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Room With a View

March 28, 2024

I’M A SUCKER for a good wallopping view. And who isn’t? A view stirs the soul. It hits those hard-to-reach visceral notes in the way a simulation — a painting, say — can’t.

I’ve seen some spectacular ones: Machu Picchu on a clear day; Hong Kong from Victoria Peak; an unforgettable rainforest panorama from a canopy walk in Brunei; the fantastical mountains of Torres del Paine in Chile; and so on.

Sometimes, though, you want something easy, and that’s where hotel rooms come in. Here, the magic is presented to you, no effort required, to be savored from the comfort of your bed or balcony. It’s thrill and chill at the same time, both exciting and relaxing. I’ll take a three-star room with a view over a five-star room without one, any day.

I spend over a quarter of my life in hotels, at work or on vacation, so I’ve had my share. They tend to be cityscapes, mostly. My favorite of which, thus far, was a nighttime vista of Dubai from floor 60-something of the J.W. Marriott.

But urban panoramas get redundant after a while. It’s the greener settings I prefer. Mountains, oceans, forests. For instance, watching the sun come up over the Serengeti, from a tent at the Ole Serai safari lodge in Tanzania.

And I remember a place in Ecuador, overlooking a valley. It was a hacienda-style hotel perched at the top of a mountain. A floor-to-ceiling window looked out over the town, more than a thousand feet below. And it wasn’t a gradual or tapered descent; this was straight down, a sheer vertical drop. Was it Otavalo, maybe? Or Baños? It was twenty-five years ago and memory fails me. A dig through an old Lonely Planet guide is no help either.

Which is too bad, because the room was incredible. You could sit and watch the clouds sweeping past, below you. Standing outside, the atmosphere made a hissing noise. It was, best I could tell, the sound of the clouds condensing. I have no idea of this is even possible, but I swear those clouds made a noise as they billowed by.

Nothing would ever beat that view, I thought.

And nothing did, until just a few weeks ago, when I stayed at the Ladera Resort on the Caribbean island of Saint Lucia. I’d broken the bank for a winter vacation, and while I expected the view to be special, judging from the online pics, I didn’t expect it to be this special. Stepping into the room, I actually laughed out loud.

It was one of those open-plan rooms with only three sides. The fourth side was a huge, unscreened balcony facing directly toward St. Lucia’s famous Pitons — a pair of party hat peaks, nearly three-thousand feet tall, that are part of an ancient caldera. The private pool was special enough, but it was the view — a sort of West Indies Machu Picchu — that stole the show.

That’s a custom of mine, by the way: immortalizing this or that gorgeous view with my ridiculous feet in the shot. Visit my Instagram stream and you’ll see others. Here’s a more pure version, sans toes.

Imagine feasting your eyes on that, dawn to dusk. I didn’t feel much like leaving the room.

So that’s the new number one. It was also the most expensive hotel room I’ve ever paid for, and to help assuage the guilt of having blown so much money, I think of it as compensation — a reward for all of the shitty and underwhelming views I’ve been stuck with over the years: all those times I’ve pulled back the curtain to behold a parking lot, an HVAC unit, an expanses of urban decay or, as Jonathan Richman put it, suburban bleakness. Heck, in Amsterdam one time I had a hotel room with no windows.

Meditating on the Pitons helps make up for what happened to me last summer at the Pullman hotel in Dakar, Senegal. I’d stayed in the Pullman many times, and my favorite thing about it was the view from the upper floors of the harbor and, in the distance, the famous (or infamous) Goree Island.

It had been several years since my last visit, and I was excited. But when I got to my room, a surprise was waiting. The top photo shows the view from my room in 2009. The lower photo shows almost the identical view in 2023. Speaks for itself. Progress or something.

The curved building with the triangular top is an old property that I once nicknamed “the Graham Greene Hotel,” because it reminds me of the sort of place where the famous novelist would have stayed, making journal entries in a sitting room with potted palms and a ceiling fan.

I was pleased to see it’s still there, and looks like it’s been renovated. The sight of that monolith, however, was devastating.

That’s nothing, though, compared to some other places. Allow me revisit a few…

If I remember right, this first one is a Marriott outside Detroit. Cars, the Motor City… I guess it works, in a way.

From the Crowne Plaza we take in a splendorous HVAC array, with the Atlanta airport in the distance. Traffic, fast food, a strip mall: it’s everything you love about America. In a gloomy overcast to boot.

Is there anything more aesthetically demoralizing than a gas station? Though I guess you can barely see it, with all the ducting in the way. I forget where this was, which is just as well.

A view you can hear. The roar and churn of the cement mixer, some jackhammering, a concrete drill or two. It’s Oakland, California, but I don’t recall the hotel.

The exquisite colors of Phoenix, Arizona. There’s a desolation to this photo that’s strangely evocative. Or not. I’m just trying to make it seem less ugly.

When you think of the island of St. Maarten, chances are this view from the Sonesta isn’t what you picture.

Seen enticingly from the Five Towns Inn, this Burger King is one of many fine dining establishments along Rockaway Turnpike in Lawrence, New York, just outside Kennedy Airport.

And this last one is Newark. Because of course it is.

I’ll add to this list as the misfortune presents itself.

(I need to confess, however, that the last photo isn’t mine. It was submitted by another pilot with whom I was commiserating on this topic.)

And don’t put too much stock in which particular hotels these are. Views can vary significantly room to room. A 40-th floor view from one side of a building might be a lot prettier than a third-floor view from another.

Maybe it’s ironic, meanwhile, to hear an airline pilot going on about views from the ground rather than those from aloft. So it goes, though. As regular flyers know, airplane scenery tends to be muted and indistinct. Altitude sucks away much of the grandeur. I’ve seen some amazing things — the glaciers of Greenland, the Sahara at dusk — but it’s mainly terra firma where the beauty is.

 

ALL PHOTOS BY THE AUTHOR, except for “Newark Afternoon,” courtesy of Dave English.

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MH 370, Ten Years On

March 19, 2024

TEN YEARS AGO this month, Malaysia Airlines flight 370 disappeared during a routine flight between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing. The wreckage was never found.

There’s a solid chance the wreckage will never be found. That’s unfortunate, but there are clues to work with. And those clues have, over time, led me to believe that the plane was intentionally brought down by one of the pilots, most likely the captain, in an act of murder-suicide. It was ditched somewhere in the Indian Ocean — landed, if you will, on the surface of the sea — where it sank to to the bottom and rests today, undetected but mostly intact.

Early on, I was open to a number of theories popular at the time: fire, depressurization, and so on. Accidents. I’ve come around since then. My opinion is based on the evidence, both as it exists and, just as importantly, doesn’t exist.

If we assume an accident, we must also assume the plane crashed into the ocean. We know from electronic satellite “pings” that the jet continued on for some time after its last appearance on radar. Having suffered some catastrophic malfunction that rendered the crew dead or unconscious, the thinking goes, the plane continued on autopilot until running out of fuel, at which point the engines failed. Without pilots to control the glide, it plunged into the sea.

The problem with this idea is the absence of pieces. There is no way for a jetliner to crash “gently” into the ocean. A Boeing 777 in an out-of-control impact would have effectively disintegrated, producing tens of thousands of fragments: aircraft parts, body parts, luggage, and so on. Much of this debris would have sunk, but much would not have. Eventually, borne by currents, it would’ve washed up.

So why didn’t it?

A small number of pieces did come ashore, but that’s the thing: of the few parts recovered, almost all of them are consistent not with an out-of-control crash, but with a controlled and deliberate ditching. (Even the most textbook ditching at sea is going to cause serious damage and the likely shedding of parts.) The flaperon discovered in 2015 on Reunion Island, for example, and the trailing edge flap that washed up on Mauritius, both from the same wing.

The parts themselves are evidence enough; a thorough post-mortem on them reveals even more. The forensics are complicated, but they’re solid. Use your Google and check out the analysis by former Canadian crash investigator Larry Vance. These pieces tell a story.

For these particular parts to have been found, together with a complete absence of the myriad flotsam a full-on crash would have produced, is to me a smoking gun.

And thus, the biggest reason the submerged wreckage hasn’t been found is because the location of the search area has been based almost entirely on the fuel exhaustion theory. The search-zone calculations, extrapolating from the satellite pings, are based on when and where, approximately, the 777’s tanks would’ve run dry.

Except maybe the tanks didn’t run dry, and the plane went — was taken — somewhere else. What if that was the intent all along — to vanish?

Those pings are still important, and give us hints. Chances are the actual location of the wreckage isn’t far away. But it’s far enough away to have missed it.

I’ve been saying from the start that we should prepare for the possibility of the plane not being found. It happens this way sometimes. If it helps you feel better, the air crash annals contain numerous unsolved accidents. What makes this one different, maybe, is how we’ve come to expect easy and fast solutions to pretty much everything these days, with a fetishized belief that “technology,” whatever that means anymore, can answer any question and fix any problem.

Oh sure, radios, transponders, emergency locator transmitters, GPS, real-time position streaming, satellite tracking. But all of that is fallible, one way or another.

Sometimes nature wins. And that’s what this is about, ultimately: nature. The immensity of the ocean versus the comparative speck of a 777. It’s out there somewhere, in the ink-black darkness beneath thousands of feet of seawater. We’ll probably never find it.

 

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Photos courtesy of Unsplash.

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Future Tense

March 4, 2024

HERE’S THE perfect segue from last week’s post. If you missed it, we were talking about the hype and hyperbole that seem to follow every minor incident these days, a phenomenon that I blame, in part, on the dearth of legitimately serious accidents. It often feels as if flying is getting more dangerous, when statistically we’re safer than ever.

To wit, according to the annual report just released by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) 2023 goes down as one of the safest years in commercial aviation history. Not a single fatal accident was recorded involving a commercial jet. Not one.

Combining jet and turboprop operations, IATA says there were 37 million commercial flights last year. Among those, the only deadly crash was that of an ATR turboprop in Nepal last January. If I’m counting right, this puts last year as the second-safest on record, bested only by 2017.

This is nothing if not astonishing. And to glean a sense of how astonishing, you need to flip through the history books. You need to look at the accident archives of the 1960s, the 1970s, the 1980s and 1990s, when multiple disasters were the norm, year after year after year.

For example, in 1985, twenty-seven major accidents killed almost 2,500 people. That included the JAL crash outside Tokyo with 520 fatalities; the Arrow Air disaster in Newfoundland that killed 240 American servicemen, and the Air-India bombing over the North Atlantic with 329 dead.

In 1974 there were ten disasters, including the Turkish Airlines catastrophe outside Paris that killed 346 people. Among the other nine were two Pan Am 707s, two TWA jets (one of which was bombed), and an Eastern DC-9. That’s five U.S. legacy crashes in the same year. Eastern and TWA had crashes within three days of each other.

And so on. Those were particularly bad years, but you get the picture.

I’ve mentioned all of this before. Apologies to those who are sick of me talking about it. But it always bears repeating, because so few people really understand how safe flying has become.

How we got here is also something I’ve discussed in the past. It’s been a combination of things: better technologies, better training, and, believe it or not, better regulation and oversight. For more, see the links below.

And yes, luck has played a role as well. We closed out 2023 with a near-perfect record, but not without a few close calls. Which is what makes posts like this so frustrating. Because sooner or later our luck will run out; there will be another major crash, right here on U.S. soil. As good as we are, we’ll never be perfect. And when it happens, nobody is going to care how long it’s been since the last one. History won’t matter, perspective won’t matter, stats won’t matter. The result will be hysteria and a media firestorm like no other.

It’s precisely because of how rare crashes have become that we’re guaranteed to overreact to the next one. Which is both fair and unfair, I suppose.

 

Related Stories:

LUCKY AND GOOD
TWENTY YEARS AND COUNTING

Upper photo by Pedro Pinheiro
Center photo by Michael Saporito
Lower photo by the author

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When a Wing Comes Apart.

February 26, 2024

SO, LAST WEEK, a passenger videoed a damaged wing slat on a United Airlines flight headed from Denver to Boston. Learning of the problem, the crew conferred with its dispatch and maintenance team, and a decision was made to divert the Boeing 757 into Denver.

Copyright issues prevent me from re-posting videos or images, but you can easily Google it. The upper part of the slat, along the front of the wing, inboard of the right engine, appears shredded and chewed. it’s a composite material, and somehow it delaminated and fragmented. How, exactly, is unknown.

Well, no surprise, the pictures are all over media and social media — so much as those things are different nowadays — accompanied by a barrage of terrifying headlines: “Passenger Sees Wing Coming Apart.” “Passenger Horror as Wing Comes Apart.” And so on.

The wing, in fact, did not come part. What “came apart,” if we can call it that, is a portion of a slat. There are several slats per wing, sectioned along the leading edge. Like the trailing-edge flaps along the back of the wing, these devices are deployed in stages to increase lift at low speeds. You’ll see them extended during takeoff and landing, then retracted during cruise.

It’s a terrible look for sure, but the danger here was minimal. One small hazard might’ve been broken material striking the rear stabilizers. Worst case would’ve been the slat breaking apart further, or detaching completely, unlikely as that might be, but even this wouldn’t crash the plane, so long as the stabilizers or tail weren’t struck and badly damaged.

There may have been a discussion about whether or not to deploy the slats for landing. There’s no way to isolate a specific slat, so keeping the broken one retracted would’ve meant a “no flap landing,” where all of the high-lift devices, both flaps and slats, remain stowed. A jetliner can land just fine this way — it just needs to do so at a higher speed, requiring more runway.

A few months ago, due to a malfunction, a 757 I was piloting made a no-flap landing in Colombia. We came in fast, as our checklists dictated (I can’t recall the exact speed), and used about two-thirds of the runway, as our calculations told us to expect. But otherwise the landing was routine. In most ways, what happened to me was more serious than what the United pilots had to deal with, just not as photogenic and so it got no attention.

As it happened, the United pilots deployed the slats and flaps as they normally would, and the plane landed safely. To nobody’s surprise. Certainly not mine.

Segmented slats line the leading edge of a wing, shown here fully retracted. They are operated hydraulically.

I suspect the choice to divert was a practical one as much as anything. Denver is one of United’s biggest hubs, and the plane would need lengthy repairs; grounding it in Boston was going to trigger a cascade of logistical complications affecting hundreds of passengers. In Denver, an airplane swap could be handled expeditiously, with all the needed maintenance resources on site.

Nothing to fret about, all in all. But if the viewer comments on various media sites are any indication, the public is alarmed. “What’s going on in the skies these days?” Asks one reader, his sentiments echoing those of others. “Yet another close call.”

Not really. What’s actually happening is a matter of exposure. These sorts of minor incidents have always been with us. What’s different is the media environment in which they’re occurring. In the old days you never heard about them. Today, everything is photographed and everything is shared. The smallest mishap is on Instagram and other platforms within minutes, visible to millions. A landing gear problem; a compressor stall; a pressurization malfunction. The sky is falling.

Except it’s not. As I’ve talked about in prior articles, major airline disasters are far, far more uncommon today than they used to be. A dearth of them has led to us putting undue focus on relatively harmless incidents instead.

I’m unsure which is more to blame, social media or actual news sources. They seem to feed off one another, so maybe it’s a moot point.

The fact that the 757 is a Boeing model has only made things worse. Thanks to the controversies surrounding the 737 MAX, anything involving a Boeing jet now gets extra scrutiny, deserved or not. No matter that the 757 is a 42 year-old design with an excellent safety record. The B-word is what counts.

Let’s face it, everyone is looking for attention, for views and hits, be it FOX News or the Times or a 16 year-old Instagrammer. Few things, meanwhile, garner more attention or stoke more fear than plane crashes. The mere suggestion of one, realistic or not, is an automatic go-to for eyeballs. And so, here we are.

 

For more about slats, flaps, and the other doodads than help a plane fly, see chapter one of Cockpit Confidential.

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Photos by Asato Hisada, courtesy of Unsplash.

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Welcome to “Hidden Airport”

Unexpected Pleasures at a Terminal Near You.

WITH SCATTERED EXCEPTIONS, airports don’t have a whole lot going for them. They’re noisy, dirty, poorly laid out, and just generally hostile to passengers. As my regular readers are well aware, I’ve made this point in numerous prior posts — perhaps too many times.

Now, so that I’m not accused of harping on the negative, here’s something different. “Hidden Airport” is a semi-regular feature highlighting little-known spots of unexpected pleasantness.

ALL PHOTOS BY THE AUTHOR

— NEW: MSPee Break

Yes, it’s a mosaic in the vestibule of an airport men’s room. Minneapolis-St. Paul, concourse F. The artist is Josie Lewis, who presumably is this person. (She may or may not have a similar installation in the nearby women’s bathroom. For obvious reasons I didn’t check. Maybe a reader can report back.)

It feels wasted, maybe, to have such a pretty work of art in such an easy-to-miss space, where the only people who see it are rushing to take a whiz. On the other hand, aesthetic non-sequitirs like this can be charming, popping up where you least expect them. It’s aviation-themed, too, if that’s not too much of a stretch.

 

— NORFOLK SPECIAL

This one isn’t so hidden. Indeed it’s the entire main terminal of the airport in Norfolk, Virginia.

I’ve always been fond of ORF, and was happy to find myself there on a layover recently, for the first time in at least a dozen years. We love the clean, almost Scandinavian-style architecture, the unencumbered spaciousness, the skylights. I was able to get two great photos; one evening and one daytime, from more or less the same vantage point.

U.S. airports can be dreadful. Sometimes it’s the smaller ones that set themselves apart. Norfolk is a great example.

 

— CHAIRLESS IN BOSTON

This one is an almost. It’s a squander.

Where we are is Boston, at the south end of the pedestrian bridge connecting terminals A, E, and the central garage, just at the top of the escalator. This tucked-away alcove, right at the end, is a sunny, quiet spot out of range of the loudspeakers, with great views of the tarmac and the skyline beyond. It’s a perfect little spot. Except, there’s nowhere to sit. A hideaway like this needs to be savored. We dig the bottlcap sculpture, don’t get me wrong, but why are there no chairs?

The pedestrian bridge, in place for about twenty years now, was a welcome addition to Logan and architecturally handsome, the floor inlaid fetchingly with sea life mosaics created by Somerville artist Jane Goldman. But if you’re making the walk, the experience is ruined by a constant bombardment of public address announcements. What could be a relaxing six-minute stroll is spoiled by a tape-loop of needless “Welcome to Boston” promotions and parking instructions. This alcove offers a relaxing escape, but without a place to sit it’s easily overlooked.

Note to Massport: Chairs. Get some chairs. And turn off the bloody PAs while you’re at it.

 

— CINCINNATI READING ROOM

Cincinnati International (CVG) isn’t as as bustling as it once was, with Delta drawing down service after its merger with Northwest. But it’s a fairly busy airport and a pleasant one at that. And over on concourse B you’ll find this little library of sorts.

It’s more of a book swap than a proper library; you’re free to abscond with the title of your choice, or exchange your half-read copy of “Our Country Friends” for something better. Or drop into that funky chair and peruse a few chapters of some shitty crime thriller.

I have to say, the pickings were pretty dismal on the day I dropped by. And it feels a little ad-hoc: we wonder if this isn’t just a place-holder standing in for some unrented retail space, soon to be yet another overlit shop selling magazines and phone chargers. Possibly, but we like the idea, and for the time being it’s a peaceful nook to steal away in.

 

— BAHAMA CHILL

Nassau’s Lynden Pindling International Airport, in the Bahamas, doesn’t give you much to write home about. It’s an unpleasant complex of noisy kids, dirty fast food joints and hour-long security lines. But just outside, in a space between the domestic and international departure halls, you’ll find this sunny oasis of greenery and water.

We had three hours between flights, and this was the perfect spot to wait things out. No children, no crowds, no racket save for the sound of birds (which, I discovered, is piped in through a speaker). There are shady spots with benches, and the free airport wifi signal is strong enough to stream on.

You can sit inside at a greasy table at KFC, or you can sit here.

 

— BLEACHER FEATURE

A vast, overcrowded echo chamber of concrete, Mexico City’s terminal two is one of the least enjoyable airport buildings around. Downstairs in the arrivals lobby, however, set back against the rear wall, is one of the most creative and idiosyncratic features I know of: a set of bleachers, seven benches tall and about fifty feet wide, where family and friends can wait for passengers to emerge from the customs hall.

Arrivals lobbies are often a chaotic scrum of jockeying and shoving, people calling out names and craning their necks. From the bleachers, you have a clear view across the crowd, and can easily pick out your mom, your son, or your mistress without having to wade into the mob.

Here’s a low-tech idea that saves space, is eminently helpful, and costs almost nothing. Why have I not seen this anywhere else in the world?

 

— GATESIDE GRAFFITI

Terminal Four at Kennedy Airport isn’t the most passenger-friendly building, but it has its spots, including the famous Calder mobile dangling from the departure hall ceiling (see below). Now, in the B concourse close to gate 25, you can enjoy this interactive wall mural. It was put in place last summer, presumably as a sort of post-pandemic morale booster for travelers.

It looks like most people just scribble their autograph, but some leave the names of whatever far-flung destinations they’re headed to — or wish they were headed to. You might get your clothes dirty, but grab a giant pencil and jump in there. Give us a “Bayonne, New Jersey,” or a “Smolensk.”

 

— INDY KIND

Indianapolis International is the rare gem among U.S. airports. It’s spacious, clean, and splashed with natural light. Best of all, and unlike almost every other airport in the country, it’s remarkably quiet. According to Airports Council International, IND is the Best Airport in North America, and the readers of Conde Nast Traveler have dittoed that sentiment multiple times.

Tucked into the A concourse, between gates 14 and 16, is the KIND Gallery. Created in partnership with the city’s Arts Council, it showcases the works of Hoosier artists. The gallery is neither large nor — depending on your tastes in art — particularly breathtaking. But it’s exactly what it should be: an engaging and relaxing little sneak-away spot. My favorite of the current installation is “Cloud Study 1-4,” a four-frame series of cloudscapes by an artist named Kipp Normand.

What do we do at airports? We kill time. And here’s a way to do it that’s a little more fulfilling than staring at your phone or browsing the magazine kiosk.

And about that name, “KIND.” Chances are you’re familiar with the three-letter identifiers for airports, Indy’s being IND. What you probably didn’t know, however, is that airports also have four-letter identifiers. These are assigned by ICAO and used for navigation and other technical purposes. Airports in the United States simply add the letter “K” to the existing three-letter code. KLAX, for example. Or KBOS or KSFO or KMCO. Or, in this case, KIND.

 

— KENNEDY CALDER

The next time you’re on the check-in level of terminal 4 at Kennedy Airport, look up. Suspended from the ceiling near the western end of the building is a sculpture constructed of balanced aluminum arms and trapezoidal panels. This is “.125,” the famous mobile made by Alexander Calder in 1957, back when JFK was still known as Idlewild Airport.

At 45 feet long, it’s supposedly the fourth-largest mobile in the world. For years it hung in the arrivals hall of the old Terminal 4, better known as the IAB (International Arrivals Building). Later it was moved to the departure level when the terminal was rebuilt. “People think monuments should come out of the ground, never out of the ceiling,” said Calder. “But mobiles can be monumental too.” The name “.125” comes from the gauge of its aluminum elements. What it evokes is, I suppose, in the eye of the beholder. One can detect a certain flight motif, though to me it looks more like a fish.

This wasn’t Calder’s only aviation-related project. In the 1970s he hand-painted two airplanes for Braniff Airways, including a Boeing 727 for the Bicentennial.

 

— UNDERGROUND ATLANTA

The Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport has its negatives, to be sure. The low ceilings, beeping electric carts and endless public address announcements make the place noisy and claustrophobic. Many of the windows are inexplicably covered over, and the airport’s skinny escalators were apparently designed before the invention of luggage. On the other hand, ATL’s simple layout — essentially six rectangular concourses sequenced one after the other — makes for fast and easy connections. It’s one of the most efficient places anywhere to change planes.

The neatest thing about it, though, is the underground connector tunnel. This is where you go to catch the inter-terminal train, but the better choice is to walk it. (If, like me, you purchased a Garmin Vivofit and have become obsessed with step-counting, note that it takes sixteen minutes and 1800 steps to cover the tunnel’s full walkable length.)

Along the way you’ll pass a series of art and photography installations. Between concourses B and C, is an excellent, museum-quality multimedia exhibit on the history Georgia’s capital. You could easily spend a half-hour here. My favorite section, though, is the forest canopy ceiling in the tunnel between concourses A and B. This installation, made of multicolor, laser-cut aluminum panels is the work of artist Steve Waldeck. Described as a “450-foot multisensory walk through a simulated Georgia forest,” it features an audio backdrop of dozens of native birds and insects.

What a welcome change it is, listening to the calls of sandhill cranes and blue herons instead of some idiotic TSA directive. It takes only two or three minutes to pass beneath the length of it, but these are about the most relaxing (if a bit psychedelic) two or three minutes to be found at an airport.

 

— The 9/11 MEMORIAL AT BOSTON-LOGAN

The idea of building a memorial to the 2001 terror attacks, at the very airport from which two of the four hijacked planes departed from, ran a fine line between commemorative and tasteless. It needed to be done just right. What they came up with is superb, and ought to serve as a model for such memorials everywhere.

Reached along an ascending pathway that twists upward amidst grass and trees, the main structure is a sort of open-topped glass chapel, inside of which are two vertical slabs, one for each of the two aircraft that struck the World Trade Center — and mimicking the shapes, one can’t help noticing, of the twin towers themselves — engraved with the names of the passengers and crew. There’s one for American’s flight 11, the Boeing 767 that struck the north tower, and the other for United 175, which hit the south tower a few minutes later. The glass and steelwork allow the entire space to be flooded with silvery light, creating an atmosphere that’s quiet and contemplative without feeling maudlin or sentimentalized.

There are no flags or any of the crudely “patriotic” touches one might expect (and dread). It’s everything it should be: beautifully constructed, understated, and respectful.

Officially it’s called the “Place of Remembrance,” and it was built by the Boston-based firm of Moskow Linn Architects, as part of a public competition. The final design was chosen by airline workers, airport representatives, and family members of the victims. The engraved names are separated into columns of crew and passengers, and the names of off-duty United employees on the flight 175 plate include a small “tulip” logo of United Airlines. This might seem a strange touch, but this memorial was built primarily for the community of people who work at Logan Airport. Among the passengers and crew killed on the two jets were more than a dozen Logan-based employees.

But anyone is welcome, of course, and I only wish the memorial were more easily accessible. If you’re at BOS and have some time, it’s worth seeking out. It sits on a knoll just to the southern side of the central parking garage, at the foot of the walkway tunnel that connects the garage with terminal A. Find the tunnel and follow the signs.

 

— SFO DRAGONFLIES

Airport art installations of one form or another are awfully trendy these days. Paintings, sculptures and mobiles are popping up all over the place. And good for that. Among the best is artist Joyce Hsu’s “Namoo House” sculpture at San Francisco International.

It’s a huge, wall-mounted display of aluminum and stainless steel insects that, in the artist’s words, suggests the way the airport “fuses science, nature, and imagination, to become the transit home for all passengers” — whatever that might mean.

To me, the metalwork moths and six-foot dragonflies represent both natural and human-made flying machines. And they remind me of the erector-set toys that I played with as a kid. Go to gate A3 in SFO’s international terminal, near the Emirates and JetBlue gates.

 

— RALEIGH-DURHAM’S TERMINAL 2

“Ah for the days when aviation was a gentleman’s pursuit, back before every Joe Sweatsock could wedge himself behind a lunch tray and jet off to Raleigh-Durham.” That’s from Sideshow Bob, in an old episode of the Simpsons (back when that show was still watchable), and we love the way he gives the words “Raleigh-Durham” an extra nudge of derision.

I guess Bob hasn’t seen RDU’s Terminal 2. Home to Delta, American, jetBlue and United, this is possibly the most attractive airport building in America. Opened in 2008, it was the first major terminal with a wood truss skeleton. The design earned architect Curtis Fentress, whose firm also designed Denver International and Korea’s impeccable Incheon Airport, the American Institute of Architects’ Thomas Jefferson Award. “A blend of the region’s economy, heritage and landscape,” is how Fentress describes it. “Terminal 2’s rolling roofline reflects the Piedmont Hills, while the daylit interior provides the latest in common-use technology. Long-span wood trusses create column-free spaces that offer efficiency and flexibility, from ticketing to security.”

All true. And unlike most airport facilities in this country, it’s quiet. Boarding calls and other public address announcements are kept to a minimum. This, together with the building’s architectural style and flair, almost makes you think you’re in Europe.

 

— THE QUIET AREA AT MINNEAPOLIS-ST. PAUL

MSP Quiet Area

On the whole, the Minneapolis airport is about as architecturally unexciting as a parking garage. It’s an older complex with low ceilings and endless corridors that reminds me of the ’60s-era grammar school that I once attended. And like most American airports, it has a noise pollution problem. But unlike most American airports, it has a place to escape the racket: an upper-level “quiet area” overlooking the central atrium of the Lindbergh (Delta Air Lines) Terminal. It’s difficult to find, but worth the effort if you’ve got a lengthy layover and need a place to relax. Look for the signs close to where F concourse meets the central lobby.

The long, rectangular veranda has pairs of vinyl chairs set around tables. There are power outlets at each table and visitors can log in to MSP’s complimentary Wi-Fi. Delta provides pillows and blankets so that stranded passengers can nap. It’s a bland space without much ambiance, lacking the funky chairs, sofas, and other quirky accoutrements that you might find in Europe or Asia (Incheon Airport’s quiet zones are the coolest anywhere). But it does what it’s supposed to do. It’s comfortable, detached and peaceful. It’s a shame that more airports don’t set aside spots like this.

MSP Quiet Area 2

 

— THE La GUARDIA GARDEN

I’ve written at length about the Marine Air Terminal at La Guardia Airport in New York City. This historic art-deco building, in the far southwest corner of LGA, is one of the most special places in all of commercial aviation — the launching point for the Pan Am flying boats that made the first-ever transatlantic and round-the-world flights. Inside the cathedral-like rotunda is the 240-foot “Flight” mural by James Brooks. What few people know about, however, is the cozy garden just outside. Facing the building, it’s to the right of the old Art Deco doorway, set back from the street.

It’s a quiet, tree-shaded hideaway amidst, grass, flowers and shrubs. Grab a sandwich from the Yankee Clipper and enjoy it on one of the wooden benches. To get there, take the A Loop inter-terminal bus to the Marine Air Terminal. The spot is best appreciated in the warmer months, of course. Like the Marine Air rotunda it is outside of the TSA checkpoint, so you’ll need to re-clear security if you’re catching a flight.

 

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Terminal Racket. The Scourge of Airport Noise

August 30, 2023

EARLIER THIS MONTH month I was in Berlin, boarding a plane at the new Berlin-Brandenburg Airport. Walking through the lobbies and concourses, something felt different. I couldn’t quite place it. The airport, only three years-old is spacious, clean, and well laid out. But it was more than that. It was something else.

Then it hit me. It was quiet! From the time we walked through the front doors, until the moment we arrived at the gate, not a single public address announcement played. Not one. The speakers were silent.

Every airport in the world should follow this model. Indeed, some are quieter than others, to varying degrees. Copenhagen and Amsterdam, for example, keep announcements to a minimum. But on the whole, airports are some of the noisiest public spaces we have, and the loudspeaker is mainly to blame.

Sure, terminals are packed with wailing babies, chattering TVs, and airport architecture seemingly designed to amplify, rather than quash, the collective racket of hundreds of people. But it’s those public address announcements that are the most aggravating culprit. Ninety percent of them are useless in the first place, and they’re often delivered at a volume severe enough to shatter windows. And with all the various microphones and speakers targeting different sections of a terminal, it’s not uncommon to hear two or three announcements blaring at the same time.

The result of this, whether you sense it directly or not, is stress. And if there’s one thing the air travel experience needs less of, it’s stress.

Berlin-Brandenburg Airport. Photo by the author.

The needlessness and redundancy of most announcements would be hilarious if it weren’t so annoying. And those few of any value are presented in such a tautological tangle as to be almost incomprehensible. Why say in ten words what you can say in a hundred?

At JFK, for instance, there’s an announcement that loops around every five minutes or so. It declares: “All areas of the terminal have been designated as smoke-free.” I’ll begin by asking if there’s anyone alive who’d be daft enough to assume they’re permitted to smoke in a terminal. But listen, also, to the language. JFK is the ultimate melting pot, and I have a healthy suspicion that, to someone with limited English skills, a phrase like “designated as smoke-free” has about as much meaning as a bird call.

Then we have the security announcements. Did you know that my hometown airport, Boston-Logan, is home to a program called “SAFE,” or “Security Awareness For Everyone”? I know this because I’m told about it over and over again while sitting at the gate. “If you see something, say something.” Important advice there.

We also have the one that goes, “If a stranger approaches you about carrying a foreign object…” A what? I picture a toaster with wires coming out of it. “Would you mind taking this to Frankfurt for me?”

Meanwhile, “TSA has limited the items that may be carried through the security checkpoint,” we’re told at Los Angeles International. “Passengers are advised to contact their air carrier.” The pointlessness of this counsel deserves no elaboration. Of the millions of travelers who’ve been subjected to this recording, I suspect the total number who’ve moved to action and “contacted their air carrier,” stands exactly at zero. To further fray our nerves and damage our hearing, it plays after you’ve gone through security.

Dubai Airport.   Photo by the Author.

As does the one that goes, “Los Angeles International Airport is closed the general public, and only employees, ticketed passengers, and those directly assisting passengers qre allowed on the airport property” (I’m paraphrasing slightly). There is no need for this one, period, but the fact that it’s broadcast after passengers have been screened and cleared by TSA is surreally idiotic.

Indeed, the overseers of LAX have created what might be the noisiest airport in America. Among the racket is an absurd series of PAs that play outside, on the sidewalks, where the concrete overpasses increase the decibel level exponentially. Anyone waiting for a hotel shuttle or the rental car bus is subject to a mind-melting cacophony of unintelligible blather.

And although Americans have a deep cultural affinity for infantilization and condescension — as if every citizen is too stupid to get on an airplane, or to even ride an escalator, without a loudly barked set of instructions — we aren’t the only offenders. If you’ve ever been to the domestic terminal in Medellin, Colombia, or to Mexico City’s terminal 2, you’ll know what I mean. Bring a good pair of headphones.

Ironically, the actual loudest things at an airport — airplanes themselves — are almost never heard, buffered behind walls of glass and concrete. And it’s not until stepping aboard your plane that you can finally savor some silence.

Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam.   Photo by the author.

Or that’s the idea, anyway. Alas, the airplane cabin has contracted this same scourge. Nowadays, the entire boarding process, followed by the first several minutes after takeoff, consist of nothing but announcements: safety videos that never end, ignored directives on how to stow your luggage, and those manifesto-length promotional speeches. On a flight recently I counted thirteen separate PAs during the boarding process alone, from either the gate agent or a cabin attendant.

Here’s the thing: nobody is paying attention. All these PAs do is create noise and leave people frazzled.

On one airline, a pre-recorded briefing plays during descent, telling people to buckle up, stow their tables, shut their laptops and such. The recording ends, and a second later a flight attendant comes on and repeats the entire thing.

Bad enough, but winner of the redundancy award are those announcements letting us know that “Flight attendants will now be coming through the aisles to [insert task here].” Seriously, we don’t need a heads-up on what you’re about to do any more than we need to know what color underwear you’re wearing. Simply do it.

All of this sonic pollution does not make passengers more attentive, more satisfied, or keep them better informed. What it does is make an already nerve-wracking experience that much more uncomfortable.

Berlin we turn our weary ears to you.

 

Upper photo courtesy of Unsplash.

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Long Live the Airport Marquee

Harkening to an earlier age.

December 3, 2020

I WAS IN Madrid the other day and was able to snap the photograph above. This is the old Terminal 2, built in 1954, when the field was known as Barajas Airport. Like many old airport buildings, it instantly evokes another time, another era. I can easily picture an Iberia DC-8, or maybe a Caravelle, parked below the control tower, passengers in hats and suits climbing a set of drive-up stairs.

What I love best, though, is the airport name up on the facade. This was a common flourish in decades past, a nod to the platform signs often seen at railroad stations. The purpose, in this case, isn’t for orientation; obviously the airline passenger knows what city he or she has arrived in. That’s not the point. Rather, it’s a matter of greeting. The thrill of air travel isn’t so much the journey as it is the destination, and like the title frame in the opening credits of a film, this is a way of welcoming the visitor with a bit of drama and flair.

And I’m happy to report that location signs still exist, even at some of the newest and most modern terminals. You’ll find them on the apron side, facing the runways, or on the roadway side where passengers enter and exit the terminal. The latter are perhaps more common — the enormous lettering atop the departure hall at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport being the most dramatic example. But it’s the apron-side marquees that I like the best, the ones glimpsed from the airplane window, adding a touch of excitement as you prepare to disembark.

I always get a picture when I can. Most of my collection is posted below. Reader submissions are welcome, and I’ll add the best of them to the page.

 

Welcome to Amsterdam.

Aloha, Honolulu

Bucharest’s Henri Coanda – Otopeni Airport.

A Royal Jordanian A320 at Cairo International.

Dubrovnik, Croatia.

The old terminal at BOM was replaced in 2014.

Dakar’s newly opened Blaise Diagne International.

Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe.

JRO airport, Tanzania.

“Town of the hurdled ford.”

Kenneth Kaunda International, in Lusaka, Zambia.

A down-home effort at Roberts Field, Liberia.

The Sudanese-style main building at Timbuktu, Mali.

Once a bustling stopover point, Gander sits empty.

Mexico City’s terminal 2.

The colorful Cheddi Jagan airport in Guyana.

Another shot from Cheddi Jagan. Notice the topiary.

Under the wing at Prague’s Vaclav Havel International.

Nnamdi Azikiwe is the airport serving Abuja, Nigeria.

John Paul II Airport in Ponta Delgada, Azores.

Your favorite pilot at Amsterdam-Schiphol.

AND A FEW FROM READERS…

Fes (Fez), Morocco.   From Daniel Foster.

The old terminal at DCA.   From Itamar Reuven.

Burbank, California.   From Itamar Reuven.

Flamingo Airport, Bonaire.    From Bruce Myrick.

Valetta, Malta.   From Rick Wilson.

Tenerife South (TFS).   From Rick Wilson.

Vienna, Austria.   From Andrew Nash.

Zurich.   From Andrew Nash.

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