Life on the Tarmac
Tarmac is a great word. It connotes so much more than macadam or asphalt. Tarmac says you are going places. It has an exotic nature to it that implies that something is about to happen and that its likely to be something meaningful. If you are stuck on the runway or idling on the asphalt, that sounds bad and wasteful. But is you are poised on the tarmac, you are about to take off for parts unknown.
In days gone by (except at very small regional airports, Caribbean island airports or private jet terminals) we used to be able to commune with the tarmac by walking out to our waiting aircraft. As aviation has modernized and security has become paramount, no one other than authorized personnel are allowed to get that close to the aircraft anymore. We now go from waiting room to jetway and onto the plane. In fact, when we do happen to some overcrowded airport where the plane has to park remotely, we are somewhat put off by the fact that we have to walk down a stairway and into a waiting bus to the terminal. Setting foot on the tarmac has become an antiquated thing that only happens at inefficient, overcrowded or in-transition airports. It should be that we are fortunate to be boarding a luxurious PanAm Clipper to the orient or some such place.
Instead, we now have airports that have terminals that go on forever. They are lovely and modern with dozens of places to spend dozens of dollars on fifty cent items. At JFK Terminal 4, I swear you can walk for two miles to get to your gate if you are unlucky. You know you have walked too far when you pass your third Starbucks on the same gate letter. It used to be Heathrow that gave us all aerobic conditioning when we landed in the early morning from a red-eye. Now Heathrow pales by comparison to the long track at JFK. When you go to Atlanta, you get normal length gate halls, but there are lots of them. You have to take the subway for a half dozen stops to reach your gate letter. There is nothing like the thrill of coming in on one gate letter and having a tight connecting flight on another gate letter. The thrill of boarding an aeroplane has been replaced by the thrill of trying to get to your boarding gate before the flight closes or before your heart fails you.
The romance of airports is long gone. The most romantic airport I have ever been to was in Lome, Togo. I was flying from Abidjan in Cote d’Ivoire to Lagos, Nigeria. This was in 1988 and we were going from a meeting at the African Development Bank in Abidjan to a series of exploratory meetings in Lagos. We had stayed at a lovely hotel near the Ivoire Country Club, where they had a pool with a wave generator and a bevy of topless French babes. In Lagos we were headed well downhill to a reinsurance company compound that had mildew on the walls and a rumbling air conditioner that didn’t seem to extract much of the 100% humidity in the air. The downhill flight from one spot to the other was an Air Afrique flight that was billed as a lunch flight. We began to understand the implications of that label when the stewardess declared that we would be stopping in Lomé for lunch. I looked at my ticketand it indicated a direct lunch flight to Lagos, but Air Afrique had a very different definition of direct, and lunch.
We got off the plane on a very rickety set of steps that looked like 1952 vintage with enough rust to make you wonder how much actual metal was left. There were a dozen local boys selling some sort of nuts in plastic bags and bottles of water. The stewardess waved them off from the tarmac at the bottom of the steps, but they were like flies on a carcass on a hot day. The ran away, spun around and reconvened at the bottom of the stairs again. We walked past them, following a man as directed until we got to a small building right behind the main terminal. No security, no gate, just a few stray goats trying to make a meal out of the weeds at the edge of the tarmac. Inside was an open dining room with slow moving ceiling fans. The tables were set with small paper napkins, plastic plates of various colors and small plastic cups that looked like they had been through the dishwasher one too many times. There was one utensil, a spork on each napkin. I had no idea that sporks had found their way to Togo, but there they were.
We all sat down, almost afraid to comment for fear of what would come next. Then a large smiling man in an apron came before us and while wiping his hands on his makeshift apron, told us how pleased he was to work for Air Afrique and thereby tasked with providing us with our scheduled lunch. He was pleased to be serving the specialty of the house, coq au’vin over a rice pilaf. He had all the words just right and we had no confidence at all about what we would be served, nonetheless. What came out were plates of delicious chicken in savory sauce over perfectly steamed rice with small pimentos and peas in it. This was as fine a meal as any you might find in a bistro in Paris. We were all impressed and we all enjoyed our Togo lunch.
When we finished, we walked back across the tarmac with the boys buzzing around the stairs as before. I fished out a dollar bill and gave it to one of them for a bag of nuts and they all suddenly convened on the lucky seller. I sensed that that would be an evenly shared dollar. We climbed the steps and before boarding I glanced back to remember the scene. This was the tarmac of old, with commerce and maintenance activity all around.
I just now walked out of the Bermuda airport and walked across the tarmac for twenty feet through tightly and neatly drawn lines to the stairs up to our Delta flight to New York. It was all very nest and efficient (our flight is actually taking off early according to the pilot….when does that ever happen?). When I got to the top of the stairs I glanced back and waved to the boys at the bottom of the stairs selling the nuts. The steward in the doorway said, “move along, sir, we’re trying to depart early.” I guess the romance is all but gone from air travel now and the tarmac is just another slab of macadam.