Is it just me or are airport terminals getting longer and more difficult to navigate? And, at the same time is the area that skycaps are available to help passengers shrinking?
For Thanksgiving we made our usual trek to our children’s home in Los Angeles using the recently renovated facilities at Dulles. On our previous trip I noticed that the walkway from the end of the new rail system to terminal C was unusually long and largely uphill, a strain on a back that needs some tender care these days. I called the airline (United, if you want to know) and was assured that there were skycaps available, and I went to the Dulles website where I was assured that skycaps were available “throughout the terminal”. This was news to me and when I arrived at Dulles to the skycaps as well.
It seems that even in the absence of people movers at that terminal, skycaps are not allowed beyond the security checkpoint. In fact they seem to simply be available to take your bags from the entryway to the airline check-in area, a matter of a few yards . Given the easy accessibility of rental carts, that’s something few people really need.
That left me, and most others for whom carting bags about one mile often up an incline or on carpets which create enough friction to require substantial yanking to pull rollaboard luggage over them, two choices: a wheelchair ride up to the gate sans everything but an under the seat bag or checking luggage and trekking to the gate.
I don’t know about you, but the notion of checking my suitcase for a short trip on the heaviest travelled days of the year, fills me with almost as much dread as another sciatica attack, and fortunately my husband (who also has a less than perfect back) helped me out.
But isn’t this ridiculous?
Doesn’t the Department of Transportation have an obligation to help travelers at Dulles? Surely if the airport facility were a private operation, you can be certain it wouldn’t avoid lawsuits under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Why can’t skycaps be allowed to work in the ever greater distance between the security checkpoint and the departure gates?
Clarice,
According to this UK Telegraph story, a strike by Public Sector Workers at Heathrow Airport in London has proved to be a Godsend to passengers. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/8926328/Strikes-chaos-Passengers-at-Heathrow-get-VIP-treatment.html
“Strikes chaos? Passengers at Heathrow get VIP treatment
Passengers yesterday bracing for strike chaos at Heathrow airport could have been forgiven for thinking they had all received a free VIP upgrade upon arrival at terminal four.”
“…new arrivals glided to the passport area within seconds…striking border control employees had been replaced by “volunteers…”
Perhaps what Dulles needs is a good strike.
When I was a Skycap (94′-97′) my badge gave me access to just about everything at the airport. I didn’t even need to hit the checkpoint to get to the boarding areas. I actually have put people on planes if my services were needed.
daddy, I think the difference was the striking employees were public employees..It’s as if our officious, incompetent TSA workers took a day off.
SJ, then why aren’t they doing this now, especially at those long sections of the Dulles terminal where people movers and luggage carts aren’t available? I heard from my son that he had a heck of a time traversing the same distance unaided while carrying a sleeping child and all their luggage this summer. Surely, the passengers are not being served.
By coincidence, last night I happened to speak with a good friend, a formidable and brilliant woman in her 50s who had broken her toe on a vacation in Hawaii. She arrived at the self-same Dulles International Airport in Washington, DC and –and she is a native Bostonian whose first language is English — could not even find a sign advising her and other travelers where to find the taxi line. No signage at all.
She reported limping from one end of the ginormous terminal to another trying to find an airport employee to tell her where she could catch a cab.
AND she was looking for the elusive Skycap to help her with her luggage. As you report, Ms. Feldman, not a skycap in sight.
She and I discussed what it must be like to enter the USA through Dulles as your port of entry, knowing no English. There isn’t a single sign in any other language — compared with London’s Heathrow or Paris’ Charles de Gaulle, or Israel’s Ben Gurion — airports all over the world serving major cities– all of which post signs in multiple languages.
Dulles can’t be bothered to post signs in English or to provide skycaps. As you write, must we all request wheelchairs?
As for sharing your sense of dread at checking baggage: who would ever check baggage if they could possibly help it? The last time I checked baggage at Dulles, I had a costly pair of sneakers stolen out of my luggage after I’d checked it and before I picked it up in Paris. Nothing else stolen: only my running shoes.
We are living in a Third World country whether we wish to acknowledge it or not.
This is all sad, because for years Dulles was my favorite entry port. It was so easy to pass through customs and immigration and get out of the airport.
When the vast majority of travellers forsake the airlines due to the gross inconveniences visited upon them, the TSA will be able to busy themselves by checking the quality of lint in their uniform trousers.
No they won’t. They will grope you at the bus stations. They will grope you at the train stations. They will pull you out of your car and grope you. It has already started. Tennessee is setting up roadblocks on the Interstates.
It’s all for your protection.
Now shut up and eat your cake.
“Doesn’t the Department of Transportation have an obligation to help travelers at Dulles?”
The almighty employees of the United States Government don’t have an obligation to do anything they don’t feel like doing. If you don’t find this acceptable, I suggest you vote for any Tea Party candidate you can. Otherwise get used to accepting our government supramacy over you.
Those convicts will never get clearance to travel freely through security
Well, AD, I’ve done my part. I flew at least 4-5 times a year through the late 90s/early 2000s, but as the security apparatus got more ridiculous, cut it back to where some years I didn’t fly at all. In reality, once you factor in time door to door rather than merely actual transportation time, flying rarely is worth it under 6 hours’ driving time away– I don’t have to arrive at my car an hour early, sit on the ground for a couple of extra hours waiting to get going, or spend 45 minutes waiting for a cab at the other end to drive me 45 minutes into the city. I am flying this year, but only because there isn’t an expressway to Italy.
I’d guess that the service contract for those rent-a-cart kiosks is less than salary and benefits and background checks (for access to the secure area) for a contingent of skycaps.
The problem at Dulles is those carts are not available either for the trek from security to Terminal C.
The renovation of the airport is quite gorgeous but apparently the last thing on the genius planners’ minds is the passengers and their ability to traverse this terminal.
What you have to understand is all civil rights go out the window at the airport. The TSA Nazis can do whatever they like. Our airports are in a sense temporary concentration camps.
What is a Skycap?
It means a luggage porter. Don’t know where the word came from.
Hotel luggage porters used to be called “redcaps”, from the typical uniform. “Skycap” is just a bit of marketing to get people to use the luggage porters at airports, when that was a new service.
It is takes me less time to drive to Reagan National Airport(40 miles from home), park and get through security than it does to drive to Dulles (14 miles),park and get through security. I avoid Dulles.