Airports - Microcosms of Government innefieciency and Union incompetence

[MikeB]

As I'm sitting in an airport and can't even get a airport quality meal at 9pm at night. It comes to me once again that Airports which by and large are government run and regulated and primarily staffed by slovenly lazy incompetent Union employees are the perfect  Microcosm of everything wrong with Big Government and typical Union employees.

There are flights out of here for another two hours or so and every place serving food is cleaning up and only has hours or days old food available. The employees are the typical slovenly dirty Union types that show no interest in actually serving a customer vs. punching a clock. Due to the government ownership and control of the airport you know nothing will ever change.

[zahc]

Where are you? It really depends. Some airports are much worse than others, either because of local standards or local regulations. I have been traveling through PHX and ticked off that there is only one decent place to get a beer in the whole giant sprawling airport, and that they close at 9, and because they don't even offer me a warning before they stop serving, and I am not allowed to take beer outside the store. On the other hand, at ORD I get a growler of  Rogue Dead Guy Ale to bring home every time. I like Pittsburgh because they have lots of cheap stores, including a proper CVS with big $1 bottles of water.

I often wonder what air travel would be like had it been invented fast enough or early enough for it to become commonplace before the government got around to regulating it into mediocrity.

[MikeB]

I was in Midway when I wrote that. I feel that way about most airports though there are some exceptions, but even the better ones still have government over regulation, TSA, etc.

[Perd Hapley]

I often wonder what air travel would be like had it been invented fast enough or early enough for it to become commonplace before the government got around to regulating it into mediocrity.

So, prior to 1887?

An interesting thought.

[Hawkmoon]

It's a unified effort. The airlines are also complicit.

I had occasion to use the new American Airlines terminal at JFK in New York earlier this year. (I don't know how new it is -- a couple of years or so, I guess. I try to stay as far away from NYC as possible.) I was astonished to note that there are NO restaurants -- not even fast food types -- on the public side of the security screening interface. Not upstairs at the departure level, nor downstairs on the arrivals level.

Yes, there are food sources in the concourse, once you pass through security. But that totally ignores how many families use airports. My late wife used to travel to her native country at least once a year. These days, thanks primarily to IST (Institutionalized Security Theater) they want passengers to arrive at the airport two hours before domestic flights and three hours before international flights. Our routine was to arrive 3 hours ahead, get her checked in, and then we'd find a restaurant and sit down to have supper together before her flight.

That wouldn't be possible at the American terminal at JFK. Which I think is very uncivilized. It means families arriving to drop off one or some of the family members can't share that last pre-flight meal together. To me it fits perfectly in the WWTT* Department.











* What Were They Thinking?

[HankB]

I was in Midway when I wrote that . . .

Well, it IS in Chicago . . .

[Jamisjockey]

IAH and DFW are both pleasant airports in that you can find food later at night, they're clean, and the workers are way nicer and don't look like *expletive deleted*it.

[MechAg94]

I think Bush International in Houston is partly city run.  All the concessions/resturants are contracted through one group.  

But I rarely fly so I am no expert.  Just hearsay.