by Jey Sushil

I was trying not to think, or possibly I was not in the mental state to think anymore. It had been 40 hours since I slept, arranging for my sudden flight to India. My…

by Connie Timpson

It wasn’t a matter of scary people with explosives, drugs, or even overspending without reporting. It was a matter of apples. Red ones. Jet lagged, sporting airplane hair, and cranky about Air France’s awful

by Barrie Brewer

The flight from Lima to Cusco was like something out of a horror movie. The wheelchair was a dead giveaway. Our son Goose was so weak we had to wheel his limp body from…

by Aisha Piracha

You sit at the edge of your seat in the boarding area, cradling your hand luggage. You see everyone lining up like sardines all rolled up in a tin, but they are actually upright,…

by Marie Soubranne as told to Hyokyung Park

In January of this year, I came to the United States for my exchange semester. My father and I took a plane from Paris to New York. But just before boarding, I realized that…

by Nadir Benslimane

When I attempt to recollect my memories from my journey to France, the memories of Paris pop out vividly: winding streets down to a small corner cafe; the crisp morning air as sunlight parted…

by Emani Leefort

Six thirty a.m. at the Louis Armstrong International Airport. Who books a flight for that early in the morning? Answer: a scholarship foundation. Once a year, every year, all scholars go to the Mentoring…

by Vivien Marx

My suitcase is far too plump but it closes and the zipper is strong. Some travelers manage a long trip with two t-shirts, three pieces of underwear, and a toothbrush. That’s not me in…

by Claire Mitchell

Most people go through childhood viewing their parents as human adjacent. As a kid I thought my parents never had a human emotion until they drank too much, or when we attended funerals. Really…

by Alyx Marroquin

I’m convinced that airplanes, airports, and everything to do with them exist out of time. They are liminal spaces that hold everything transitory, including our memories and feelings. Nothing that happens within ex

by Miller Nichols

We had always driven out there. A two-day road trip to Santa Fe, New Mexico, was a regular, biannual pilgrimage for me and my family to visit my dad’s parents and siblings. However, this…

by Noah Rozzell

Many people get nervous when traveling. The feeling of impending doom starts to bubble up, and images of lost bags, missed connections, and crashed planes start lodging in one's mind. Fear not, though, there…

by Damari Esqueda

I remember only two things from the first time I rode in an airplane. One: my mom took two dramamine that knocked her out, a precaution so her eardrums wouldn't pop. And two: the…

by Mae Bennett

I concealed some shame for a very long time for not having left America in my first twenty-two years. (Champagne problems, I know.) When my friends began to study abroad sophomore and junior years,…

by Phoebe Swetish

Supposedly, there is a law stating that every word in the Icelandic language must contain at least one acute accent, indicating an elongated or emphasized vowel. I’m not sure how well this information would…

by Erin Murphy

Model plane, plane delay. Butterfly net, net income. Kite string, string theory. You have a knapsack packed with every reason for whiskey: a woman who loves you for loving her, a boss you call…

by Drew Payne

The airport’s hand soap had only been used to scrub my hands and forearms, just below the elbows, but its cloying scent lingered as if I had bathed in it. I had felt infected…

by Parker Emerson

We arrive at the United Airlines counter at Southern California's Ontario International Airport three hours before the scheduled 10:56 a.m. departure time to check our bags. There are six other people in line, but…

by Pavle Radonic

At the terminal and passing the boutiques the adjustment was always needed for the frequent flyers. First-classers even, if not A-listers, might be sprinkled there too. Directly from the street a little shock was…

by Cross McCoy

There is nothing that can soothe the mind-grating experience of standing in a line, served through the system like slop through troughs, then ordered to remove your shoes. You must even place your phone…

by Pavle Radonic

For a fellow who had missed FOUR internat. flights, 2 ½ hrs early by the gate was A-OK. At the boutiques along the corridors the ice-cold starlets had loomed with bags & watches, calling…

by Elaine Joy Edaya Degale

I purchased last-minute tickets to Cuba. This was my first solo-trip. I started writing this in Miami when I was on a ten-hour layover from my long, and very cheap, journey to Havana. Without…

by Crockett Doob

Sometimes you date your opposite. This is common enough. My parents are opposites. My mom the talker; my dad not. This woman I dated was a lot like my mother, which normally would repel…

by Pavle Radonic

Touch over 35mins on clear, open freeways in Jakarta on a Saturday; as soon as we cleared Thamrin City it was a breeze. As a consequence there would be a 4 hour wait at…

by Eleni Stephanides

At the table next to me inside the airport restaurant, I hear a brother explain what braces are to his younger sister. A blond boy with short legs holds a mug of coffee in…

by Natalie Elward

I have a love-hate relationship with airports. Mostly hate, if I’m being honest. I appreciate the grandeur of being able to travel such great distances, but there is still always an acute form of…

by Sophia Lyons

It was early in the morning and the sky was still asleep. Generally, I had two to three more hours of sleep. It was so early even the birds were asleep. Stretching my legs,…

by Charles J. March III

At the airport, a man sat down to empty his bowels before boarding, and self-consciously questioning whether he should release his initial gas like a gentleman, he instead decided to let it fly, and…

by Won Lee

Almost missed my flight to Portland. Woke up at 730 in the morning, triple-checked Benjamin's flat for forgotten items, lugged/dragged my much-too-heavy suitcase down an interminable number of steps, exerting my fles

by Joan Potter

In a wooden jewelry box on my bedroom dresser, along with some old beads, a bunch of unmatched earrings, and a broken wristwatch, is a metal coin bearing the raised image of an airplane…

by Nadine Dolby

I hurry towards the gate at JFK. This is a journey I have made many times, and I feel a rush of anticipation and excitement as I begin to hear more and more travelers…

by Yvonne Osborne

He was slim and well-dressed with a nice haircut, not too short, not too long. He wore a black tailored jacket and well-made jeans. His black leather shoes showed no sign of the slush…

by James Robertovich

I had made sure my coins, masks, wallet, and all were in my backpack, leaving “nothing but air” in my pockets, as the TSA agent commanded. Soon my backpack came out of the scanner,…

by Ellen Beldner

Twelve years ago I swore a blood oath to never again fly British Airways. Do you know what it feels like to have a urinary tract infection? You have a fierce urge to urinate…

by Stephanie R. Pearmain

The first time I boarded a plane to Honolulu, it was a one-way ticket and I cried most of the flight. I’d just turned 15 and while more than once in the recent past…

by Suzanne Weerts

I literally missed the train by one croissant from the breakfast buffet stuffed in my purse, one hand heart-directed at my daughter as I went down one escalator and she headed up another toward…

by Crystal Byers

I’m not a frequent flyer. Sometimes I forget the rules. As I approached the security checkpoint at George Bush Intercontinental, I removed all items from my pockets and placed my carry-on items into the…

by Jehan Ramadan

A few years ago I was working at an airline lounge when a mother and her two grown daughters approached me at the front desk. Whoever said good things come in threes had never…

by Gail Brady

For as long as I can remember I have been fascinated with travel, perhaps a manifestation of my Celtic-Gypsy soul. Even in utero I was transported across the country from Boston to Los Angeles…

by Bridget Smith

When you fly on anything smaller than a jet, I have news for you: you are cargo. And as cargo, what you weigh is crucial. In Alaska where I live, small planes rule—and not…

by Anyonita Green

Somewhen between 9/11 and the last global recession, European airlines offered flights at tantalisingly low prices. Every Tuesday, RyanAir, EasyJet and other budget operators would release hundreds of seats on dozens of

by Victoria Houser

When the plane left Terminal C at Ted Stevens International Airport, it traveled over 18 years of silent longing and hidden assault. As we gradually picked up speed, I watched the tarmac lines disappear,…

by Jade Arvizu

It’s going to be different this time. You’ll be ok. Breath. Don’t be afraid! Don’t cry! This is my travel mantra. Internally on repeat, over and over at the onset of every trip to…

by Richard Klin

The Lufthansa flight from Milan, bound ultimately for New York, was crowded and uncomfortable. I needed to switch planes in Frankfurt, which elicited no great reaction on my part. While I preferred direct flights,…

by Chris Brauer

I love traveling. The more I travel, the more I want to experience the world and meet new people. But I’m not good at traveling. While I like being there, I am terrible at…

by Tomoé Hill

Speak to me of love; I will speak to you of wings. The too-bright rising sun glinting on metal; sharp angles cutting through clouds; the mechanical sounds of a plane beginning its descent above…

by Dan Morey

All flights from Erie, Pennsylvania, depart from the clumsily titled Erie International Airport Tom Ridge Field. Not only does this name fail to roll (or even crawl) off the tongue, but it is also…

by Paul C. Dalmas

You know the moment. Bleary-eyed from a long air trip, you slouch at the baggage carousel with your fellow passengers sharing a single unspoken question: Did my luggage make it? A bell sounds. Machinery…

by Michaela Brady

My last breath of outside had not yet swept through my lungs before I found myself inside yet again. After wiggling out of the leather-scented headache of the limo, I had taken a slow,…

by Richard Kiln

The Lufthansa flight from Milan, bound ultimately for New York, was crowded and uncomfortable. I needed to switch planes in Frankfurt, which elicited no great reaction on my part. While I preferred direct flights,…

by Tom McCarron

Thoughts of kickflips and 50/50 grinds slid through my mind as if on a polished granite ledge. The thoughts flipped and spun and twisted my head into a different world. Skateboarding; and I could…

by Chris Wiewiora

At arrivals, a man stood with his chest out. His middle stretched against his seaweed green wool sweater. The man smiled at Dad. “Czesc, Zdzichu,” Dad said. Dad and Zdzichu hugged. I’d only seen…

by Alina Stefanescu

SCENARIO A young pregnant female stands in the security line at Birmingham International Airport. She works at a DC nonprofit but flies back to Alabama for ob-gyn appointments. The wedding ring is missing. RISK…

by Hanna Maxwell

Hour three in the Newark airport. I could see the skyline of New York from Terminal C. We’d landed after turbulence and clouds that looked as if you could sit in them. We knew…

by Ben Read

The only time I’ve ever eaten McDonald’s without feeling guilt was in the Denver Airport. I was hungry. The hash browns were good. Who cares about deforestation before 6am? My brother, parents, grandparents,

by Scott Saalman

So, everyone has boarded our transoceanic aircraft at O’Hare. The flight safety message has started. It’s the kind you watch on TV monitors, not a flight attendant’s live reenactment of what you should

by Lisa Kay Adam

As our flight lifted over the city, he thought he could pick out which house was his friend's, the one with the swimming pool—among house after house with pools sprawling in the paisley pattern…

by Mark Edwin Jenkins

I’m on my way back to Poland, where I’ve been a dozen times designing Western-style shopping malls in Eastern Europe. Flying from my home in Dallas to Toronto on the first leg of my…

by Susan Harlan

I always see soldiers in airports. This is just about the only place I see them. I see them in the Charlotte Douglas airport, especially around the holidays. Alone. In groups. In uniform. I…

by Lauren NuDelman

I’ve been in plenty uncomfortable situations on airplanes before: the requisite overweight passenger suffocating my comfort zone, or the squalling baby who cries as her ears pop with the altitude change. There was

by Miles Stearns

I was young and asleep and dreaming of things which get lost upon waking. It had been a long day in the Mexico City airport. My asthma acted up almost immediately upon arriving and…

by Bobby Schweizer

Looking at the bustling bodies in an airport or the rows of seated passengers in a plane, it would seem that air travel is about people. People take business trips, visit their families, and…

by Merrill Sunderland

All around me is the snap, crackle, pop, sigh, hiss, shloop, and swoosh of air. In this airplane, I’m vacuum-sealed like packaged meat, yet air moves all around me. Changing places. Over water and…

by Kevin M. Flanagan

I first visited Pittsburgh in Summer 2003. When the friend who was hosting me asked what I wanted to see, the only thing I can remember mentioning was the Monroeville Mall. I knew very…

by Jennifer Ng

I never planned to carry the laptop. The 15” Macbook Pro was intended to be left on my desk at work—like a dying patient perched on a translucent stand and with cords snaking to…

by Jennifer Weitman

It was that damn kid. That crying baby did it. The couple next to me—tanned and ugly—argued about the hot sauce they’d have to throw away because someone forgot to put it in their…

by Patrici Flores

I’m either an idiot, or I enjoy the surprises that come from terrible planning. My ego much prefers the latter as an excuse for my hastiest decisions, including the time I jumped on cheap…

by Amanda Williams

The Korean cab driver is missing half of his teeth, has chew stuck in his bottom lip, and reeks of Kimchi, the fermented cabbage that sits in the sun for months baking on Korean…

by Koty Neelis

I rush to my gate only to realize I have an extra 45 minutes to waste. I sit down, fidgeting nervously. Children are screaming. I hear languages I don’t know how to speak. Loud…

by Nathan C. Martin

I remember passing a Nalgene bottle—a popular outdoor accoutrement in the West—full of Red Bull and vodka around the car on the way to Salt Lake City International Airport. My 19-year-old girlfriend and I…

by Naomi Bryant

For my dad (1963-2011), who flew away.... We settled down at the east end of the airport, waiting for the next flight. Everything was quiet. It was the time of morning when people…

by Kevin Haworth

We will not cross paths with the bodies. We are due at Ben Gurion airport in just a few hours, and we are deep into the final busy-ness of moving out of our Tel…

by Anna Hearn

I have lost track of the many, many miles I have clocked in the air and at various airports around the world. Some airports, Singapore Changi Airport for instance, are like five-star hotels, whilst…

by Gaia Veenis

“You’re traveling into the future,” my friend typed into a Facebook chat box before I embarked on the 17-hour journey across the international dateline to his hometown of Melbourne, Australia. I was cou

by Stefani Cox

One look at the situation and I knew I could outsmart TSA. The body scanner stood in the middle of the room like the rude intruder at a party who everyone wants to pretend…

by JP Hatcher

Though I have always been a steadfast athlete and competitor, I lack grace in my day-to-day endeavors. Perhaps it is because my anxious mind is always focused on anything else but what I’m doing…

by Nicole Lee

I could see airplanes landing and taking off in a steady stream as we approached the airport. Jumbo jets thundering in from their long haul across the Atlantic; small planes circling like flighty songbirds…

by Fredric Stanley

I had been standing in the departure area, leaning against a column right in front of the boarding gate, when I noticed my flight's status change on the screen. At first it just said…

by Anita Breland

My first impressions of India are also nearly my last. I have arrived in Mumbai on a sultry January evening, after an eight-hour flight from wintry Zurich. En route, I daydreamed of temple processions,…

by Anca L. Szilágyi

I’m a firm believer in write-what-you-desperately-want-to-know. Research, empathize, repeat. It’s not impossible to write beyond your own experience or beyond your own precise demographic. But it is a risk. I

by Lisa McKenzie

I don’t remember the airport and I don’t remember the year, but I’ll never forget the poor able-bodied soul who exited the handicapped stall to find a line of five wheelchairs and five attendants…

by Jeff Hawthorne

Passing through TSA security checkpoints has become like a Stanley Kubrick film, with partially clothed adults meeting randomly for moody conversation and dark rituals. People under the age of 18 really should have their

by Giulianna Di Nenna

Life-searching questions arise at night, after sunset, and not just on park benches along river banks. Watching rushing water, reflecting upon its cleansing qualities, can soothe. If only I could have been near a…

by Ilana Nunes

When he and his 10 siblings were born, my heart experienced one of the happiest joys possible. There they were: my furred grandchildren, the perfect copy of their beloved mom; eleven at once! I…

by Cemil Bostan

I booked a flight from Oporto, Portugal, to Weeze, Germany, on Ryanair. Two weeks before my flight I had made a trip to Spain and had bought some gifts for my friends in Germany.…

by Tânia Limbert

I clearly remember my first airplane ride. It was in my last year of high school, and instead of taking the the usual mainstream trip to Lloret Del Mar (Costa Brava, Spain), my friends…

by Bárbara Dabó

I went to the airport for the first time when I was 13 or 14 years old. I was picking up my sister and her new boyfriend who were coming from England. I was…

by Luís Pires

A few years ago I went to London with some friends. Just entering the airport gave me the feeling of entering a whole new universe. There were busy people hopelessly trying to run with…

by Anouk de Jonge

In March 2010, I went on a trip from my home in the Netherlands to Brazil. I travelled around a little bit, visited Rio de Janeiro, Foz do Iguaçu and Florianópolis. The favelas, the…

by Vanessa Cipriano

When I first started to travel by airplane I was just a baby—not even able to walk yet. The flights were always to Belgium where we visited family. But when that family moved to…

by Bárbara Sorger

My mother used to work in a publishing house that had three magazines related to Africa and Brazil. Once a year there used to be a party in one of the capitals of the…

by Marta Rocha

I don’t understand airports. Aren’t they supposed to be a place where people just sit down, wait for the plane, and then fly? I mean, nowadays we can almost live in there; Tom Hanks…

by Cara Marino

My aunt needed to get to the airport and my mother happily volunteered her time and that of mine and my younger sister. Our trip should have been uneventful, but when you have a…

by Randy Malamud

It’s simulation day at Atlanta’s new Maynard H. Jackson Jr. International Terminal. Fifteen hundred people with nothing better to do have volunteered to come down and try it out two weeks before opening day.

by Asia Stephens-Argraves

First, grab your pairs of pants and shirts. Don’t forget your toothbrush or you’ll have to use you finger for the rest of the trip. Once you’re packed, it’s off to the airport. Walk…

by May Todd

Since I was a child, my parents have told me that I bloom where I am planted. This first referred to my habits as I learned to walk, but the phrase still applies. When…

by Jessie Hodet

Birthdays are always a time for celebration. A couple of years ago my family and I had planned a fabulous cruise down the Mexican Riviera. My husband, our two kids, my mom, and my…

by Jack Bernard

Gamba Osaka is a Japanese soccer team in the Asian Football League. I'd never heard of Gamba until Tuesday morning. It looks like pretty good team from what I can tell, but that's not…

by Simone Ashby

It was 1996 and I was at the end of a two-week holiday in Malaysia from my teaching job in Korea. My employer had asked with no trace of humor that I return to…

by Julian Hanna

Future wife and I were waiting at SFO to catch a post-Christmas flight back to Edinburgh, Scotland, where we lived at the time. It was the second leg of a lengthy tour to meet…

by Roselle O'Brien

The sun was rising this morning when I pulled out of the parking lot. I stopped, shut off the headlights. They were the wrong illumination for the dawn’s tease of wild places lingering silent…

by Laurie Stone

The girl’s navel winks below her halter top, and her dimpled ass swells above her terry shorts. Her perfection forecasts its falling off and is marked, too, by her innocence this will happen. Her…

by Anna Leahy & Douglas Dechow

For several years, we lived in Galesburg, Illinois, a town with a small airport, a place we’d swing by, trying to catch sight of a takeoff or landing. Once, we saw a shiny silver…

by Candace Mobley

Two weeks earlier I was at this same place with our three children. We each held red, white, and blue balloons tied to dying sunflowers. I only wanted to see my husband, to feel…

by Michael Cornelius

I was in my last year of graduate school, and I was flying home for the holidays. It was Christmas Eve, and I’d just managed to finish my last assignment and hand in my…

by Christopher Shipman

My wife gets gassy and wonders if I still love her in this airport where she squints her face to shape how the air may smell for a few seconds, because I don’t squint…

by Jeanette Lukowski

On Friday, April 24, 2009, my 15-year-old daughter ran away from home. The next day she was discovered in Chicago, approximately 650 miles from our home. While I could have driven to Chicago to…

by Jack Bernard

I think of myself as a short-term pessimist and long-term optimist. I try to take the long view and think positively about people and the world. Lately it’s fashionable to talk about America’s decline,…

by Andy Shaindlin

My foreign study experience as a college student was in 1985. I spent six months in Brussels, arriving in January. Brussels in January—and February, and March—is a gray, damp, chilled place. By the time…

by Cristina Garrigós

On September 11, 2001, we were flying on Lufthansa from Madrid to Washington via Frankfurt. The flight from Madrid to Frankfurt had been perfect. But as we were about to leave Frankfurt, the flight…

by Sara Elle

My name is Sara and I’m an alcoholic; I did some of my best drinking on airplanes. By the time I was eighteen, I had a fake ID, a rich boyfriend who lived on…

by Bobby Fox

After a trip that embodied Ukraine’s unofficial motto (“Ukraine is not for the meek”), it came as no surprise that departing from the country was, in a word, difficult. Two days before my departure,…

by Bobby Fox

When I finally disembarked off the third plane on my journey to Ukraine, I was greeted by a foreboding, single, small, grey, Soviet-era terminal. Inside, the stuffy, dingy building, I followed the herd to…

by Jess Stoner

It was 2000, and I had arrived at Reagan National Airport with enough time to have a beer before my flight. It was only a few months after the Music City Miracle had yet…

by Matthew Dexter

I walked through the Newark International Airport metal detector with an ounce of marijuana in my jockstrap and two pellets of mescaline in my sock. I had removed the protective cup to provide more…

by Fargo Kantrowitz

I remember the snow. I wasn't brought up on snow back in the deserts of Las Vegas, but in Boston they had a lot of it. I remember it sitting in the giant push-back…

by Amanda Pleva

"Now boarding all rows for Flight 920, with service to Tokyo Narita." I stared longingly at the neighboring gate as I waited with my crew for the pilots to arrive. Tokyo was my favorite…

by Chelsey Johnson

I have always led parallel lives, as if one were not enough. Some people do this by having affairs, or playing Second Life or World of Warcraft, or living in the closet, or being…

by Jonathan Small

*DING* “Uh, well folks, looks like our trusty little, uh, navigator here, well, she seems to be pointing us in, uh, the wrong way here, so, we’re gonna, uh, go and get that checked…

by James Schaberg

As we roll toward the runway in preparation for takeoff, I catch sight of two red foxes. The pair is skirting the taxiway in the tall brush, probably headed for the nearest hole joining…

by Kimberly Schubert

It's a strange feeling to be stuck between two fat people, two relatively thin walls, and certain death. Using my arm rests is out of the question for large and overflowing reasons. So here…

by Brenda Tobias

Are there any airplane experiences left that do not bear a strong resemblance to an emergency shelter? This is not a rhetorical question. When they asked me to book my own flight, I did…

by Jeffrey Morgan

My father has a hot pink suitcase. When I don’t fly with him, I think about it. I think about it during descent. Maybe it’s the cabin pressure, the gum chewing, sad babies with…

by Mara Huber

I wish I could recall when the utter absurdity of that initial trip revealed itself. I was dropped off at the airport by taxi, not wanting to disturb my family in the wee hours…

by Marisa Mangani

It’s August and I’ll be fifty in nine days. We’re at the Tampa Airport, checked in and sitting at the bar for a breakfast rum drink because my redneck, sharkman, lover-husband is afraid to…

by Carla Sarett

My father had not flown for a decade or so—perhaps even longer, certainly long enough so that he had no concept of the nightmarish array of security measures, police and bizarre check-points introduced since…

by Pam Houston

It is 8:00 AM on a Sunday morning in September, and I am down in the East Jesus section of the Denver International Airport where all the smallest United Express flights come and go.…

by Tasha Cotter

In the dream the man is seen in the terminal with a woman. They are underground, facing each other, and the lights flashing overhead go in stages of blue and red. There is a…

by Allie Marini Batts

Flight: it’s such an equalizer. Whether it's LAX or LaGuardia, Hartsfield-Jackson or Sea-Tac: we're all the same when we're waiting, we're all passengers. Books, notepads, iPods, our little distract

by Lillian Swanson-Day

I’m relieved when the guy takes his briefcase off of the seat beside him and looks at me. It’s pretty much the only seat left at my gate, except for ones next to families…

by Tim Morton

Air travel brings up a lot of strong emotions, most of them negative: boredom, scorn, pride, paranoia, anger, loneliness, stupor, smugness, anxiety, sadness, humiliation, tenderness, aggression, fear, frustration, sluggi

by Jacqueline Jules

Dragging my portable closet on wheels I follow a line of tense travelers whining over boarding delays and tight overhead bins until reaching my slender vinyl spot designed to double as a floatation device.…

by Alex Pruteanu

I took Hemingway and Bukowski and Palahniuk and F. Scott and Hitchens with me, and we crossed the border into Canada like the hooligans that we are (F. Scott would object to that, but…

by Elise Gottschalk

Mom tells me that as a toddler I'd look up at a plane in the sky and point and say "Daddy! Daddy!" I don't remember doing this, but I'd guess it's true. After being…

by Christopher Schaberg

It was warm coming down the concourse even in the late evening. The moon lit up the taxiway around the blinking lights and illuminated the planes. It was winter around the airport but the…

by Sandra Gail Teichmann-Hillesheim

This new beaver stroller suits me, and I'm going to Chicago. Uncut guard hairs, and I know, too warm for the latitude where we live. The sales clerk coveted the cut and sheen, but…

by Robby McChargue

Sunday, December 18, 2011 Returning home from Colorado Springs after a week visiting my parents, I find myself, as do all Delta customers, regardless of where they fly from or to, in the Atlanta…

by David Myers

I am distinterested in airplanes. I have some interest in this. In his Critique of Judgment, Kant claims disinterest is necessary to aesthetics. Maybe so. In order to experience art, says Kant, we must…

by Koty Neelis

Traveling makes me feel really sexy. I love the way people dress—in business suits and sundresses, in hoodies and pencil skirts. Some are traveling for work, others for pleasure. You’ll never see these people

by Christopher Allen

I wouldn't say I like surprises when I travel; I simply don't enjoy planning. I've left that part of the trip to my partner and traveling companion for the last 11 years. He loves…

by Meagan Simmons

I am on a plane en route to the Virgin Islands with my mother, and my father’s body is undergoing an autopsy, and my senior year is starting without me. Everything that occurs in…

by Sabrina Nyka

2:59 a.m. and I am wide awake, one minute before the alarm clock goes off. I think to myself: it’s not right to be awake at this time for any reason, why would anything…

by Chelsey Watley

I open the door, say goodbye to my family, step out of the car, and walk into DFW International Airport. I am going to be gone for one month, for study abroad. I have…

by Josh Highlander

Being a military child usually means lots of travel, from base to base and from assignment to assignment. For me, it meant constantly losing friends, and having to make new ones rather quickly. My…

by Lindsey Silken

When I decided to fly to Memphis for a second date, my friends were suspiciously supportive. I guess they figured that between playing writer by night and frazzled editor by day, I could stand…

by Stephen Rea

I admit it’s ironic. I’m trapped in an airport, the place you go to escape. I’ve been stuck in DFW for eleven hours. Best case scenario, I leave in fifty-five minutes. Worst case scenario,…

by Geoff Watkinson

Although I’m surrounded by thousands of people at the Atlanta airport during a layover, it’s a lonely Fourth of July. I call Natalie, a girl I’ve known since I got my driver’s license, who…

by Mallory

I am three days from getting on an airplane. After many months away from my husband and my family, I am finally going home. This is both very exciting and rather terrifying. I've been…

by Gerry Holzman

I did, but I don’t anymore. On a non-stop US Airways flight from JFK to Phoenix, one of my suitcases went missing. Although I’ve been flying for more than 50 years, such a traumatic…

by Linda Coburn

My usual modus operandi while waiting for a plane is to find a seat far from the gate and any aisles, away from the eager beavers who jump up the minute they hear the…

by Emily Farranto

I used to pass time at the airport. This was before heightened security when you could go unticketed, luggageless and sit in the airport bar or by the big windows and watch the planes…

by Bart Plantenga

I always try my best to blend in when I’m flying because I’ve always been an easy mark for customs and immigration officials with authority abuse as handy replacement for their self esteem, which…

by Nicole Heaton

I had a lot of apprehension about flying with my infant daughter for the first time. I had boarded many planes in my life, but never with a baby in tow. As the day…

by Catherine Miller

Miranda July wrote in a recent New Yorker that she used to steal her friends’ luggage and then get her friends to put in a false claim for the insurance money. Nice. I mean,…

by SuzAnne Cole

August 16, 2003 Rod Eddington, Chief Executive British Airways Waterside (HCB3) PO Box 365 Harmondsworth UB7 0GB Dear Mr. Eddington: On August 11, 2003, we were aboard BA #2025 from London to Houston. An…

by Michael M. Pacheco

Flying from Portland to Las Vegas is a fairly common trip for me and my wife, maybe too common. Earlier this year, we were passing through the metal detectors at PDX when a woman…

by Kristi DeMeester

It was only my second flight, and I hadn’t yet mastered the grace that inevitably comes to the seasoned traveler. The subtle removal of shoes, the flick of the wrist that empties pockets, hands…

by Bhob Rainey

Leeds had gone well. Pints of improbably fresh Tetley Ale lent some effervescence to the concert, and the hospitality of the show's organizers was top notch. The next stop for Greg and me was…

by Jenny Sadre-Orafai

You book your own flights. You don’t have a fancy assistant who does these sorts of things. You are scheduled to read your poetry at a conference in Montreal in April. You are leaving…

by Christopher Citro

Here I am in an airport again, waiting for a delayed plane to take me back home to Kansas from my trip to Ohio for the holidays, a stale Caesar salad turning sour in…

by Ramona Scarborough

I almost missed my connecting flight to Omaha due to a delay at the Portland airport. Quickly seating myself, I noticed a large, swarthy turbaned man searching for an empty place to sit. People…

by Allyson Goldin Loomis

Before I get on an airplane, I prepare to die. My terror cannot be assuaged by anyone’s quoting safety statistics, the laws of physics, or the training regimens of commercial airline pilots. I cannot…

by Michael Howarth

It’s only during the past ten years that I’ve developed an intense fear of flying. I do realize that my chances of dying in a plane crash are about one in eleven million, and…

by Steve Newton

I had just flown from NYC to Denver and there was a layover of a couple of hours before I was to catch a flight for Salt Lake City. This was a time that…

by Meredith Pond

About 45 minutes into our flight from Dallas to Cabo San Lucas, we hear the captain say, “Nothing to worry about folks, but we're making a landing in El Paso—a little emergency.” My daughter…

by Tony D'Souza

My mother worked reservations at United Airlines in Chicago before all those jobs were sent to India, and not having any clue how fortunate I was, I grew up on planes. I have no…

by Harold Jaffe

Vodka A man swallowed a liter of top-shelf brand vodka rather than surrender it to airport personnel (who themselves would drink it after hours). New regulations designed to obstruct terrorism (which the US has…

by Simeon Hunter

Airports are a special kind of space. Architecturally they may be, like churches and fire stations, iconoclastic, singular, without reference to their context. Which is good because a context is one of the things…

by Diego Báez

Miami International is such a piece of shit. It’s like nothing ever ends: terminals devour runways, runways birth terminals, everything always under construction. There’s never been a greater delay and pain i

by Robert Ben Garant

One of the scariest things I've seen since 9/11 actually happened on the ground. At the airport in Cleveland. Waiting between flights, I wandered around the airport, killing time. I wandered into a downstairs…

by Jennifer Kowalski

Okay, it wasn’t really a play date; it was just my son and me. And it wasn’t weird, like that time a few years ago when one of my friends wanted me to go…

by Matthew Guenette

This happened at Logan Airport, at the check-in. My younger brother was standing behind me. The woman at the counter asked if I had been, “in control of my bag all day.” Before I…

by Andrew Maxwell

It is hard not to ponder the prominent ‘spoils of war’ displays that are arranged in shadowboxes at major security checkpoints. First I wonder who was flying where with a full sized medieval replica…

by Greg Keeler

Delta had just absorbed Northwest and I didn't know which gate to check in at when I was returning home from D.C. a couple of summers ago, so I went to Delta. The desk…

by J. Ryan Williams

today at the airport: -> 7 days no sex makes one weak ughhhhh ready for my hubby to touchdown he mite get it in the car at the airport im so needy rite now#dntjdgme…