airline people have the ability to do that so I needed to ask them.  And so I ran… back to the Southwest counter.  When I asked a woman there what to do she said, “If I help you, I’ll have to help everyone. You’re going to have to wait in line, miss your flight, and catch the next one. Good luck!”

She’s clearly not from Seattle.

I sprinted back to security, and after asking a different TSA woman for help and receiving the same response from her I decided that I had to give up and hope for the best with the next flight.  Luckily, I happened to be behind the woman who let me cut her and her family to check my baggage… She saw that I was still crying and distraught and asked if I had asked anyone for help, then suggested that I try the Priority Lane person instead.  I gave her a wave of thanks, and sprinted as fast as I could toward the new TSA woman.  I’m pretty sure the only words I managed to get out of my mouth were “flight” and “twenty minutes,” and she let me through.

From Seattle.

There were only about thirty people in this security line, but I still was by no means confident that I’d make it through.  Luckily, they opened a new lane just when I got there so I became fourth in line after this woman let me cut her because of my distress.  When I walked through the metal detector thing it of course beeped.  I didn’t really understand why, though, because I had taken off things that don’t even cause the beeping.  Then the TSA man screamed, “random screening!” Of course I had to be the lucky soul to give TSA data which I didn’t have time to share.  I told him that my flight was in fifteen minutes, and instead of caring he just told me that he would take all of my belongings for me to the separated table area.  Thanks, sir. 

After he wiped my hands with something weird, I just grabbed my things without putting them back into my bag, and RAN.  Good thing the B gate is on the totally opposite side of the airport!  Sprinting and crying is what I did for approximately seven minutes.  Sprint. Cry. Sprint. Cry. Sprint. Cry.  Over and over.  When I got towards the end of the journey, feel hot and start to sweat became a part of that cycle as well- how lovely. 

Thank Gd I ended up making it to the gate just as they were finishing up boarding- even if I was a teary-eyed and slightly sweaty mess.  The one positive thing I’ll say is how awesome it was to be in such good shape from boxing that the 45 minutes of off and on sprinting barely even made me sweat.

In terms of timeliness to the airport, I’m 100% positive that I’ll never try the one hour before thing again, but maybe I can find a little bit of a middle ground between that and my usual two hours… No promises, though.