(Re)Learning How to Travel
The world is re-opening and we’re all a little rusty…
Prior to 2020, I racked up 100,000 air miles every year. I was that guy: the business traveller with all the perks, breezing through security on my way to the airline lounge. Insufferable.
Then for 400 days I didn’t set foot in an airport. All of my travel muscles atrophied. I became the Tin Man of Business Travel. Recently, as I prepared for my first flight after being frozen so long, my mom joked “do you still know how to travel?” We had a good laugh.
It turns out the answer was “no.”
Tip #1: Give yourself 2x more pre-flight time than you think
The morning of the flight, I was bug-eyed and panicking in the airport parking lot. I faced the real possibility that I was going to miss my flight, something I hadn’t done since the Clinton administration.
For decades, I had honed a day-of-flight routine: I could leave my house 90 minutes before flight time and have plenty of wiggle room.
Turns out you need more wiggle room right now.
I had hailed a ride-share at 4:30 am, only to learn that there was a shortage of drivers nationwide, and none in Portland that morning. This led to a hasty Plan B of driving myself and parking at the airport, cutting away all of my wiggle room.
As I sat in the airport parking lot, fumbling to find my ID and scrambling through my backpack for my mask, I screeched in alarm when the car began to roll into the next row of cars. In my haste I had forgotten to set the emergency brake.
Dashing into the airport, I found that the TSA checkpoints had moved, most restaurants were closed and restrooms were consolidated to only a few.
I did make it to the gate in time, by the skin of my rusty teeth. Tip 1: Calculate how much time you think you need on the day of your flight, and then double it.
Tip #2: Give the airline workers some grace
My favorite airline is Alaska, and they’ve gotten very high marks for their service throughout the pandemic. Still, even they seem a little rusty right now.
For instance, I was flying out of the Portland airport but the day before the flight I got a high priority message about the check in protocols at a different airport. A few days earlier, I received an email inviting me to pre-order an in-flight meal but once you followed the link to the order page there was no way to, well, pre-order food.
My first instinct was annoyance: c’mon folks. But then I thought about it. I’ve flown Alaska for 20 years and they are routinely rated number one for customer service. Why would they be tripping up right now?
Consider the 15 months they’ve had. First, their customer base and revenue flat-lined overnight, forcing them to take drastic action and cut thousands of jobs.
Simultaneously, they had to change nearly every aspect of their business to meet safety protocols. Now as economies reopen, they are training new staff and creating yet more new processes while millions of eager travelers are flooding in.
And we eager travelers are, let’s not forget, rusty too. Even the best of businesses can be forgiven for sending an email to the wrong mailing list, or forgetting to turn on the “purchase” buttons on their pre-order page.
Which gave me Tip #2 of traveling right now: You’re rusty, they’re rusty. Before you lash out, put yourself in their shoes. Give ‘em a break.
Tip #3: Try to laugh about it
The announcements in the boarding area were stern and surprisingly precise: Masks are absolutely required to board. Bandanas are not masks. Scarves are not masks. Gators are masks but only if you “double them up.”
Alaska Air is legendary for their friendliness, but when it comes to masks, you can tell they weren’t smiling under theirs. In fact, at Alaska Air, not even elected officials get a pass, thankfully.
As we Tin People emerge, folks like the Alaska Air gate agents have never stopped showing up every day. They’ve seen it all and heard it all and should be forgiven for a little sternness to keep us all safe. Per Tip #2, we need to give them a break.
At the same time, they haven’t lost their humor. After multiple admonitions before boarding, the onboard flight attendant took a different approach: “I know you all have the cutest noses, but we don’t want to see them today.”
The whole plane laughed. You can’t see a smile through a mask, but you can hear laughter, which feels rare and special on a plane right now. The flight attendant’s graciousness reminded me that as we all stumble back into travel, a little humor goes a long way.
Tip #4: Give yourself a break, too
After the flight landed, I unzipped my backpack to find everything in it soaking wet. Snacks, electronics, hoodie, all of it was drenched. Rooting through the soggy mess, I soon found the culprit — I had left the lid of my water bottle open. Now completely empty, the water bottle was the only thing in the backpack that wasn’t wet.
In all my years of business travel, I have never done that before. Sitting in my seat, with the airplane taxiing to the gate, I went through several stages of anger and frustration at myself. Arg! Rookie mistake!
But as I repacked the bag, I took a breath and accepted my own rust. Nothing is normal about now, and nothing is normal about you either. Take a breath. Give yourself a break.
To summarize: Give yourself more time, give the airlines a little grace, and try not to take everything so seriously, including yourself. The Tin Man didn’t stay rusty forever and neither will you.
