Now Hear This: Flying not as bad as Oakland fans
I had not flown since before Sept. 11, 2001, and hearing all the stories about the difficulties of maneuvering through airport security, I was sure time delays would occur, and other irritations of air travel. I wasn’t overly excited about my flight to Oakland for the AFC Championship game between the Titans and Raiders.
When was the last time you walked to your plane — outside, in the open air — without walking through the portable runway that leads from just beyond the ticket counter to the door of the plane?
Maybe 1966.
By now I was really having to work with my attitude. Granted this was not a 747 we were hitching a ride on for the first leg of the flight to Oakland which stopped in Dallas. As I approached the plane, OUTSIDE, the question that burned within was, does this thing have propellers?
I was relieved to see there was indeed a jet in my future. It would seat only about 100 passengers, but there’s something to be said for smaller numbers, I suppose, when flying through the air, aboard a projectile traveling at several hundred miles per hour.
Just as I approached the STEPS of the plane “steps of the plane,” does that somehow sound really odd to you? Already in an altered state of mind, I shuddered, remembering a recent article I had read in some publication that outlined all the things you can’t carry on an airplane, and wondered how many of my fellow passengers passed the “Banned Items,” Fliers Aptitude Test?
The article stated from February to November of 2001, airline passengers tried to carry 3.7 million dangerous objects on planes across this nation. Despite government warnings, and repeated news stories since 9/11, the Transportation Security Administration reported that unmindful travelers attempted to board planes with these items:
• 1,014,857 knives
• 58,132 incendiary devices
• 35,929 box cutters
• 11,615 clubs
• 981 firearms
• one brick
• one toy canon with ammunition
As I walked to my seat, I couldn’t help but scan and mentally profile those that would be traveling with me at a very high altitude. I picked out four or five who I thought could be a terrorist in disguise.
The man who sat just in front of me looked suspicious. He probably smuggled a meat cleaver on board, I thought. The man across the aisle ? did he get a hatchet through inspection in his briefcase? The woman behind me with a baby (a great decoy), did she have a saw or saber hidden in her back pack? I didn’t even know if the friendly flight attendant wasn’t one of the bad guys!
Our trip was uneventful, which is the very best thing you could ever say about flying, and we landed safely in Oakland. Then came game day, and it started all over again. Three hours before kickoff, arriving at Network Associates Coliseum – FEAR! Raider fanatics were everywhere. I got the sense that everything the federal government had banned on airplanes, were legal, and proudly displayed in Oakland.
It was like four hours in an insane asylum!
I couldn’t wait to return to the safe, and friendly skies of America aboard flight 869 ? seat A-12.
(Hope Hines is a television sports reporter and a Nashville personality.)