Jet Blah

How lucky was I that my very normal (yet lovely) visit to the Old South was sandwiched between the bookends of frustrating travel? Here I thought I would have nothing to blog about (again) however Jet Blue really stepped up and filled my void. After reading the marketing materials about T5 (Jet Blue’s uber fancy new terminal at JFK ) I was totally jazzed to be transported back through time to a place in the mid century when air travel was posh and spacagey. Jet Blue has been making a lot of noise as of late regarding their move into the old TWA terminal that I assumed that upon arrival from the monorail AirTrain I would be greeted by a Don Draper lookalike presenting me with a martini, and a lit cigarette. However as the AirTrain made a sharp turn around the old TWA terminal I was broken hearted to see that not only has it been losing its exterior shell of cement like a leper abandoned in a dusty Moroccan bazaar, but it’s also held captive behind a 12 foot chain link fence like a rotting beached whale. Jet Blue did not move into the TWA terminal they just built a new terminal behind it! New, pah!? Once I traversed the 300 yard walkway from the AirTrain to the terminal I discovered that it looked just like any other terminal, no fancy flat screens promoting far away destinations, no cocktail lounges with woman dressed in knee high white boots serving pomegranate cocktails, no dark gentlemen in sharp suits with hats …just your plain old florescent lights, molded plastic chairs, and tons of LINES.

Don’t know why I even checked in online and printed my boarding pass, so did everybody else! There we all were still waiting in line because there isn’t a fast-forward pass if you are checking baggage. Of course there were only 2 agents at the desk and both were apathetically draped over their podiums watching as the serpentine line of perspective travelers grew increasingly longer while a party of 4 at the counter tried furtively to repack all their suitcases so none of their bags superseded the 50 lb limit. The other genius traveler holding up the process was a 20 something who when he arrived was only sporting a T shirt, shorts, and flip flops yet when he was informed that his bag was too pudgy he proceeded to don a pair of jeans, sweat pants, a long sleeve T shirt, a hoody, a coat, socks and hiking shoes – freekin’ tool. I swear I was 2 minutes away from paying ALL of their overweight fees just to get the line moving!