What a great way to fly

[austin_dern]

More miscellaneties: My flight gave me a stop at Tokyo-Narita; I've had Hong Kong stops more often lately and I'm a bit amazed I have trends in my round-the-world flights. Atypically, there's something strange at Narita. To make a connection, the plane stops on the tarmac, you walk down those little sliding metallic stairs like in 1960s footage of Adlai Stevenson addressing the Beatles at Idlewild, and go to a packed shuttle-bus. Then they drive past eternal construction, to a terminal.

Then (I think this is all) into the building, left, right, up the escalators, out, back, to the security screeners (they give laminated ``claim checks'' for your basket of pocket items), left, left, down an escalator, forward, left, and straight to the new gate. If you make it they give you a slice of cheddar and a belly-rub. I've only once (I think) avoided the tarmac ritual; we got in late and were told we had 41 seconds to connect. They pulled that plane up to the gate next to our connecting one, and we ran.

But, then, the service staff at Narita wear great, shiny metallic-stuff with red-stripes-down-the-side uniforms. It's been a happy fourteen years since I had a job requiring a uniform, but if I must, I'd like one that screams ``Ace of Space Rocket Squadron Cadet''.

Trivia: ``Helpmate'' was formed by a folk-etymological correction of ``help meet'' (as in, ``help fitting/fit for''). Source: The origins and development of the English language, Thomas Pyles and John Algeo.

Currently Reading: Living Dolls: A Magical History of the Quest for Mechanical Life, Gaby Wood.

Comments

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

To make a connection, the plane stops on the tarmac, you walk down those little sliding metallic stairs like in 1960s footage of Adlai Stevenson addressing the Beatles at Idlewild, and go to a packed shuttle-bus. Then they drive past eternal construction, to a terminal.

This happened to me frequently in Dallas and Houston, to make the switch from Waco-based Turboprop planes to Jets. Of course, in Waco, you got off at the tarmac and walked to the terminal- very small regional airport, that was.

In neither case was the terminal jog quite that bad, though- but it was within-one-airline for me, and also, not in Japan.

--Chiaroscuro

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Albany's airport used to do that too, until the 1990s when they got a whomptillion dollars in bonds and renovated. Now it's just like any other Big Airport; hardly any fun at all ...

[xolo.livejournal.com]

When I visited Findra back in January, I had to deplane at San Jose on the little truck-mounted steps, then cross the tarmac into the terminal under a portable canvas weather awning. It was like stepping back into the 60s. When I left, I got back on the same way :)

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

That's how San Jose was when I visited about six years ago, too. In fact, since I took off from Albany, which at the time had the same walk-out-on-the-tarmac form, I was able to begin and end with the metal roller stairs. Only a stop in Detroit spoiled things, as stops in Detroit often will.

My Ontario-to-Los Angeles International flight on that tiny prop plane also went tarmac to tarmac, although I have a minimum of pictures of that for previously mentioned reasons.