My visit to Fargo is over, and I’m sitting in the local airport waiting for a plane to take me to Minneapolis where another, smaller plane will take me to South Bend, Indiana, where Earl will pick me up in his car and drive me home.
I will be spending more time waiting in airports than I’ll spend in actual flight time to get from Fargo to South Bend. And it’s probably because both Fargo and South Bend are what I would call secondary flight paths, those smaller airports that require servicing but which are not the bread and butter of the airline industry. Which means that, where primary airports have multiple flights from one major city to another, secondary airports have only one flight from Point A to Point B.
At the same time, these secondary airports have their advantages. I can either drive two and a half hours to Chicago and pick up a major airline there or I can drive forty-five miles down the road to catch a puddle-jumper which lands in Chicago in less time than I can get there. Either way, I make the connection to the next destination.
But the added advantage to the smaller airport is that security and traffic and tension are all significantly reduced. This isn’t to say that the TSA is lax in smaller airports; rather there are fewer people to process, so the actual processing goes faster even when a TSA employee is more attentive to shoes and belts and underwire bras. Tension is lessened because people actually smile at each other in small towns. It’s reassuring.
So while I sit in Fargo eagerly waiting for my flight I know that the worst is behind me. I’ve passed through security, my luggage was approved, and I only have to wait until we board the plane. After that, it’s just one more connection and I’m home free.
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