Bee Travel
Navigating the not-so-friendly skies
CHRISTINE HICKS-USTA

I've just returned from a quick trip south. Every time I fly, it's a new experience. It seems you just get used to one set of rules when something new happens, and a new set of rules replaces the last.

Thirty years ago, the airline put knives on the plane for you. They carved roast beef with them in first class, and even coach passengers had a means to dice up the chicken du jour. Twenty years ago, flights just long enough offered full beverage service, which at the time was a big moneymaker for them. Ten years ago, you could carry on cigarette lighters and as much hair gel as you could carry. Now they won't even let you carry on water.

Travelers these days must plan ahead.

Even the smallest of airports manifests a long line of passengers at the ticket counter. My brain tells me check-in in this automated age should be quicker. Instead, with all the checks, checkpoints, checking-in, kiosks and adding in a computer snafu or two, getting to your gate gobbles great gobs of time. Presuming you know your way around tickets, boarding cards, reservation numbers and computers even a little, the going is not what one might call swift. A second line is at the entry to security, where an official of sorts deliberates on your airworthiness, a cursory, laborious process whereby, one by one, passengers present documents to prove it.

Real security is next. What will it be? The Air-Puff machine? The metal detector? Shoes, belts, bulky metal jewelry, wads of change, money clips, PDAs, IPods, cellphones and keys bear scrutiny separate from purses, laptops, baby paraphernalia or any other carry-on item you intend to take on board. My sister's innocuous purchase of margarita salt for her husband's 50th birthday party was hauled out as quite suspicious. An imperious carry-on guard cried, "Bag check!" over two highly untrustworthy unopened bottles of generic bottled water. Exceeding the 3-ounce rule, they were tossed in flamboyant fashion, as if to demonstrate the flagrancy of the violation.

Sheesh. Oh, I get it, all right, that there are bad people in the world, people who want to kill other people for ideas in their head that aren't a lot like mine. I understand the serious nature of things that dictate these new policies and requirements. It's not lost on me the consequences of failing to react to the latest manner of terror.

Still, I do wish there were some better way to do all of this and serve the vastly greater majority of people who totally don't want their plane to go down.

If there is an upside to this, maybe it's that we all carry a lot less these days. We don't need to take everything with us when we go. Maybe we need to unplug, unpack and lighten up. Maybe less is the lesson.

(Christine Hicks-Usta has enjoyed more than 30 years of globe-trotting as a member of the travel industry in various capacities. Direct questions to her at Bee Group Newspapers, P.O. Box 150, Buffalo, NY 14231-0150.)