by Susana H. Case
My husband wants to make a video of me packing a suitcase for YouTube since we fly a lot. I go to my computer and learn that videos of “How to Pack a Suitcase”…
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Afterimage
by KT Thompson
When the airplane crashed in the meadow, I was on a walk to look for birds. My torso a crosshatch of straps: binoculars, camera, sling with water and treats for my dog, the leash.
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Points of departure
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 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 Bernard Barnes
Airplane travel, I realize, is all about tension and release. It begins even before you leave the house. You pack your bags and agonize over what to bring, what not to bring, will this…
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 Rita de Costa
Even if I didn't have my nacrolepsy under control by that point, I thought I knew what I was doing—I thought I could manage the flight and two plane changes. It was 1979, and…
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 Marisa Mangani
Twenty minutes into the flight and the plane’s ceiling tore open. Misty air fogged into the cabin. It had been a three-hour wait in the Miami airport for the connecting flight to the Dominican…
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 Marguerite Kenner
As we roll along on the granite floors of the concourse on our way to Gate 44, I feel a bit hypocritical about the handsome matching luggage my husband and I just bought. If…
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 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 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…
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