Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Salt Lake City Apr.: Departing Salt Lake City, Utah (SLC)

23APR08 Salt Lake City International Airport Salt Lake City, UT (SLC)

After a short drive in a light rain, we arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare. I returned the car and was charged the fuel surcharge of 10.50 USD if you return the car having traveled under 75 miles and do not have a receipt for gas. We had actually driven only 38 miles and the needle had not even moved at all.

We entered the airport terminal and all used the four kiosk to re-print our boarding passes and then made it to the security area. One of my colleagues pointed out that the TSA has a posted with different categories; Expert Traveler, Standard Traveler and Family Traveler. They used the ski resort icons plus pictures of skiers skiing and sitting in a ski lift to denote the categories.

There were no issues clearing security except that I asked one of the guys what happens if I don’t want to take off my shoes. He said then I can’t fly! Really?, I said and then he said that if there is a medical reason why I don’t want to take off my shoes then they have additional screening procedures for that.

We were famished, so a stop in Burger King for a salad was warranted. While there I talked with some guys in the line who were going on a Rugby trip to Indianapolis via Chicago O’Hare on American Airlines (AA). They were all dressed in khaki pants and a black polo shirt. I commented to my colleague what a difference this was to the guys I had seen in Houston Intercontinental last Sunday. It is pretty obvious that this coach is teaching these young men some sense of public decency. Thank you for that.

After eating my fries, we went to the gate with my salad in tow. I’ll have it on the flight as this flight is only a beverage service flight :-(.

Once at the gate, I checked if boarding had commenced as it was 2:15p and it had not. I did notice that a wheelchair bound passenger had boarded just as we were arriving.

In a few minutes, the agent commenced boarding by row numbers so we all boarded accordingly.