Air Travel

The 747-400 is tired looking, with ugly beige bulkheads and the standard (for this model) 2-3-2 business class configuration. Although the chairs are done up in a cheerless navy cloth, the soft fabric, at least for me, is always more comfortable than leather. Also welcome are the manual seat controls. I might be something of a comfort minimalist, but I appreciate being able to adjust the leg-rest and recline functions through intuitively placed levers that are easier to use — and less likely to be broken — than electric versions. There’s a powered massage function, and a liftable thigh-rest. A swivel-neck reading light branches from the side of every seat.

United’s headrests are movable along three axes, able to angle inward/outward for added neck support. They also slide vertically above the edge of the seatback, providing a few extra inches of stretch-out room when fully reclined at about 160 degrees. (By the way, there’s a new twist to the deep vein thrombosis, aka “economy class syndrome” controversy: A judge recently dismissed a lawsuit in which the plaintiff contended that his business class seat was so comfortable it dissuaded him from getting up to stretch, bringing on the illness.)

Before pushing back, the purser makes a P.A., introducing himself by name. He gives a brief rundown of flying time and weather, then reads off a list of languages spoken by the crew. For its Pacific Rim ops, United carries both American and locally based flight attendants. No Maltese or Urdu speakers, as had been the case aboard Emirates two weeks earlier, but the purser wins points for a very articulate and professional-sounding oration. You had to be there, maybe, but it was the kind of speech passengers both listened to and appreciated — succinct, useful, and free of that nasally, semi-lyrical, thanks-for-flying-with-us piffle we’ve grown so accustomed to.

A different attendant next introduces himself to everybody in the cabin and takes meal orders from a cardstock menu printed in English, Japanese and Cantonese. Lunch will be a choice of steamed salmon with daikon, stir-fried shrimp with garlic and rice, or a creamed spinach omelet with potatoes, sausage and fruit appetizer.

A newspaper cart is wheeled around, laid out with a buffet of Asian periodicals and the ubiquitous USA Today. As far as I know, USA Today’s circulation is based entirely on copies given away on airplanes or slipped beneath hotel room doors. After a week of living on the Bangkok Post I hungrily snag one, and the headlines hit me like morphine.

Predeparture refreshments consist of a choice of champagne or orange juice, both from plastic cups. After a 15-minute taxi, the lightly fueled Boeing fairly leaps into the air for the three-hour and 20-minute flight to Japan.

Armrest consoles contain your video screen, dinner tray, and a smaller, fold-out beverage tray, while entertainment controls are found on a conveniently arranged central riser. I’m pleased to discover United’s famous “channel 9″ will be switched on, allowing passengers to eavesdrop on air-to-ground communications from the cockpit.

Otherwise it’s a pick among six movies, BBC, CNN and the usual assortment of tepid, nonthreatening, market-neutral broadcast fare. Now, is it just me, or do other travelers shudder when faced with yet another ESPN documentary about the life and accomplishments of Joe Namath, or the chance to watch some tooth-bleached hack shilling business tips? Those with laptops can avoid all this by taking advantage of the in-seat power port, or you can opt out entirely and make use of that fleece blanket and oversized pillow.

Once asleep, you might dream of first class. Just a few rows ahead, tauntingly beyond that curtain, is a whole other level of comfort. The carrier calls it United First Suite, where customers relax in private mini-capsules with work consoles, privacy screens, and seats that convert into fully-flat, 6-foot beds.

Watching the theater of business class unfold around me, I am comfortable, yes, in my big semi-sleeper with its fancy levers and fold-away TV. My feet are up, my appetite sated. But at the same time I’m awkwardly bemused. What the hell, after all, is a daikon?

To resurrect one of my recurring frustrations: Most airlines still fail to acknowledge the recontextualization of air travel in 2004 — the reality that customers, regardless of where they’re seated or how much they’ve paid, no longer desire or expect an onboard experience resembling some bourgeois fantasy of the 1940s. What people want are basic, wholesome comforts and efficiency. Flying has become almost fully egalitarian, yet in many ways the airlines are clinging to the outmoded pomp and pretensions of decades past.

“Among the casualties of the 9-11 terrorist attacks,” writes Michael Walker in a Los Angeles Times Magazine piece last December, “was a concept as wispy and sentimental as the cirrus in the pale blue yonder: that flying was somehow inevitably linked with style, glamour and sophistication.”

As Walker does, we can lament the general, hand-in-hand slide of standards and expectations, but my point is slightly different. A 747, awe-inspiring in its own ways, is not the grand ballroom of the Queen Mary. Holdover affectations of prestige do not compensate for the inherent discomforts of modern-day flying, they conflict with them. Even in business class. Faux-glamour extravagances might induce some guilty pleasure, but how much of your fare is budgeted so the galleys can be stocked with 10 varieties of cheese and nine choices of wine and champagne, when all you truly want are improved creature comforts and one or two enjoyable distractions? Less Leon Beyer Alsace 2002 (“intense flavors of yellow-skinned apple”), and maybe some wider video screens instead.

Meanwhile in economy, menus promise “authentic Italian minestrone with garlic and herb croutons.” In much the way Burger King looks silly when it gives upmarket names to down-market food, the airlines aren’t fooling anybody through puffy over-flowering. While passengers are picking out the stale croutons with skinny plastic forks, the real need is for bottled water, a wider armrest and, judging from the filthy carpets and scuffed sidewalls found on most jets these days, some token custodial work. High over the Pacific, the kabuki goes on, a game that appears more about impressing people than actually making them happy. And that’s a game, with limited resources and the public’s evolved mindset working against them, most airlines are destined to lose.

At least a few airline analysts — and cynics — will claim the whole service theater is a ruse, a needed way of gouging fliers into forking over absurd sums of money for the assumed privilege of a seat up front. How to quantify luxury, exactly? And as something of a corollary to society’s own evolution, the class distinctions within a cabin have become much sharper in recent years. Those near the nose are snacking on wrapped-to-order sushi as stewards perform turndown service, while out back fliers are begging for something to drink and growing nostalgic for PeopleExpress. In terms of revenue, those coach seats are little more than filler — college kids crossing the Pacific for $359 while it’s six grand or more for a seat in Row 1.

But getting back to business, as it were …

Anachronisms notwithstanding, all in all UAL’s biz class is very nice, if hardly on par with that of the world’s more esteemed airlines. British Airways is one foreign competitor now offering 180-degree sleepers both in first and business. B.A. has raised the service bar high, probably beyond the ambition not only of United but of all U.S. airlines.

To get the grading out of the way … .

Check-in and preboarding: D (fascist, unapologetic carry-on mandate, chaotic Jetway clog)
Punctuality: B-plus (departure 10 minutes behind schedule)
Aircraft cleanliness and decor: C-plus (bland and tired; very clean)
Seats, amenities, and accoutrements: B
Food and drink: A-minus (tasty, if over the top)
Crew attitude and attentiveness: A

Critically for United, which remains in the throes of Chapter 11 bankruptcy, its staff seem energized and upbeat. While not meaning to echo one of those awful motivational plaques for sale in SkyMall, a crew’s attitude can more than compensate for a few material shortcomings. It won’t be the plastic cups or thickness of a pillow that stick in a flier’s mind when employees come across as surly or uninterested.

Of course, as any frequent traveler knows, service on a particular airline can vary markedly. The enthusiasm of a crew, the cleanliness of a plane, the palatability of a meal — each of these is subject to a host of variables. My readers, for one, certainly attest to the fickle facts of flight. One day I’ll get a letter nominating United, American or Northwest for the Nobel Prize, and the next day a different letter is complaining how that same company shipped his luggage to Vladivostok and killed his cocker spaniel. In the end it’s probably a wash. I won’t argue that our nation’s airlines are, or will ever be, in league with the Singapores of the world, but if nothing else, they’re all about the same.

By the way, Condé Nast Traveler has voted Singapore Airlines “Best International Airline” for the 14th of the past 15 years. Travel & Leisure gave them an identical award for the eighth year in a row, while the U.K.’s Business Traveler International hails them “Best Airline in the World” for the 13th straight year. An acquaintance of mine who recently endured Singapore’s record-breaking 18-hour nonstop from Los Angeles reports that the flight’s economy section — sold as “Executive Economy” by the airline — is at least as roomy and satisfying as first class on many U.S. domestic flights.

Clearly the time has come for an Ask the Pilot readers poll. You are hereby requested to e-mail your choices of favorite airline, be it foreign or domestic, and/or your least favorite airline, with results to be published here in the coming weeks. Competing picks of the same airline will not cancel each other out, but will stand in separate tallies. The winner shall be presented with Ask the Pilot’s prestigious Readers Choice Round of Applause, while the loser receives my dreaded “Golden Pretzel” award. Obviously this is an unscientific survey in which only those who choose to vote — i.e. those most unexpectedly pleased or vindictively pissed off — will do so, but I’m curious to learn if the results, even as they’re rendered from extremes, might mirror the more canonical industry rankings.

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Do you have questions for Salon’s aviation expert? Send them to AskThePilot and look for answers in a future column.

Another factor is the aircraft type. Two-engine planes are subject to what we call ETOPS (extended twin-engine operations) restrictions, which might result in a different, less direct routing than a plane with four engines can accept. ETOPS rules require planes to remain within particular flying distances (three hours, most commonly) of an acceptable diversion airport. (The diversion airports themselves will vary, subject to weather.) Across the North Atlantic it makes little difference; two engines or four there are always adequate diversion options relatively close by. Over the Pacific, though, it’s a little different, and there might be considerable differences between a route operated by, say, a two-engine 777, and the same route operated by a four-engine 747.

We were flying from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to New York on a 757. While taxiing out, the plane’s air conditioning malfunctioned and the cabin temperature became very hot. After several minutes of troubleshooting, the problem could not be fixed and we taxied back to the gate. The captain explained that although it was permissible to continue on with the broken AC, a whole new flight plan was required, including an altered routing that would add over 45 minutes’ flying time — in turn requiring us to take on more fuel. We departed more than an hour late. I’m baffled. Why on earth would a broken air conditioner mandate a whole new flight plan and a longer routing?

For better or worse, crews are often reluctant to to explain the technical nitty-gritty of mechanical failures, and this is a great example of how, as a result, a passenger’s perception of the problem — in this case, “a broken air conditioner” — isn’t nearly the whole story.

Planes are not air-conditioned in the manner of your car or home; there is no air conditioner, per se. The machinery used to heat and cool the cabin is something known in pilot parlance as a “pack” (an acronym for pneumatic air cycle kit). Normally there are two packs, located in the belly of the aircraft. They are supplied by bleed air from the engines, adjusting temperature by means of a compressor, turbine and air-to-air heat exchanger; there is no coolant gas (i.e., Freon). These same packs are also responsible for pressurization, which is where the complications described above enter the picture.

A single functioning pack is adequate to maintain both adequate pressure and temperature. Thus if one fails, a flight can still be dispatched safely. However, you’ve lost your redundancy; if the remaining pack were to fail, pressurization and temperature control would be lost entirely. So, single-pack operation entails some important restrictions — namely a lower-than-normal altitude and the need to stay within a certain distance to a diversion airport at all times. The exact rules vary from plane to plane, but a typical example is having to remain below 35,000 feet and within 60 minutes’ flying time of a suitable landing spot (transoceanic flights are likely to be forbidden outright). Usually this increases both flying time and fuel burn. In this case, a flight from Puerto Rico to New York that was originally planned to be mostly over water now required a longer inland routing at a more fuel-thirsty altitude.

I was once on a flight from Chicago to Atlanta and we had to make an emergency landing in Nashville due to something that made it necessary to fly only as high as 10,000 feet. Due to such a low altitude, we were told, we would burn too much gas and could not reach Atlanta nonstop. Were they telling us the truth and how serious was the situation?

This sounds perfectly legitimate to me. See the previous question. Every so often a plane will be altitude-restricted due to this or that mechanical issue — perhaps something pressurization-related. This will increase fuel burn to the point where an interim stop is required. (Remember that you need enough fuel not only to reach your destination, but enough to reach at least one alternate airport, plus a substantial buffer on top of that.) This malfunction might be something that happens en route, or the flight might be planned that way from the start.

About a year ago I was working a flight from South America to the United States. Over the Caribbean, a pressurization malfunction dictated a prompt descent. Efforts to troubleshoot the problem failed, and so we had to stay low. Together with our dispatchers we ran some calculations, and sure enough, it would have been impossible to complete the flight without violating legal fuel parameters. And so we wound up diverting to Puerto Rico.

You speak of an “emergency landing.” Passengers have a habit for referring to any diversion or precautionary landing as an “emergency,” when most are in fact precautionary or even routine. Declaration of an emergency is reserved for situations that are a lot more urgent — such as when there is a risk of injury or damage to the airplane, when the extent of a problem is not fully known, and/or or when priority air traffic control handling is required. Knock on wood: I’ve made several diverts and one or two precautionary landings, but never an emergency landing.

My mother was on a flight that couldn’t take off because an engine wouldn’t start. They were towed back to the gate and had to have the engine started with the help of an external cart of some sort. Could you explain what causes an engine to fail to start, how the external is used, and why it’s safe to fly in this condition?

That “the engine would not start” doesn’t sound right. That’s not telling me much. Starting a jet engine is a multi-step process and the malfunction could involve any of several components — not all of which are ultimately responsible for the continued running of the engine. Again, an airplane is not a car, and a jet engine does not start, stop or run the way a piston engine does.

Jet engines are started using compressed air, which is normally supplied either by the APU (the small auxiliary turbine in the back) or another, already running engine. This air spins the engine’s compressors to a certain minimum RPM, at which point fuel is introduced. Combustion then accelerates the compressors and turbines to “idle” speed, and the starter (air valve) is shut off.

It sounds to me like there was a problem with the APU generating adequate duct pressure to get the compressors spinning to the necessary RPM. Why this may have been happening I can’t say. There are different possibilities (duct problem, valve problem, unusually high elevation …). And so, an external air machine — sometimes referred to as an “air cart” or “huffer cart” — needed to be hooked up instead. In fact, before the advent of APUs (the Boeing 727 was the first jetliner to have one), jet engines were always started this way.

Once up and turning, jet engines don’t shut off or “stall” the way the engines in cars sometimes do. However, if for whatever reason an engine failure occurred later in flight and was to be restarted, this air problem no longer applies. You can use the APU, the other engine or the speed of the airplane — the airflow itself pushing into the engine — to turn the compressors to the required RPM.

More on the weirdness of jet engines here and here.

I was on a Southwest flight from Chicago to Portland, Ore. We were at 35,000 feet and the air was very choppy. The captain came on and apologized. He told us that although it was much smoother at 37,000 feet, we were “too heavy” to climb that high and would have to ride out the bumps for a while. Really? Why would another 2,000 feet make that much difference?

For fuel economy, if not a smoother ride, higher is always better, but planes can climb only as high as their weight allows. As you climb, the air thins. Engine output is reduced, and the wing cannot support as much airplane as it can down low. A given cruise altitude must account for both high-speed and low-speed stalls, in both smooth and turbulent conditions. Over the course of a flight, climb capabilities improve as fuel is burned away. The allowable altitude at any given time isn’t something you ballpark; there are specific maximum altitudes based on very specific weights, and they must be adhered to. The difference between 35,000 and 37,000 can be fairly significant.

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Don’t believe me? You can always “Ask the Pilot.” This guy, I mean. Introducing my latest imitator.

For that matter, would any of these measures have prevented the terrorist bombing of Pan Am 103? How about the bombings of Air India 182 or UTA 772?

Again the answer is no. It was bombs in the lower holds that got those planes.

I don’t know about you, but when I’m on a plane I worry a lot more about what’s going on below deck — in checked luggage and cargo — than I do about passengers and their carry-ons. The Transportation Security Administration tells us that all checked bags are scanned nowadays for explosives, and that’s about the most valuable thing the agency does for us. I just hope agents do it with as much over-the-top scrutiny as they use to paw through carry-ons looking for forks and toothpaste.

I’m traveling off-duty, just a regular old passenger. Approaching the body scanner, I “opt out,” as I always do. I’ll be taken aside for a thorough pat-down.

I don’t opt out because of worries about radiation. I do it because I find it appalling that passengers are effectively asked to pose naked in order to board an airplane. And because the scanners are strategically ineffective. I don’t “believe in them,” you might say. I mean, think about it: You’ve got a scanner at one checkpoint, but no scanner at the one right next to it; scanners at some terminals, but not at others. Are terrorists really that stupid? And what about overseas? If somebody is going to sneak something deadly through a checkpoint, it is far, far, far more likely to happen at an airport in Asia, Africa, South America or the Middle East, than in Peoria, Wichita or Cleveland.

Is this one of those “follow the money” situations? Are these machines really in the interest of safety? Is that what this is about? Or is it about the corporations who stand to make billions of dollars in their design and deployment? Why not explosives-sniffing dogs instead? Are they not just as effective, and cheaper and friendlier to boot? Or is that the problem?

I’m chatting with the TSA guard about this while he frisks me. He shrugs. “A lot of waste in government,” he says.

“Bag check!” A woman’s voice, loud.

Oh great. Off to the side, the X-ray machine has detected an extremely dangerous 6-ounce bottle of aloe vera gel in my roll-aboard.

“Is this your bag, sir?”

“Um, er, ah, yes.”

She sticks a gloved hand inside and pulls out the tube. The look she gives me — it’s a scolding sort of glare with an unmistakable glint of satisfaction.

“But … but it’s only half-full.”

“I don’t have a scale to weigh liquids, sir.”

“Why do you need a scale? You can just look at it. It’s a 6-once tube and obviously it’s only half-full.”

She doesn’t look. “Sorry. You cannot bring this through.”

“But …”

Plop. She throws my aloe into a waste barrel.

Aha! But in tossing it away like that, hasn’t she just admitted that the container is harmless? After all, if it was something potentially dangerous, you wouldn’t just fling it into the garbage.

Are TSA screeners looking for bombs, or are they looking for innocent liquids? I’m reminded of those tests I’d heard about, when, supposedly, water bottles were attached to mock-up bombs and sent through the X-ray machines. Screeners found the bottles, while the bombs went sailing through. “An Easter egg hunt for minor banned items,” in the words of former TSA chief Kip Hawley, from his upcoming book, “Permanent Emergency.”

“Look,” I say. ” Since you’re throwing that tube away, you’re telling me that you know it’s nothing harmful.”

Perturbed stare.

“So, like … can I have it back?”

She stares at me, clearly annoyed and unable to tell if I’m kidding or not.

I am kidding, of course. My gel is gone for good; another $4.65 into the TSA hole. But am I not correct at the same time? I’ve lost my property, but I feel that I’ve made a useful point and can walk away having established the upper hand. Yeah. I’m proud of my snappy little assessment: so tight, so logical and righteous!  Take that, TSA!

And it’s exactly at this moment, the screener’s eyes still fixed on me, that my cellphone goes slipping out of my hand. I drop it; catch it; drop it and catch it again. My arms are wiggling and flailing in a ridiculous little dance until finally the phone flies completely away from me. It goes clattering off a stack of gray bins and slides pathetically onto the floor — directly at the screener’s feet.

She picks up the phone and hands it to me. “Good day, sir.”

I skulk away feeling like the biggest goofball in the world.

And maybe this was a kind of divine intervention, a dose of humiliation engineered to shut me up and kick me on my way. A lesson summed up in two easy words: lost cause.

If the TSA’s tactical flaws are ever going to be fixed, it certainly won’t be me who gets it done. I spend too much time writing about it, and too much time worrying about it.

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GO-AROUNDS

Re: Airport bookstores, or lack thereof

As various emailers pointed out, not every airport bookshop is a glorified magazine stand. There are still some good retails options in U.S. terminals. Renaissance Books at Milwaukee, for example, got several kudos from readers. There’s Powell’s still at Portland’s PDX, I’m told. I can personally vouch for a place called BookLink (formerly a Borders franchise) at terminal A in Boston. Even JFK’s Terminal 3, for all its demerits, has a decent bookstore just inside the east-side security checkpoint, abeam gates 4 and 5.

And the following letter is from a vice president of Hudson Booksellers, one of the companies mentioned in my story:

Having been a buyer for airport bookstores for over 15 years, I have witnessed the amazing growth and diversification of airport bookselling, as well as the recent downturn, largely due to the e-book effect. Blending customer expectation with personal passion is the essence of our selection process. Yet, so frequently when we see Hudson in print, including in your article, we are pigeonholed as corporate peddlers of “airport books.” Clearly our message and product isn’t getting through the way we’d like.

Airport bookstores are in competition against many other product categories. For the last 15 years my team and I have been turning over every stone in trying to meet the challenge of bringing the best books to the most readers.  One of your reader comments mentioned — incredulously — discovering Roberto Bolaño at the airport in San Francisco. But that type of thing honestly happens every day at Hudson. We’ve sold hundreds of Bolaño’s novels, which are part of our core bookstore selection. You mention Gary Shteyngart, another personal favorite, who we have been promoting since “The Russian Debutante’s Handbook.” We went all out with “Absurdistan” and sold over 26,000 copies the year it came out, which I believe was more than 25 percent of all copies sold. We have many great locations with a locally curated assortment that I would put up against Powell’s or Compass, etc. — in Denver, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Newark, Raleigh.

I am also surprised at your statement about your own book, “Ask the Pilot.” We have carried your book since it came out in 2004, selling over 1,000 copies in one LAX store alone — thousands more over the years — and we are still carrying it in a few locations.

Sara Hinckley
Vice President of Book Purchasing & Promotions
Hudson Booksellers

Author’s note: In retrospect, I ought to have been a little more gracious in my references to Hudson.  Indeed, many of the chain’s airport outlets are full-fledged bookstores with a very good selection, and the chain did stock and sell many copies of my book when it was new. (Though, honestly, the thing is so out-of-date at this point that I’m pleased when I don’t find it for sale.)

Sure, there are places selling books — there are lots of places selling books — provided you’re interested in one of a tiny sample of titles. There was something vaguely North Korean about walking the length of the concourse and seeing the exact same hardcovers, over and over and over and over — Steve Jobs staring out at me every 20 steps or so from the shelves of any of 50 different shops, all utterly indistinguishable from one another.

Not long ago almost every major airport had a proper bookseller. Nowadays they are harder and harder to find. Usually, what passes as a bookstore is really just a newsstand. The vast majority of these outlets are owned and controlled by one of two companies: Hudson Group and an Atlanta-based company called Paradies Shops Inc. Both conduct business under numerous sub-brands that hawk a very thin selection of bestsellers, business books, thrillers and pop-culture trash.

The terminal guide at DTW told me there was something called Heritage Books — two of them, in fact, one at either end of the hall. That got my hopes up. Maybe I’d score a copy of Gary Shteyngart’s new novel.

As they say, good luck with that. Turns out that Heritage is just one of those Paradies Dba franchises.

They did stock a copy of Jonathan Franzen’s novel “Freedom” (yet not “The Corrections,” which was much better), and obviously no retailer can get by without a token Malcolm Gladwell or two, a gesture to the “sophisticated” reader who is seeking something headier than “American Sniper,” or the latest Suze Orman guide to success, or one of two — two! — books by Chelsea Handler.

I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

On the bright side, though, am I correct in observing that America’s fascination with Sudoku has begun to taper off?

Lingering resentment, yes. Several years ago I nearly had a nervous breakdown trying to get Paradies and Hudson to stock my own lousy little book, “Ask the Pilot — Everything You Need to Know About Air Travel.” I was stupid enough to think that the airport, of all places, might be a good selling point for a book exclusively about air travel. I’ll never make that mistake again. It was carefully explained to me that, no, it matters not what your book is about, captive audience be damned. What matters is getting on the company’s shortlist of airport-worthy bestsellers, or having your publisher pay for an airport promotion. Hudson carried “Ask the Pilot” briefly, into the fall of 2004, after which it disappeared from airports forever.

All of airport retailing, though, seems to suffer from a kind of dementia. This is something I explore in my famous essay, “What’s the Matter With Airports?” Enough already with the jewelry, the souvenir sweat shirts, the remote-control helicopters and the high-end luggage.

(The fixation with luggage is particularly strange to me. Who in the world buys luggage * after * they get to the airport? No wonder these places are always empty.)

How about something practical instead? Like a halfway decent bookstore.

But I digress.

Getting back to the positive…

Thanks to the many readers who contributed to my “Hidden Airport” collection. The idea, for those of you who missed it, is to highlight spots of unexpected pleasantness at U.S. airports. I showcased two: the garden adjacent to the Marine Air Terminal at New York’s LaGuardia, and the connector walkway between terminals B and C at Boston-Logan.

Several of you wrote in with pictures and descriptions of other little-knows oases. For example, the SFO Aviation Museum and Library at San Francisco International. But my favorite so far, I think, is the sculpture garden at the Greenville-Spartanburg (GSP) airport in South Carolina.  You can view it here in this interactive panorama put together by reader John Riley.

As to the worsts, they’ve obviously never been to the arrivals hall at Dakar (or, from what I’ve been told by several emailers, to N’djili Airport in Kinshasa, Congo). The best list, too, is a little strange. I’m unsure how fair it was including the Hajj terminal — a building that is open only six weeks each year and visited almost exclusively by pilgrims. Seoul’s Incheon airport is a well-deserved inclusion, but conspicuously absent is Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi. BKK ought to be there on aesthetic merits alone — its central terminal is one of the most stunning buildings I’ve ever seen.

I’m also disappointed to see JFK’s Terminal 5, the much overhyped home of JetBlue, rated near the top. As I’ve opined before, this building has to be one of the most disappointing airport projects of the last three decades. It’s certainly one of the ugliest. The airside view — the exterior as seen from the runways and taxiways — is criminally hideous. It looks like the back of a shopping mall; all that’s missing are some pallets and dumpsters. (Which is fitting, I suppose, given how the ongoing trend in airport design is to make terminals and malls utterly indistinguishable from each other.) On the inside … wow, hey, a food court. And although the terminal is only a few years old, already it’s overcrowded.

With scattered exceptions, U.S. airports don’t have a whole lot going for them. Putting aside aesthetics, cleanliness and a lack of public transport options, another thing that doesn’t help, and which you don’t hear about much, is that American airports simply do not recognize the “in transit” concept. All  passengers arriving from overseas, even if they’re merely transiting to a third country, are forced to clear customs and immigration, recheck their luggage, pass through TSA screening, etc. It’s an enormous hassle that you don’t find in most places overseas. Compare it to Singapore, Dubai, Frankfurt, Amsterdam and so on, where transit passengers walk from one gate to the next with a minimum of fuss.

Here’s how this hurts us: Flying from Australia to Europe, for instance, a traveler has the option of flying westbound, via Asia (namely Singapore, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur or Hong Kong) or the Middle East (Dubai, Qatar), or eastbound via the U.S. West Coast (Los Angeles or San Francisco). Even though the distance and flying times are about the same, almost everybody will opt for the westbound option. The airports are spotless and packed with amenities, while the connection is painless and efficient.

Change planes at LAX or SFO, on the other hand, and you’d have to stand in at least three different lines, be photographed and fingerprinted, collect and recheck your bags, endure the TSA rigmarole, and so on, just to change planes. Few passengers will choose this option, and I suspect it costs our airlines many millions annually in lost revenue. Indeed, this is part of what has made carriers like Emirates, Singapore Airlines and others so successful.

But now …

So that you don’t accuse me of harping on the negative, allow me to introduce a new feature. I’m calling it “Hidden Airport.” The idea is to highlight little-known spots of unexpected pleasantness at U.S. airports. It can be a place for some peace and quiet, an unusually good restaurant, etc. It should be somewhere out of the ordinary and relatively unknown — an escape spot.

I’ll start things off with two:

1. I’ve already written at length about the Marine Air Terminal at LaGuardia Airport in New York City. This historic art deco building, in a far southwest corner of LGA, adjacent to the Delta Shuttle, 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, as well as Rocco Manniello’s Yankee Clipper restaurant — a good greasy-spoon place that is one of the few remaining non-chain airport restaurants. What few people know about, however, is the cozy garden just outside. Facing the building, it’s to the right of the main entryway, set back from the street. It’s a quiet, tree-shaded hideaway amid grass, flowers and shrubs. There’s even … well, I guess sculpture is the best description. Grab a sandwich from the Yankee Clipper and enjoy it on one of the wooden benches.

Getting 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 some time.

2. The connector walkway between Terminals B and C at Logan International Airport in Boston.  This isn’t one of the newer, elevated walkways with the inlaid sea life mosaics, cool as they are, but rather the old, main-level passageway between gates used by AirTran and Virgin America. Massport has installed a series of whimsically painted rocking chairs that face floor-to-ceiling windows with a view of the runways. There’s relatively little foot traffic and, best of all, no public address speakers. It’s a quiet, sunny location to read, send some text messages or otherwise relax.

Getting there: From terminal C, walk toward B. From B, walk toward C. Stay on the main level; don’t take the stairways into the elevated walkways.

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Do you have questions for Salon’s aviation expert? Contact Patrick Smith through his website and look for answers in a future column.

Answer: confiscating a fork from a uniformed, on-duty airline pilot.

It happened the other day in Mexico City, at the special crew inspection checkpoint at Benito Juarez International Airport. Yes, I’m dropping the “American” part and changing the name to the “Security Hysteria Hall of Shame,” since, as you’ll see, we are not the only ones who have lost our minds.

I knew there was trouble when the X-ray belt came to a stop and I was asked to open my bag.

The offending item was a fork — one of the small, five-inch kinds more or less identical to those dispensed by airlines in first and business class. Like my long-lost knife, it was part of the silverware pack that I carry in my luggage for those late-night hotel room ramen feasts.

“No, no, no, no,” said the guard. “You cannot take this.”

Really? Let’s ignore for a moment the fact that even the most hell-bent of terrorists isn’t going to get very far with a hand-held weapon of any kind, let alone something as goofy as a fork. The logic in play here is something simpler: Every day, hundreds of thousands of stainless steel forks, not to mention knives, are handed out to passengers in the forward cabins of airplanes. (And why not? The hijacking paradigm exploited on Sept. 11 no longer exists.) Yet on-duty pilots are not allowed to carry them through the checkpoint?

“No, no, no, no.”

“Pero … en el avion … el mismo!” I pleaded, deftly employing five of the 11 words I know in Spanish.

No sale.

And this is the moment when I expected the camera to appear. It was all a joke, right? The guard would break out laughing and slap me on the shoulder. “Estoy jugando, señor! Yo vi su artículo en Salon!”

Instead I got a “Sorry, sir,” and a kind of shrug-wince. For what it mattered, his expression was sympathetic, and I could tell that he understood. He knew the rule was a silly one (I mean, how could he not?). He wanted to make an exception, but was powerless — or afraid — to do so.

This is the lunatic world of security we now live in: one of blind adherence, stripped of reason and logic, in which even the stupidest policies are enforced to the letter of the law.

It gets worse. Together with my fork was a plastic picnic knife — my sad replacement for the metal one taken by TSA. This too was of concern. At one point the supervisor carefully ran his fingers across its deadly serrations, mumbling instructionally to his colleague.

The picnic knife was given the all-clear and returned to me. The fork, though, would be tossed into a bin, carted off to wherever it is that airport security brings its troves of pilfered property. (I propose these raw materials be melted down and used to build new terminals, each with a majestic fountain in the center bubbling with recycled soft drinks, shampoo and mouthwash.)

And so everybody was that much safer.

There’s that expression: “You can’t make this up.” Well, really, you can’t. My head spins and my bones ache just writing about it.

Like I said, we’re not the only ones who’ve gone off the security deep end. I’ve encountered similar nonsense in Thailand, Nicaragua, the U.K.

In the meantime, did you catch the front-page New York Times story about the drug-smuggling and theft ring broken up at Kennedy Airport in New York? Apparently dozens of American Airlines luggage handlers were involved in a years-long operation in which they stole from passengers’ suitcases and smuggled cocaine in aircraft cargo holds. They would, in some cases, hide the drugs behind the sidewall panels of the lower-deck compartments.

Baggage handlers, by the way, do not have to pass through airport security. Not before 9/11, and not since. They, like almost all tarmac workers, are subject only to occasional, random TSA checks.

I realize that the vast majority of airport ground staff are honest employees and not criminals or terrorists. I’m not suggesting that they, too, be required to hand over their forks. That’s not the point, pardon the pun. It’s not that they aren’t patted down and X-rayed and relieved of their pointy things, it’s that pilots (and flight attendants) are.

Could there be a more demented double standard? It basically nullifies everything we’ve been asked to believe about the supposed importance of screening airline crew members. And no offense to the hardworking baggage handlers, fuelers, caterers, cabin cleaners and mechanics out there, but who is the higher-risk employee from a security perspective, a tarmac worker or a pilot? I suppose anything is possible, but let’s be realistic. If we’re going to screen at all, can we at least do it rationally?

As we speak, a program is being tested that, assuming all goes well, will eventually allow on-duty pilots to bypass the normal checkpoint. It’s a simple enough process that confirms a pilot’s identity by matching up airline and government-issue credentials with information stored in a database. That it took 10 years and counting for this to happen, however, is absurd.

I know this comes across as a self-serving complaint, but ultimately this isn’t about pilots. It’s about how diseased our approach to security is overall. A system that is stupid enough to devote valuable time and resources relieving pilots of tableware isn’t just an unfair one, but a potentially dangerous and self-defeating one.

And I needn’t be reminded of the indignities endured by passengers. What’s further unfortunate about the incident down at Benito Juarez is that it steals the thunder of a reader named Stacey Goldring, who shared with me a story of such sublime brainlessness that, until I lost my fork, was ready to take top honors in my Hall of Shame.

One day, flying from Dallas to Jacksonville, Fla., Goldring and her toddler son were refused passage through the TSA checkpoint because they boy was carrying … get ready now … his Star Wars lightsaber. A lightsaber, if you’re not familiar, is a flashlight with a plastic cone attached — or, perhaps more to the point, a toy in the shape of a make-believe weapon from a galaxy, and a line of reasoning, far, far away.

“I believe it was green,” says Goldring, “indicating my son’s future Jedi path. We were told by the TSA professionals that the saber, which technically is something that does not exist, was a weapon. We were escorted out of security and sent to the ticket counter, where I had to fill out paperwork in order to check the lightsaber in as baggage.”

That might have the fork story beat, actually.

Like I said, you can’t make this up.

The saddest part is that few people seem to care. We grumble, we gripe, and sometimes we laugh, but there is little if any organized push to change this madness, neither by citizens nor their elected leaders. In the end, we get what we deserve.

As for me and my silverware, my patience can’t bear these episodes anymore. I think I’m switching to chopsticks.

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Congrats to Jerry Aubin, of Austin, Texas, for winning last week’s Hüsker Dü trivia contest.

The questions was this: There is a mistake in the liner notes to the “Zen Arcade” album. What is it?

“Who ever wrote the song sings it,” it says among the credits, “except for ‘Somewhere,’ which Grant wrote the words for.” This doesn’t make sense, as Grant has the vocals on that song.

Not even Paul Hilcoff, host of the mind-bendingly thorough Hüsker Dü archive site, knew the answer offhand.

Aubin gets one of the last remaining Ask the Pilot baseball caps, autographed ballplayer-style under the brim. I have one or two left, as well as a handful of small and medium-size T-shirts. My pre-holiday clearance sale is on: your choice for $10, including shipping.

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Do you have questions for Salon’s aviation expert? Contact Patrick Smith through his website and look for answers in a future column.