5 ms·

Or how about this, from the introduction to Ursula K. Le Guin's collection Changing Planes: > If both you and your plane are on time, the airport is merely a d

Or how about this, from the introduction to Ursula K. Le Guin's collection Changing Planes: > If both you and your plane are on time, the airport is merely a diffuse, short, miserable prelude to the intense, long, miserable plane trip. But what if there's five hours between your arrival and your connecting flight, or your plane is late arriving and you've missed your connection, or the connecting flight is late, or the staff of another airline are striking for a wage-benefit package and the government has not yet ordered out the National Guard to control this threat to international capitalism so your airline staff is trying to handle twice as many people as usual, or there are tornadoes or thunderstorms or blizzards or little important bits of the plane missing or any of the thousand other reasons (never under any circumstances the fault of the airlines, and rarely explained at the time) why those who go places on airplanes sit and sit and sit and sit in airports, not going anywhere? > In this, probably its true aspect, the airport is not a prelude to travel, not a place of transition: it is a stop. A blockage. A constipation. The airport is where you can't go anywhere else. A nonplace in which time does not pass and there is no hope of meaningful existence. A terminus: the end. The airport offers nothing to any human being except access to the interval between planes.

Waterluvian 10y ago
It's why I drive if it's ever one day away. It ends up being hours longer, but I get an adventure, not a migraine. It's time well spent.
- JadeNB 10y ago
  Try taking the train, if you can spare the time! If it goes from near where you are to near where you want to go, it can be great. If it's a trip of less than a day, then you'll wind up where you want to go feeling much more rested and much less stressed. (If it's more than a day, then you'll have to face the question of whether you want to sleep awkwardly in coach or pony up big bucks for a sleeper; but you can get used to sleeping awkwardly in coach—for me, it's much more comfortable than sleeping on a plane.)
  - msandford 10y ago
    Also remember that "coach" on a train is at least as comfortable as first class on an airplane. Especially if you're over around 6' tall.
  - forkandwait 10y ago
    In the USA, long distance passenger trains are very expensive and can have their schedules totally screwed up because they must give way to freight trains.
    - JadeNB 10y ago
      > In the USA, long distance passenger trains are very expensive … This is mostly true, but: 1. "Frequent traveller" programs can take some of the pain out of the price, just as they can for flying; and, as msandford (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12663241 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12663241) points out, it's not entirely unreasonable, if you're optimising for comfort (since it's not for speed!), to compare the price of a coach seat on a train with the price of a business-class seat on a plane. 2. Short-haul trains will usually beat any possible flight; and even relatively long-haul trains can be competitive—an upcoming trip from Michigan to Maryland for my brother's wedding is $81 one way. > … and can have their schedules totally screwed up because they must give way to freight trains. This is also true, but, I think, misleading; it's not as if planes always run on time. At least, when the train is stuck, you're on the train, which is nice and comfy, rather than in the airport, which is miserable! I have also never been bumped from a train due to overbooking, and once had a lovely train ride that simply plowed through snow falling thickly enough that most flights were grounded.
    - logfromblammo 10y ago
      As a point of fact, Amtrak passenger trains have priority over freight trains if they are on schedule. The problem is that if they are so much as a minute late, and have to yield once, they are no longer on schedule for the entire remainder of the route, and just get further and further behind. Amtrak doesn't own much of its own track, and private rail owners tend to prioritize high-value traffic, so the freight generally gets to go first. After all, everybody knows that if you wanted to get there on time, you would have flown, right? I was once delayed on an Amtrak train for 24 hours. Twenty-four hours, sitting motionless on a siding in the middle of nowhere. A professional cyclist could have beaten me to my destination, even with one 8-hour stop to sleep. Never again. Even a coach bus would be preferable.
pklausler 10y ago
And this was written by somebody who has PDX as her home airport, which is actually a pretty nice, comfortable, and friendly place to hang out.
- vvanders 10y ago
  Yup, PDX is by far my favorite airport on the west coast. I've yet to see another parking lot as neat as PDX. There's an ultrasonic sensor above each spot with a red/green LED that shows if the spot is open(green for clear). Makes it incredibly easy to find out if there's an open spot down a parking lane.
  - hueving 10y ago
    The thing that's interesting about airports is how diverse the criteria is for people critiquing them. Take the parking you highlighted for example, unless someone is ranking it as a home airport AND they don't take uber/lyft to get there, it's completely irrelevant. I tend to enjoy layovers in LAX because I like their sky club, which is completely irrelevant to anyone not flying sky team.
    - Hydraulix989 10y ago
      I really like JFK's roof-top lounge that you can go up onto if you're flying JetBlue. It has grass, umbrellas, and shade outside (INSIDE the airport terminal/gates -- surprised they have it given security concerns).
      - oldmanjay 10y ago
        What security concerns do you see being outside in a secured area? People flying guns in with drones is about all that comes to mind.
beamatronic 10y ago
Jesus, that's depressing. For me, the airport is a place that's always buzzing with human activity. The atmosphere is electric. Here, you find people from all walks of live, traveling for all sorts of reasons. Work. Family. Love. War. Weddings. Funerals. It's a goal-oriented sort of place, everyone has somewhere to be and a task to perform. There's common interest, we want to get to our destination safely. There are delights for the weary traveler - coffee, shops to browse in - Take the time to treat yourself! You're travelling.
- SixSigma 10y ago
  Next time I have a 12 hour stop-over in an airport that's mostly closed I'll remember how much I should be enjoying myself - I'm travelling.
- Kurimo 10y ago
  Those delights are so overpriced as to be insulting. Really hard to enjoy some scrambled eggs when they cost $13.
  - ChoHag 10y ago
    And taste of nothing more then exactly as much salt as it is topped with, without even the benefit of a crunch of the slice of toast which is unable to hold its own under the onslaught of up-bulking water released during the cooking^Wboiling process (and wouldn't be able to even without the water because modern bread is so laughably unbreadlike). I'm happy to pay for food. I like paying for food. I like it to be food.
- sixo 10y ago
  But the coffee's bad, the shops, wifi, food, and drinks are overpriced and lack variety, the piano is off-limits, and nobody's rooted here long enough to invest energy in it as a place for community. What you describe would be great if it was good, but it's bad.
  - Hydraulix989 10y ago
GunboatDiplomat 10y ago
What is with authors and melodrama about common everyday things?

Waterluvian 10y ago

It's why I drive if it's ever one day away. It ends up being hours longer, but I get an adventure, not a migraine. It's time well spent.

JadeNB 10y ago
Try taking the train, if you can spare the time! If it goes from near where you are to near where you want to go, it can be great. If it's a trip of less than a day, then you'll wind up where you want to go feeling much more rested and much less stressed. (If it's more than a day, then you'll have to face the question of whether you want to sleep awkwardly in coach or pony up big bucks for a sleeper; but you can get used to sleeping awkwardly in coach—for me, it's much more comfortable than sleeping on a plane.)
- msandford 10y ago
  Also remember that "coach" on a train is at least as comfortable as first class on an airplane. Especially if you're over around 6' tall.
- forkandwait 10y ago
  In the USA, long distance passenger trains are very expensive and can have their schedules totally screwed up because they must give way to freight trains.
  - JadeNB 10y ago
    > In the USA, long distance passenger trains are very expensive … This is mostly true, but: 1. "Frequent traveller" programs can take some of the pain out of the price, just as they can for flying; and, as msandford (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12663241 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12663241) points out, it's not entirely unreasonable, if you're optimising for comfort (since it's not for speed!), to compare the price of a coach seat on a train with the price of a business-class seat on a plane. 2. Short-haul trains will usually beat any possible flight; and even relatively long-haul trains can be competitive—an upcoming trip from Michigan to Maryland for my brother's wedding is $81 one way. > … and can have their schedules totally screwed up because they must give way to freight trains. This is also true, but, I think, misleading; it's not as if planes always run on time. At least, when the train is stuck, you're on the train, which is nice and comfy, rather than in the airport, which is miserable! I have also never been bumped from a train due to overbooking, and once had a lovely train ride that simply plowed through snow falling thickly enough that most flights were grounded.
  - logfromblammo 10y ago
    As a point of fact, Amtrak passenger trains have priority over freight trains if they are on schedule. The problem is that if they are so much as a minute late, and have to yield once, they are no longer on schedule for the entire remainder of the route, and just get further and further behind. Amtrak doesn't own much of its own track, and private rail owners tend to prioritize high-value traffic, so the freight generally gets to go first. After all, everybody knows that if you wanted to get there on time, you would have flown, right? I was once delayed on an Amtrak train for 24 hours. Twenty-four hours, sitting motionless on a siding in the middle of nowhere. A professional cyclist could have beaten me to my destination, even with one 8-hour stop to sleep. Never again. Even a coach bus would be preferable.

pklausler 10y ago

And this was written by somebody who has PDX as her home airport, which is actually a pretty nice, comfortable, and friendly place to hang out.

vvanders 10y ago
Yup, PDX is by far my favorite airport on the west coast. I've yet to see another parking lot as neat as PDX. There's an ultrasonic sensor above each spot with a red/green LED that shows if the spot is open(green for clear). Makes it incredibly easy to find out if there's an open spot down a parking lane.
- hueving 10y ago
  The thing that's interesting about airports is how diverse the criteria is for people critiquing them. Take the parking you highlighted for example, unless someone is ranking it as a home airport AND they don't take uber/lyft to get there, it's completely irrelevant. I tend to enjoy layovers in LAX because I like their sky club, which is completely irrelevant to anyone not flying sky team.
  - Hydraulix989 10y ago
    I really like JFK's roof-top lounge that you can go up onto if you're flying JetBlue. It has grass, umbrellas, and shade outside (INSIDE the airport terminal/gates -- surprised they have it given security concerns).
    - oldmanjay 10y ago
      What security concerns do you see being outside in a secured area? People flying guns in with drones is about all that comes to mind.

beamatronic 10y ago

Jesus, that's depressing. For me, the airport is a place that's always buzzing with human activity. The atmosphere is electric. Here, you find people from all walks of live, traveling for all sorts of reasons. Work. Family. Love. War. Weddings. Funerals. It's a goal-oriented sort of place, everyone has somewhere to be and a task to perform. There's common interest, we want to get to our destination safely. There are delights for the weary traveler - coffee, shops to browse in - Take the time to treat yourself! You're travelling.

SixSigma 10y ago
Next time I have a 12 hour stop-over in an airport that's mostly closed I'll remember how much I should be enjoying myself - I'm travelling.
Kurimo 10y ago
Those delights are so overpriced as to be insulting. Really hard to enjoy some scrambled eggs when they cost $13.
- ChoHag 10y ago
  And taste of nothing more then exactly as much salt as it is topped with, without even the benefit of a crunch of the slice of toast which is unable to hold its own under the onslaught of up-bulking water released during the cooking^Wboiling process (and wouldn't be able to even without the water because modern bread is so laughably unbreadlike). I'm happy to pay for food. I like paying for food. I like it to be food.
sixo 10y ago
But the coffee's bad, the shops, wifi, food, and drinks are overpriced and lack variety, the piano is off-limits, and nobody's rooted here long enough to invest energy in it as a place for community. What you describe would be great if it was good, but it's bad.
- Hydraulix989 10y ago

GunboatDiplomat 10y ago

What is with authors and melodrama about common everyday things?