Comparative air travel
Here's a study in contrasts for you:
Flying out of BWI:
After negotiating hellish traffic, your wife and kids drop you at the curb nearest your ticket counter. Arriving one and a half hours before departure, you'll find a half-hour line at the TSA security checkpoint (and, if you weren't smart enough to pack everything into a carry-on, maybe twenty minutes at the ticket counter). You join the unwashed massses dashing for gates, and arrive in time to get on your plane--realizing, without recourse, that you left your cell phone charging in your office.
Flying out of Clinton County Airport in Plattsburgh--
You arrive an hour before departure time. Your family walks in with you--there's two-hour parking fifty feet from the terminal. You walk in, and hand your bags over to the TSA employee who won the draw. You realize you're missing your cell, and your wife drives back to the house and fetches it for you, while your daughter falls asleep on your lap in the waiting area. Finally, as the plane arrives--15 minutes before departure--you hand off your daughter to your wife and walk into the one and only boarding area and pass through the security checkpoint.
Hmmmm. Turboprop commuter planes are starting to look good. [Sean Gallagher: the dot.communist]
I live in a city of 150,000 people and have a small airport. We are served by NWA and AA and my experience is the same as his. Low stress, less hassle, easier parking. Then again, ticket prices are $200 more...
9:29:51 AM 
