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Top Airport Annoyances
The Travel Critic · October 12, 1998

What's the most annoying thing about airports?

The luggage carts, says San Francisco traveler Barbara Burdick. "Why do they have to charge $1.50 for a cart?" she wonders. "It's just a rip-off. Not only do you not have quarters handy but there's nowhere to get them."

Ask any frequent traveler to list his or her top airport gripes, and the costly luggage carriers are sure to rank high. Burdick refers to the racket as the "cart cartel" because people have no choice but to cough up the change. If they've got it.

The luggage cart issue looms large at every airport. San Francisco International spokesman Ron Wilson says facilities are caught between conflicting impulses: to make money and serve customers. In SFO's case, it took the prodding of a local newspaper columnist to make the luggage carts at the international terminal free. (With good reason: when you land, and you're carrying nothing but foreign currency, where do you get quarters?)

"There's more ways to make a buck than to get them off international passengers as they arrive," Wilson says.

I'll say. I think airports should draw a line at making a profit from luggage carts, whether they're in the domestic or international arrivals area. Raise parking fees if they must, or hike airport taxes, but for the sake of humanity, give the poor travelers something to wheel their checked-in luggage around on. It's the decent thing to do.

Another compassionate thing to do: redesign the airport shops. They're an accident waiting to happen.

"It's annoying," gripes Boise, Idaho, consultant Jana Kemp. "The aisles are so close together that I have to put my carry-on bags down, otherwise I'll knock down the merchandise. But then, I shouldn't leave my bags unattended. What should I do?"

Once again, the airport vendors are trapped between two clashing motives. The first is to stack their wares as close together as possible, à la Wal-Mart. And the second is to fit as many passengers into the stores as the law will permit.

It would be tempting to conclude that the greed infecting the airlines has spread to the airport merchants. Not so fast, says Tara Hamilton, a spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority. "Remember that space is at a premium at any airport. There really is a dynamic there between how much space you can give to a store versus giving it to the airlines," she cautions.

Getting wedged into the newsstand with two carry-ons is no fun. But I've been assured that shopkeepers are constantly monitored by the airport authority and fire marshal to make sure their boutiques don't get too jammed with merchandise.

Does this somehow reassure me? No. I think a set of stricter guidelines is needed, because for all the talk, some of those stores still make economy class look roomy.

While they're at it, why not regulate what is certainly a leading cause of annoyance at many airports: the CNN Airport Network.

I've lost track of how many times I've been stuck at the gate with nothing but the Airport Network blasting from several TV screens. After hearing the same headlines over and over, I feel like a character on the short-lived TV series Max Headroom, where turning a TV off was illegal.

I've watched passengers try to talk over the din of a news anchor repeating the same story for the hundredth time, and I've seen people try to turn the volume on the sets down (to no avail). As someone who threw away his TV set four years ago, I feel their pain.

Deborah Cooper, a senior vice president for Turner Private Networks, says not everyone is willing to just sit there and take it: Some intrepid travelers have brought hand-held remote controls with them and switched channels.

The CNN Airport Network is almost as ubiquitous at airport lounges as yesterday's copy of USA Today. Atlanta's Hartsfield International Airport features the screens at 118 gates. They're at 129 gates at Chicago's O'Hare International and 101 gates at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.

Even though the Airport Network is only "marginally profitable" its executives don't show the same callous disregard for passenger comfort as the airlines. Cooper says the network has actually removed some screens to give travelers more quiet areas. The volume settings are now computer controlled and capped, "so that the TV doesn't compete with a screaming baby," she says. And the airline can, at any time, for any reason, turn the Airport Network off.

That's a good start. Personally, I'd rather see more of a choice than the same recycled CNN news stories repeated ad infinitum. It's nearly as bothersome as being buried under several carry-ons in the airport shop, or a quarter short of renting a luggage cart.

Christopher Elliott is a travel commentator and author of A Bridge to Nowhere: A Year in the Florida Keys. All e-mailed questions may be edited, condensed or republished at the site's discretion.