Boarding Process Quotes

This was 1978, when flying was still an occasion, a special grand event that took planning and care. I worked as a TWA flight attendant then. I stood in my Ralph Lauren uniform at the boarding door and smiled at the passengers through lips coated with lipstick that perfectly matched the stripe on my jacket. Mostly, the passengers smiled back.

Pack the one bag. Unpack it, pack it, unpack it, pack it: passeport, ticket, book, taxi, airport, check-in, beer, announcement, stairs, airplane, fasten seat-belt, air born, flight, rocking, sun, stars, space, hips of strolling stewardesses, read, sleep, clouds, falling engine speed, descent, circling, touch down, earth, unfasten seat-belt, stairs, airport, immunization book, visa, customs, questions, taxi, streets, houses, people, hotel, key, room, stuffiness, thirst, otherness, foreignness, loneliness, fatigue, life.

People come back from flights and tell you a story like it's a horror story. That's how bad they make it sound. They're like, 'It was the worst day of my life. We didn't board for 20 minutes and they made us sit there on the runway for 40 minutes.' Oh really? What happened next? Did you fly in the air, incredibly, like a bird? Did you partake in the miracle of human flight you non-contributing zero?'

I know every time I fly, I get checked twice: they stop me at security, and then, they get me again at the gate. And last time, it was so bad, they actually made me go through the machine with the luggage.

Flying is always an unpleasant experience. You wait an hour for every ten minutes you actually spend getting anywhere.

What does it mean to pre-board? Do you get on before you get on?

Like on the airlines, they say they want to 'pre-board'. Well, what the hell is 'pre board'? What does that mean? To get on before you get on?

Nobody ever thinks clearly at the airport.

So what I do is supervise the boarding process trying to get the shows the way I'd like them to be. And in some cases I've completely redone a board myself even though I'm not credited for it.

Air travel reminds us who we are. It's the means by which we recognize ourselves as modern. The process removes us from the world and sets us apart from each other. We wander in the ambient noise, checking one more time for the flight coupon, the boarding pass, the visa. The process convinces us that at any moment we may have to submit to the force that is implied in all this, the unknown authority behind it, behind the categories, the languages we don't understand. This vast terminal has been erected to examine souls.

Law of Airlines: The shorter the time between flights, the greater the distance between gates.

I had arrived at the airport one hour early so that, in accordance with airline procedures, I could stand around.