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 always harping on the negative, here’s something different. “Hidden Airport” is a semi-regular feature highlighting little-known spots of unexpected pleasantness.

— De Gaulle Green

Is there a name for these things? Green wall? Living wall? Whatever they’re called, the S4 satellite concourse (part of terminal 2) at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris has several of them, looming over the gates like verdant billboards. A little nature and greenery where you least expect it, imparting a calming and tranquil vibe.

The same concourse offers this terrace garden, down past gate M48.

— SCHIPHOL UNDERGROUND

In the central departure hall in Amsterdam, there’s a cutaway in the floor laid over with glass. About fifteen feet long, it’s sort of like the sections of sidewalk you’ll find in certain cities, beneath which pedestrians can look down at ancient ruins. In this case, you’re looking down into a section of the airport’s luggage transfer system.

As you walk along, you can see suitcases shuttling forth on the conveyors below. It’s nothing elaborate, and the no-slip stickers blot out too much of the view. But it’s the sort of quirky, flyer-friendly gesture Schiphol Airport is famous for, and it helps give the terminal some charm.

— RETRO BOS

I don’t know if this is permanent or not, but in baggage claim at Boston’s terminal A they’ve set up this vintage arcade with 1980s-era video games. Gen-Xers can relive their younger days with some Pac-Man and Donkey Kong.

— Vonnegut at KIND

I wrote about the KIND Gallery in Indianapolis once before (scroll down). It’s time for a revisit, now that they’ve got an installation honoring the city’s favorite literary son, Kurt Vonnegut.

It’s funny how this happened: I was walking along the concourse towards my gate, and I said to myself: They should have something about Vonnegut here at the airport. Twenty seconds later I saw the KIND Gallery and its new exhibit.

There are books, of course, a typewriter (the significance of which is unclear), photos, and some of the author’s sketches.

This is a big one for me. I had long-time infatuation with Vonnegut’s work, beginning in my teens and running into my early 20s. I think I’ve read everything he published. Just a few months ago I re-read “Jailbird,” my favorite of his novels.

— FROM IDLEWILD TO JFK

No sooner did I write about the 100th anniversary presentation at Boston-Logan (see below), when I came across a similar setup at JFK. “From Idlewild to JFK” is a collage of photos following the history of the airport we all love to hate.

Kennedy is a dysfunctional mess half the time, and most of its architectural highlights have been demolished, but it’s nonetheless the most historically significant airport in the nation, if not the world, and this exhibit hits the bullet points: Saarinen’s TWA’s terminal, the Worldport, Pan Am 707s, the Concorde.

The whole thing is a bit half-assed, frankly. The airport deserves more than just a temporary gateside exhibit with a wall’s worth of black-and-white photos, and much is ignored (how is there no mention of I.M Pei’s famous “Sundrome” terminal?).

But it’s better than nothing, and a welcome distraction in the otherwise boring terminal 4. It’s over near the A gates. Have a seat in one of the economy class chairs and relax for a few.

The runway graphics on the floor are cute, I guess. Except there’s no runway 23 at JFK.

— GREEN BAY GAME

I discovered this foosball setup near gate B2 at the pleasant little airport in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

I suppose it could get a little rowdy, but on the morning I was there a couple of kids were quietly knocking the ball back and forth.

Foosball is table soccer, which seems anathema in NFL-obsessed Green Bay (I was taking the Packers to Denver on a charter flight), but what the heck. It’s a welcoming, low-tech, old-school sort of distraction you don’t find much at airports anymore.

— HISTORICAL LOGAN

In terminal E at Boston’s Logan International, near the new security checkpoint, is an exhibit called “Logan 100,” commemorating the airport’s centennial. It’s a collaboration between Massport and the Boston Globe.

We Bostonians take a unusual civic pride in our little airport. More than a mere gateway, Logan is a part of the city. It’s a vibe you can feel as the seven LCD screens sequence through a century’s worth of archival photos, showcasing the people, planes, and events that helped shape Boston over the last century: VIP arrivals (The Beatles, Muhammad Ali), airlines that have come and gone (Northeast, Air New England), and the unforgettable headlines (the Blizzard of ’78, the arrival of Pope John Paul II in 1979).

What’s not here are Logan’s more infamous moments. The Delta and Eastern crashes, for example, or the World Airways incident in 1982. But that’s to be expected, I guess.

If you’re flying out, take a few minutes to stop by. You don’t need to be an airline nerd to appreciate the pictures.

Congrats to Massport and the Globe for having the good sense to come up with this. Now, if you’d please turn off those unbearable promotional PAs that blare in the connector walkway between A and E.

— BANGKOK GREEN

The new concourse at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport has opened. A short train ride connects it to the main terminal. The gates are designated with “S,” for satellite.

In one of the more peculiar flourishes I’ve seen at an airport, several of the gateside waiting areas include a wide section laid with artificial grass. I’m not entirely sure what the intent is, but I like it.

Do with it what you will: sprawl out and relax; let your bratty kids run around. If you’ve got your clubs, maybe practice your swing. I laid down for a few minutes and stretched.

You don’t see a lot of green in airports, and the effect is strangely pleasant and refreshing — even if it’s fake. I think they should go one better and install some plants or small trees along the perimeter.

— 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

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.

 

— 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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May 2, 2026

Early this morning, and not unexpectedly, the long-beleagured Spirit Airlines closed its doors, retiring to that big tarmac in the sky. The company had been in and out of bankruptcy, and never really regained their footing after the COVID pandemic.

This leaves Frontier, or maybe Allegiant Air, to take on the brunt of snarky social media posts and late-night TV jokes.

Spirit, with its bare-bones service and ultra cheap fares, was easy to make fun of. They were also the nation’s seventh-largest airline (and presumably its largest purchaser of yellow paint), with a fleet of 130 aircraft and 17,000 employees, virtually all of whom are now jobless.

If I’m counting right, this is the most significant U.S. airline liquidation since the demise of Pan Am 35 years ago. And the first in quite some time.

Dozens of U.S. airlines, including some of the biggest, have disappeared since the industry was deregulated in 1979. This has happened a couple of different ways, one more disruptive and catastrophic than the other.

The first was through mergers or acquisitions. TWA, for example, was bought by American. Republic, Northwest, Continental, PSA, Piedmont, Western, all were subsumed into another entity. The list is long. The names went away, but most of the jobs were saved, planes repainted.

Others, however, have shut down outright, ceasing operations completely. Pan Am, Eastern, and Braniff are the most significant names on this sadder roster. Air Florida, Frontier (the original one), American Trans Air, Midway, Comair. And others. Spirit joins them. (If we head offshore, we can count Swissair, Sabena, Varig, etc., among the casualties.)

(It feels that Spirit is receiving a bigger media funeral than any of those above did. This is symptomatic of our time, I suppose, in a way I can’t quite explain. Whatever the reasons, I don’t remember Pan Am or Eastern getting so much coverage when they went under. Those airlines were giants; Spirit a comparatively lowly LCC.)

The remaining airlines (and creditors) will pick through Spirit’s bones. Carriers like JetBlue will expand capacity in certain markets, hire some former Spirit workers. Still, thousands will remain unemployed. Airline shutdowns are seismic, their effects rippling through the economy.

Notice posted on the Spirit Airlines Instagram account.

I lived through an airline shutdown, albeit one you’ve never heard of. It wasn’t fun.

From 1990 to 1994 I flew for a Maine-based regional airline called Northeast Express. We were a feeder for Northwest, funneling passengers into their Boston hub from as far north as Prince Edward Island and as far south as Norfolk.

Trouble was, we weren’t the tightest ship or the most reliable of partners, and in the summer of ’94 Northwest pulled its code-share agreement, knocking us into immediate bankruptcy.

We hobbled along for a few weeks under the protections of Chapter 11 until closing doors forever one sunny afternoon in July. I’d gone in to fly that day and was waiting for the plane to arrive when word came that all remaining flights were canceled. I remember exactly where I was standing: in the ops room, looking through the cutout into the cubicle where the ramp coordinators shouted into their radios.

“That’s all she wrote,” announced one of them.

I felt weirdly abandoned, alone, floating in some onerous (and degrading) new reality that I wanted no part of. All the day-to-day structure that a job gives you, not to mention a salary, had vanished in a moment. Ten minutes earlier I was an airline captain. What was I now?

What are we supposed to do? I wondered. I may even have said it out loud.

Go home, was the answer.

Outside on the tarmac, the baggage loaders were dropping suitcases where they stood, turning and walking away, the motors in their tugs still humming.

My final two paychecks bounced. I never got a dime for the last thirty or so days that I worked.

Of the 17,000 or so Spirit workers losing their jobs, about two thousand are pilots. Some of them will find new flying jobs; others won’t.

Much of the current hiring is taking place at the regional carriers. I can’t imagine too many Spirit pilots will line up for these positions — though I’m sure some will. The major airlines will likely offer “preferential” interview slots, but the numbers aren’t huge.

A fair number of Spirit pilots will seek lines of work elsewhere. The more senior of them will balk at having to start over from scratch, even at United, Delta or American. Remember, in the airline biz there’s no transfer of tenure. Every Spirit pilot will begin again at the bottom of whichever airline’s seniority list he or she takes a job with. They will begin again at first-year pay. No exceptions.

Airplane photos courtesy of Michael Saporito.

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April 30, 2026

It’s 1990 and I’m in a yellow taxi. Manhattan at night.

The car speeds and I turn. Behind us the lights of Park Avenue rush away in a narrowing, incandescent ribbon. In the receding distance is Grand Central Terminal, above which rises a monolithic skyscraper. There’s something brazen about the tower, the way it sits perpendicular to the grid. At the top it says PAN AM.

The sight thrills me. I’m twenty-three years-old, unworldly and naive, a kid from an ugly Boston suburb who hasn’t seen or done much. But I’m an airline buff, and here I am in Manhattan with the Pan Am Building framed in the rear windshield. The moment gives me a rush of satisfaction. It feels so exciting, so sophisticated, so New York.

Thinking back to that night, nobody was less New York than me. But the view of that building gave me an energy.

Pan Am had been founded in Florida, but as it grew into a de-facto national carrier and one of the world’s most recognized brands, its identity became enmeshed with that of New York City. Nothing made this more clear than its 59-story skyscraper in Midtown. Pan Am was New York. New York was Pan Am.

The Pan Am Building wasn’t the prettiest of the city’s towers (barely a block away soars the Art Deco splendor of the Chrysler Building). Built in the International Style, it embodied a rational, workmanlike confidence. It was handsome, no-nonsense. One of its architects was Walter Gropius, the modernist pioneer and founder of the Bauhaus.

And then it was something different.

I remember the day Pan Am went Chapter 7 and ceased operations. December, 1991. I was in a hotel room in Burlington, Vermont, when it came on the news.

The logo stayed at the top for a while, but the Pan Am Building became the MetLife Building.

The skyscraper itself remains, unchanged save for the signage. But gone is the romance and much of the New York-ness that made it special. Pan Am was history’s most storied airline and the nation’s commercial ambassador. MetLife’s thing is what, I hardly even know. Insurance?

A few days ago, almost four decades after my giddy taxi ride, I was walking down Park Avenue towards Grand Central. The MetLife logo loomed above me. Nothing is sacred, I thought.

Then I looked at my shoes. And I’m glad I did, because embedded there in the sidewalk was the plaque you see up top. I took its picture. I then walked a few steps further and took a photo of the actual tower.

Things are always changing, whether you want them to or not.

A helicopter crashed up there once, on the rooftop helipad. In 1977. New York Airways. Debris fell all the way to the ground and killed a pedestrian.

Bauhaus. Form follows function and all that. It was also the name of a band. Among the members of Bauhaus the band was David J., who later became a cohort and collaborator with Pat Fish, a.k.a. the Jazz Butcher, a rock musician of the 80s and 90s of whom I became a devotee of the highest order.

Buildings, music, flying machines. They flow and intermingle. One thing leads to another. “Airlines are everywhere,” is a go-to saying of mine. Here you see how that works.

Later, I noticed something. Look at the clock on the statuary facade of Grand Central. In both of my pictures it displays almost the same time.

Photos by the author.

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Today marks the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster in Ukraine.

on the evening of April 26th, reactor four exploded, sending plumes of radiation across Europe in what is still, by far, history’s worst nuclear accident. Prevailing winds saved the capital, Kiev, from disaster, carrying the fallout in the opposite direction, north into Belarus. From there it diffused across northern Europe.

I visited Kiev three or four times, some years ago, when my airline was still flying there. The city surprised me. It’s green and hilly, with parks and museums and onion-dome churches. Nothing of the dour, Soviet-looking city I expected. Our layover hotel was the Premier Palace, an expensive place done up in chandeliers and marble. It was the kind of hotel in which you always felt under-dressed. But it had an edge to it — that unmistakable vibe of post-Soviet decadence. There was a strip club on the sixth floor.

Of the day trips available in and around Kiev, none was more extraordinary than the chance to tour Chernobyl, only two hours away by car. I took one of these tours in October of 2007. At the time, a full-day excursion cost about $250. It included transportation to and from the site, plus all the admission formalities — and a radiation scan on your way out.

A 30-kilometer “Exclusion Zone” surrounds the site, accessible only to researchers, temporary workers, and a small number of villagers — most of them senior citizens — that the Ukrainian government allows to live there. And, at least until the war with Russia got going, to tourists.

A guide accompanied us the entire time, but we were more or less free to wander. We had the site almost to ourselves, walking through apartment blocks, kindergarten classrooms, a high school, a hotel.

The photographs below are from that day. I have not captioned them. They more or less speak for themselves.

Most of them were taken in Pripyat, the abandoned city inside the Exclusion Zone that was once home to 50,000 people. The entire population of Pripyat was forced to flee, leaving everything behind. It exists as a sort of Soviet time capsule, a bustling city in suspended animation, complete with hammers, sickles, and no shortage of radioactive detritus that was once the stuff of regular, everyday lives: kids’ toys, a ferris wheel, a classroom chalkboard. It’s these everyday items that leave the most lasting impressions — a perversion of normalcy that drives home the magnitude of the tragedy.

When the reactor blew, Soviet helicopters dumped sand and clay over the exposed core. Later the building was encased in thousands of tons of concrete — a structure that become known as “the sarcophagus.” In the picture above, our guide aims his dosimeter at the sarcophagus. The reading you see on the machine is about sixty times normal background radiation. We were allowed to remain here only for about ten minutes.

I should note that reactor four no longer looks like this. In 2016, authorities completed the installation of a mammoth protective dome, concealing the remains within a 25,000-ton shell, made of steel, that looks like a cross between a football stadium and an airship hangar. What you see today is a much more sterile, less jarring aesthetic.

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I’m not sure how much of a bragging point it might be, but my knowledge of the world’s airlines is, I have to admit, fairly encyclopedic. Name an airline and chances are I can give you a brief synopsis of its routes, its history, and so forth. Inversely, pick any region of the world, and I can quickly name the carriers, big or small, that operate there.

Or so I thought. Maybe I’m not so good at this anymore.

I was in Palawan, a couple of weeks ago, in the Philippines, looking to book a flight from Busuanga back to Cebu. I ended up buying a ticket on something called Sunlight Air, which I’d never in my life heard of until Kayak.com told me about it.

Wikipedia calls Sunlight a “boutique airline.” When I hear that I think small, independent and friendly, with a dash of style. I don’t know about the style part, but the rest of it makes sense: Sunlight flies only a foursome of ATR turboprops. The price was right, the flight left on time, and the cabin crew were disarmingly cheerful.

I was wary at first, but maybe this mystery airline thing isn’t so bad.

And getting to ride in the ATR was a fun little throwback for me. You don’t see many turboprops any more, versatile as they are, now that RJs have taken over the world. I have about 400 hours of first officer time in the ATR, from my (brief) tenure at American Eagle back in the mid-1990s.

My infatuation with commercial aviation has made me knowledgeable about other things as well. As a kid I would pore over timetables and route maps of the world’s airlines, and through that process became a minor expert in geography. I can name the capital of almost any country in the world. Give me a city, a river, or a mountain, and I can tell you where it is.

Normally. I must need a refresher course or something, because that day in the Philippines wasn’t the first time I found myself stumped.

The other time was in Bangkok, headed to Paro, in Bhutan. The airline was Drukair, Bhutan’s government-run carrier. No surprise there, Drukair had been on my to-fly list for some time. What I didn’t know, however, is where the plane was actually going.

The flight to Paro would be making a stop. I was aware of this when I bought the ticket, but hadn’t thought much about where that stop might be. An atlas would suggest Calcutta, or maybe Dhaka?

But as I walked up to the check-in counter at the Bangkok airport, there on the marquee was a name — a place — that made no sense to me. “Gauhati,” it said.

I stared, wondering vaguely what that word might mean, or how to say it.

What it meant was a city in northeastern India. I’d later learn that Gauhati (also spelled Guwahati), is home to almost a million people.

And so it happened that, for the first and only time in my life, I boarded a jetliner headed to a city I had never heard of before showing up at the airport.

Travel is all about discovery, they say. I can vouch for that. It can teach you, too, that you’re not as worldly and smart as you think you are.

Photos by the author.

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April 1, 2026

It’s the fall of 1981. Specifically it’s October — or, “Rocktober” in the lingo of the big local rock station, WCOZ, a monthlong event highlighting a different band each day.

Today is “Cars Day,” and I’ve set my alarm extra early. I’m yet to own a stereo, so next to the radio I’ve placed a cheap old cassette player, my finger ready on the RECORD button. The instant I hear the opening of a Cars song, I’ll press.

I’ll do this multiple times, and by the end of the day I’ll have a muffled analog catalog of my favorite tunes, all with the first two seconds missing.

Long before Husker Du and the Jazz Butcher, my big musical infatuation was the Cars, the Boston-based quintet fronted by co-singers Ric Ocasek and Ben Orr. I can’t recall when or why, exactly, I got hooked on their music, but the Cars were my soundtrack through my first two years of high school.

According to the desks at St. John’s Prep, vandalized by bored tenth-graders like me, the most popular bands in the world were Rush and maybe Van Halen. I’d leave Cars graffiti, adding a little prog-rock flourish to the artwork. I’d draw a checkered flag, like the one on the Panorama album.

I mention all of this because of a new book, “The Cars: Let the Stories be Told”, authored by Bill Janovitz, himself a musician from Boston.

The title borrows from “Let the Good Times Roll,” the unforgettable kickoff cut from the group’s eponymous debut, released in 1978.

The author had to be from Boston. Nothing else would be right, or fair. And if one person in the world was gonna read his book, if only for old times’ sake, well that would have to be me.

I seldom read music biographies from start to finish. Often they’re too too bogged down, hyper-detailed and meandering (Chris Salewicz’s bio of Joe Strummer runs for 650 pages). So I pick around for the good parts. This one, though, I took in cover-to-cover, straight through.

It’s exhaustive, comprehensive, painstakingly researched… all the things good music journalism should be. It’s unpolished in parts, but luckily for us Janovitz is a decent writer as much as a thorough historian, bringing us not just a chronicle, but one that’s fun to read.

Sadly neither Ric Ocasek nor Ben Orr are still with us. The surviving three bandmembers, however, are generous and gracious with their contributions.

The author reintroduced me to a band that, as a young teenager, I thought I’d known so well. Turns out there was plenty I missed. Some of it basic, but much of it those nuance-y sort of details that, as youngster, were bound to go over my head. I knew what I liked, but my knowledge and understanding of music was, let’s be honest, pretty unsophisticated.

I’d never appreciated the brilliance of Elliot Easton’s song-within-a-song guitar solos, for example, or the fire of his rockabilly-style leads in the song “My Best Friend’s Girl.” I’d never noticed those bass licks at the beginning of “Bye Bye Love.” And I had no clue that when Ben Orr repeats the word “time” during that verse in “Just What I Needed,” it’s a nod to the Velvet Underground’s “Sister Ray.”

Of course it is, but at fifteen it skipped right past me. All these things did. Heck, I was into my 20s before I knew, or cared, that David Robinson had been the drummer in the Modern Lovers.

As I read, I found myself highlighting pages, then throwing on my headphones, listening and re-listening to this or that highlight that Janovitz points out. In doing so, I rediscovered my love for the Cars.

Their first two albums, anyway: the self-titled debut and its follow-up, Candy-O. That aforementioned Panorama, while its checkered flag motif looked cool on a desk, never did much for me, and neither did anything afterward. If the author fails at one thing, perhaps, it’s helping me realize, all these years later, that the Cars’ hadn’t, in fact, jumped the shark. But save for a song or two, I can’t agree.

That first pair of records, though, is unmatchable. There will never be music like that again.

To what decade this music belongs is open to argument. The second album, Candy-O — the one with the famous pin-up girl by Alberto Vargas — was released in 1979. But to consider it a 70s record (or to call the Cars a “70s band”) would be ridiculous. Stylistically it was way ahead of their time. If 80s music ever needed a formal introduction, let it be the opening 25 second of the song “Let’s Go.”

The dropoff following Candy-O is part of the reason my obsession with the group waned. By late 1982 I’d left the Cars behind, drifting away from mainstream music altogether.

Funny, a bit later on, during my punk rock years, I would often see Ric Ocasek, mantis-like and unmistakable, perusing the record bins in Newbury Comics. He was still a giant to me, but I was too shy ever to say hello.

This book, and the memories it brings back, makes me wish I had.

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April 1, 2026

So far I haven’t had much to say about the deadly collision at La Guardia airport on March 22nd, when a Jazz Aviation (operating as Air Canada Express) regional jet collided with a fire truck seconds after touching down. The truck had been cleared by air traffic control to cross the active runway.

The most obvious question is why the controller permitted the truck to cross. How did he forget, or not notice, that the RJ was, at that moment, barreling down the same runway? The airport was busy and the tower had been dealing with a different flight declaring an emergency. Maybe that explains a few things, but how is it, in a time of high workload and high distraction, that a single controller is empowered to make a life-or-death decision without a second controller’s scrutiny, especially at night?

ATC understaffing, I’m sure, has a role here. Otherwise, as a pilot-pundit I’m supposed to have answers. I’m afraid I don’t.

What I can tell you, though, is only a few days before the accident I’d remarked to a friend about how the proliferation of vehicles at busy airports felt unsafe to me. Not so much the myriad cars, trucks, and tugs that work the inner ramps, shuttling around luggage and whatnot, but the ones with authorization to operate on active runways and taxiways. These include airport maintenance vehicles, plows, emergency vehicles, and so on.

What training do these drivers receive? Listening over the radio, I sometimes shake my head. Their clearance read-backs, for instance, often sound tentative or uncertain. What sort of situational awareness do they have? In the cockpit, pilots listen out not only for the own instructions, but for those of other aircraft as well, allowing us to paint a mental picture of the movement around us. The importance of this would seem self-evident, but does the man or woman steering a fire truck think this way too?

And couldn’t the driver have seen the regional jet? A pilot will never cross a runway without double-checking, visually, for oncoming traffic. This isn’t possible in low visibility, but most of the time it is. The weather at LGA wasn’t great, but it wasn’t terrible either. As a motorist who’s been broadsided at intersections knows, putting your trust in a stoplight isn’t enough. You don’t cruise through a green without making sure that someone isn’t running the red. The truck, responding to an emergency, approached the runway at an angle. It may have been hard for the driver to see. Was his view obstructed, or did he merely take the controller’s word that the runway was safe?

And what of the Jazz pilots? It’s possible they heard the controller issuing that ill-fated crossing clearance. But they were already on the ground with only a few seconds to react.

The plane hit the truck straight on, nose-first, and both pilots were killed. Everyone else survived. It’s interesting to wonder what the outcome might’ve been had the pilots swerved to avoid the collision. There wasn’t enough time to turn clear; either way they were going to hit. And had they swerved, the point of impact would have been closer to the plane’s midsection, or even at the wing root, resulting in an explosion and many more deaths. The lack of a fire saved the passengers.

Most likely, once the investigation is complete, the La Guardia controller will receive brunt of the blame. This won’t tell the whole story. Understaffing, darkness, urgency, distraction, and ATC protocols all had roles to play, creating a situation where one small mistake proved fatal.

Photo by Jordi Moncasi, courtesy of Unsplash.

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When I take pictures, I try to stay away from traditional plane porn (of the sort that dominates on Instagram). I like to think my shots — the better of them, at any rate — are a little more offbeat or impressionistic. Case in point, these three, which rate among my favorites.

Top and bottom: A psychedelic flood of blur and color, here’s the world as seen through an airplane window cascaded by de-icing fluid. Those red and white pinpoints in the first one are, believe it or not, the distant lights of New York City.

Center: Two Skies. The underside of a jetliner tail juxtaposed with an afternoon sky above Somerville, Massachusetts.

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March 10, 2026

Just before we push from the gate, a suite of weight-and-balance data is beamed to us. The message is delivered through a communications platform called ACARS. The info is then entered (some we type in manually, some of it uploads automatically) into the flight management system to help us compute our takeoff speeds, flap and trim settings, and whatnot.

The message includes a tally of the plane’s occupants, or “souls on board,” as we call it. This includes everyone: passengers, crew, and lap children. I normally jot this number down on my cheat-sheet. In the event of an emergency, controllers will ask for it to assist with fire and rescue planning.

The other night, departing for Paris, as the message unspooled from the ship’s printer, something caught my eye. The SOB total read 301. This was the first time in my career that I’d pilot a plane carrying three hundred or more people.

With every seat taken and a full complement of crew, our jet doesn’t quite hold that many. It was the lap kids, bless their boisterous hearts, that tipped us over the edge.

No shortage of pilots out there fly planes with room for well over three-hundred, or even four-hundred passengers (some of Emirates’ high-density A380s carry over six-hundred). What such a number means for them, if anything, I can’t say. But for me it felt important. Not for bragging rights, but as a personal point of pride. It was, in a way, a redemption.

My flying career, beleaguered and busted-up as it was at times, had been building to this moment. For decades it had been a struggle. Bankruptcies, furloughs, bounced paychecks. Crappy jobs with crappy airlines flying crappy planes. Now here I was, about to take a widebody jet across the ocean with three-hundred people on it (or souls, if you’d rather, making it sound more lofty).

Pilots measure their progress by different milestones. First solo (I barely remember), first upgrade to captain (it happened in 1991). This seemed, well, heavier.

It took a long damn time, but things had finally paid off. And there was the number that, to me, best quantified it: 301.

I was going to include a photo of the printout with the total circled… until I realized I’d lost it.

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Photo by Alex Shuper, courtesy of Unsplash.

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March 2, 2026.

The sudden conflict with Iran has brought Persian Gulf air traffic to a halt. Emirates, Qatar Airways, and Etihad have seen greater than 90 percent of their flights curtailed, leaving hundreds of thousands of people stranded.

This is no small matter. The airports of Doha, Dubai, and Abu Dhabi comprise a massive global crossroads — the biggest transit region on earth — hosting 182 million passengers annually.

Traveling from the U.S. to Thailand a couple of months ago, I shot this 30-second video of the departure board at Dubai. It was just after midnight, with the screen showing dozens of early-morning Emirates departures to just about anywhere you could imagine.

Each time that I pass through Dubai it knocks my socks off. DXB is the world’s biggest and busiest international hub, and the lineup of Emirates jets is astonishing, with 50 or more A380s, and dozens of 777s, lined up side-by-side. There are flights to six continents and across every ocean. Throughout the long history of commercial aviation, nothing like this has existed.

The growth of Emirates and the other Gulf carriers (together they are sometimes referred to as the “ME3” or “G3”) has been controversial. Lavish government subsidies, many argue, have permitted these airlines to take a huge and unfair advantage over others. Is this true? Sure. But it’s also true these airlines’ hubs are in the perfect geographic position to connect world’s biggest population centers; the governments of the U.A.E and Qatar realized this and ran with it.

They built their mega-carriers from scratch, and have done well, believing that the commerce generated by air travel is something to be nurtured rather than hindered. You can call it government subsidizing. You also can call it an investment in an industry your economy and society benefit from.

Here in the U.S., it feels like we’ve given up on that concept. Our airports are undersized and dirty, security screening has gone off the rails, and consider the misery we put international connecting passengers through. You ask if the complaint of government subsidies is valid. Yes, but it’s less a complaint against their governments than a complaint against ours. Once upon a time, America was commercial aviation’s global leader. That was then.

Of course, that geographic lucky card that has served the Gulf carriers so well has always been fraught with risk. This perfect connecting point is also a geopolitical powder keg, as we’re seeing right now.

How long the disruption might last is anyone’s guess. The ME3 have plenty of resources to weather the storm, but it’ll be interesting to see airlines from other parts of the world might benefit. Someone has to pick up all the traffic that was flowing through the Gulf.

That so many flights to so many places, carrying so many people, exist in the first place is impressive enough. Equally remarkable is how quickly this movement can be brought to a halt.

Cancellation stats for March 2nd.   Source: Cirium.

Photos and video by the author.

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