“9 in the morning on a Tuesday? This is unreal,” my mom exclaims as our car pulls up to the curb outside of Reagan National Airport. We are greeted by little more than vast emptiness on the expansive curb, with a couple of distant figures milling about outside the sliding doors that lead to the check-in area. Where there might otherwise be people wriggling past each other and flocking to the doors with their suitcases clunking behind them, there is a single plastic bag being blown toward the pavement. My eyes dart back and forth as I try to make sense of the lack of activity. “Apocalyptic” might be the word most commonly used to describe the various activity hubs in which human interaction has all but ceased, yet the word that pops into my mind first is “sad.”
Sad? I despise airports. I have never made it through even the easiest of flights – approximately an hour and fifteen minutes between DC and Boston – without whining internally about something. When I enter the airport and head to the JetBlue check-in kiosks, I take note of all the now-absent elements that I have trained myself to look out for through years of travel: suitcase wheels rumbling on tile. People weaving around each other competitively in the chaos of dropping off bags and racing to security checkpoints. Irritated chatter between traveling companions. Out of instinct, I am poised to join the milieu – to race to the nearest kiosk and ensure that I can secure a spot in the line to check my bag before the family of five near me does. Instead, I am greeted by disconcerting silence. My suitcase screeches awkwardly across the floor, and I am startled when an attendant shrilly instructs me to move my bag onto the scale. When a single voice unnerves me in an environment where there would ordinarily be multiple voices creating a background roar, what does that say about the current state of affairs?
Unlike the human presence in concert halls and sports stadiums, the bustle of activity in airports is an inconvenience rather than an asset in normal circumstances. The excitement produced by joining together in a collective cheer or brushing shoulders with strangers are what bring recreational gatherings their positive flair, and such close human contact is part of the experience people pay for. However, this connectivity tends to have the opposite effect in places where people are in transit instead of at their intended destination. It has taken a pandemic to make the disappearance of rush hour traffic and boarding lines seem less like a welcome change and more like a shock. As my plane boards in less than five minutes, I recognize that an airport without its human masses is one of the prime examples of a world frozen in place. Being in an empty airport hurts just as much as walking past a row of shuttered bars and restaurants.
Half an hour later, after the novelty of having a row of seats to myself has vanished, I gaze out the window. The sky has the same timeless, immaculate beauty it has always had when I’ve flown, and I reflect on the fact that I would ordinarily feel a person’s gaze over my shoulder as they tried to join me in peeking out the window. When a flight attendant stops by to drop off a cup of water, I realize that my “thank you” is almost too muffled to understand when it comes from behind my mask and my smile is hidden. Will I, a typically cranky traveler, appreciate the cramped seating, long lines, and jostling bodies that are characteristic of airport travel when they return? It is certainly possible, and perhaps I will come to consider the airport experience as less of a competition and more of a shared bonding experience.
