I had to take a work trip this week and just couldn’t bring myself to snapping photos but wanted to share my hauntingly quiet experience.
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Essential Personnel, DHS approved
Just to make it clear from the start, this wasn’t a vacation, I was traveling for work. I won’t get into my work, but it’s classed as essential and I carry a letter from the DHS stating such. I don’t want to get in a debate about it, I’m just making it clear that the US government has permitted me to travel as needed.
It’s Worse Than Just Empty Buildings
There’s a fascination with disused buildings like this former mall in Bangkok or retired subway stations, I prefer to call it urban exploring. But this is not that. This is more like that downtown mall that only has one off-brand shop and a shoeshine station with a “will be back” sign but the hand-spun clock is missing.
There’s nothing charming about an abandoned airport with a sprinkling of employees just trying to keep things going and near-empty boarding areas with depressed people.
I took three flights (one nonstop and two with a connection in Chicago on my return.) For those keeping track at home, my outbound flight had 12 passengers, my return including a battlefield hub run (IAH-ORD) had 26 passengers and 12 passengers (excluding commuting airline staff.) Each of them matched the count on Expert Flyer for seats sold prior to take-off, so while that’s not always a good source of information, it was three for three in my experience.
One car rental firm indicated they were selling off brand new cars. I was one of five customers picking up and one of six dropping off. One agent said the day prior to my pickup they had just two rentals booked. At my hotel, I was one of seven guests at checkin. The front desk wasn’t staffed, a call-in number was left if I needed something and an employee would appear.
Everything Feels Wrong
It’s worse because it feels like I shouldn’t be there at all – like no one should. It’s worse because it’s not made for that. Airports should be full, there should be noise. It feels wrong like an elementary school in the summer without the noise of children and a busy playground. It feels wrong like re-entering a grandparent’s home after they’ve passed, where everything is more or less as it was before, but the soul, the joy and the bustle are gone.
No one knows where to sit, no one knows what to do. The usually busy staff transporting rental car customers back to the terminal stand around waiting for five, ten, even fifteen minutes to find just me on what should be a standing room only bus.
Houston Intercontinental had just terminal C open for checkin, it was a Friday afternoon departure and the only other person in the TSA line with me was an employee. Terminal E was desolate.
Out of Practice
To top off my hauntingly quiet experience, I am so very, very out of practice for travelling. I was late, I took a poor route to the airport, I had to check a bag, I just wasn’t prepared. It all felt foreign, and for the first time in five weeks, I was back on an airplane but lost in so doing.
That’s a good thing, I think. That means that businesses and consumers are both doing their best to avoid moving around until the coast is cleared.
But it is really odd to feel so out of sorts when travelling right now. I’m not sure how soon I will be regularly back on the road and in the skies, but I suspect I won’t be alone in relearning some of the basics upon that return.
Conclusion
My travel was hauntingly quiet this week and it felt wrong to be travelling even if it wasn’t. However, it felt abnormal to me and to those working and I don’t believe that this will last much longer. Everyone, travellers and employees alike, are anxious to return to normal – but trust me, you’re not missing anything right now by staying home.
What do you think? Have you travelled during quarantine? How was your experience? Do you think we are at the end of this stage?
You don’t need anyone’s “approval” to travel domestically. It’s basically an honor system. By now you and just about everyone else should know how to protect yourself and others-wash hands often, disinfect surfaces, wear mask in public. Stress free empty airplanes and airports sound pretty good.
He just didn’t want to get “corona-shamed” in the comments section.
Pete – you win the ‘ignorant comment of the day’ award!
You don’t need anyone to gove you permission for travel… it is guaranteed in the rights of the u.s. constitution.
Flying on an airplane is not a right guaranteed by the constitution. Regardless, rights regarding travel can certainly be restricted during f times like this- see the stay at homes orders that are enforceable in a great deal of US states right now.
Constitution does give Congress the right to regulate interstate commerce, so I doubt any governor could try to restrict air travel. In fact, I find those 14 day quarantine restrictions Texas and Florida imposed on NY residents to be questionable.
Don’t @ me. Stay home and stay safe. This was more a comment on the lack of a national quarantine strategy.
And reasonable regulation under law…and we are not living in reasonable times.
How were the ticket prices? It seems that despite the extremely low demand, many flights are just as expensive as usual, if not more.
Presumably these days travel’s a bit of a demerit good.
About $900 in cash or 30k points… for flights with sub 20% occupancy. That goes back to this post (https://bit.ly/2VqfrV8) where United proves that dynamic award pricing only works for United unlike some other carriers.
Sounds like the movie/short story “the Langoloiers”
And sadly, about as satisfying. That’s a great “deep track” reference for fellow AvGeeks.
Not surprising about car rental companies. They are the forgotten victim in the travel industry right now and are being gutted. It’s reported that Hertz will file bankruptcy soon and has no way to survive without significant Govt. assistance – which they may get from Florida as they are one of the largest employers in SW Florida where the new headquarters is.
I’m traveling every week. Yes, things are quieter, but, you get used to it. It’s actually a magical time to travel.
There is nothing dramatic or exciting about an empty plane and all these companies struggling. It’s a sign of some terrible decision making humans have made as they demand safety from everything these days.
But, this post is fairly dramatic. It’s business as usual in most places I go. Yes, a lot fewer people, but, it’s not THAT weird.
LOL Business as usual? I don’t know which airports you fly to but virtually all lounges have shut, there are hardly any food and bar choices… Service onboard has been cut and will remain non existant for a while. How is that business as usual? I have stopped flying specifically because lounges are closed and there are no more drinks onboard.
One of the things I like to do when I get a few days off is to go out to PIT and get a myPITPass to go airside and watch planes. I’m sad that I can’t do that now during my 2-month (as of now) furlough. Not that there would be many planes to watch right now, but still…. Thanks for the PIT pictures! 🙂
As France was shutting down in mid-March we closed-up our house and caught Air France’s very last flight from Paris to Toronto on the 22nd. We stayed at CDG the night before, at the Mercure, which is rather grim, but the in-terminal Sheraton, like most of the airport hotels, was already closed. There was so much yellow & black police tape at the Mercure, sealing-off certain areas, you’d have thought a mass murder had occurred there. The lobby and restaurant had been emptied of furnishings and a front desk employee only appeared when called.
The next morning Terminal 2 was eerily empty. There was no one ahead of us at Baggage-check, Check-in, Immigration or Security. When we reached the Air France Salon near our gate we were, for the first half-hour, the only two people there other than the staff. (Often this lounge is virtually SRO.)
Aboard the A350 there were a total of seven of us in Business Class. The (superb) mask-wearing cabin crew was made-up of volunteers, who were ferrying the empty plane back to Paris, same-duty-time, as soon as passengers deplaned.
The entire trip back to Nova Scotia felt like being in a science-fiction movie.
We have return tickets to Paris dated May 27th, but have been advised by Air France that the flight is cancelled. We’ve been asked to choose a later travel date. September would be good for us, but we’re not sure it will be safe to travel yet. It’s possible we won’t fly again before 2021… (a First World problem)
It is what it is. We are retired, with no financial worries. We are healthy. We have enough food to eat. We are truly the lucky ones.
Your comments about “being out of practice” regarding travel is an interesting one, Kyle. I hadn’t considered that. I wonder how many of us will feel that way once we get back to flying!
I was really bummed about not being able to travel to Rome for work last month … until I realized that not only would I not have been able to accomplish anything for work there I also wouldn’t have been able to do any of the other things I enjoy doing while there. So, not only would it have felt “wrong”, it would have felt pretty pointless, too.
I liked this post. Thanks for the read Kyle.
Nice post Kyle, many people would share your feelings of wrong and out of practice. One small nit-pick; your photo of “Terminal E in Houston at normally peak times” misses the mark and does not enhance the theme. At first glance I thought it was a photo of an empty terminal, there are about a dozen people in the distance in that photo whereas at actual peak times there are probably 5 times that many throughout the entire area of the photo. Thanks again for the interesting read.