getting from here to there has become a nightmare.Actually, if you can find a better way to travel, how about this for your catch phrase, "We take the nightmare out of here to there."
Admittedly, I haven't flown from "Avoca" since before 9/11. For someone who flew regularly for years, that is a long time. The last "big trip" Carol and I took was a Bermuda cruise the summer before last. We sailed from Philly. It was sheer joy eliminating the need to fly. If you haven't done a cruise without the flights, you have no idea just how sweet it is.
We really have one airport, just like we have one stadium, one arena. So, call them the airport, the stadium, the arena. Naming rights aside, they are what they are. Our airport's name is a clumsy molar-mangling mouthful that has annoyed me for years, not to mention it being hollow and meaningless.
The "international" designation is a bit of pomp which we could do without. Yes, I know, you could fly from here to Bratislava non-stop if...if...if...
Look, if my aunt had certain body parts, two in fact, she'd be my uncle.
I'd settle for a non-stop to Pittsburgh. Might as well shoot for Bratislava, or Singapore, or even Dublin.
Flying from Philadelphia, Newark, even Allentown was often more appealing than trying to get out of Avoca. So help me, it was never about price with me, it was about avoiding tangled, convoluted, and headache connections, ones that resulted in what should be two hours pleasantly spent, into eight or nine hours and three or four airports making me miserable. Many surely know the feeling.
Please, anyone who knows me at all can vouch for my being an unabashed booster of NE PA. My cheerleading for this part of the state is constant and genuine. Say, proud to say, we sure do have a nice
new airport terminal, complete with a lot of pretty neat artwork, some by an old acquaintance of mine, Henry Fells, or Hank as most call him.The need for better air service here has long been a hot topic.
Getting it has long been a hot potato.
I'm strongly in the camp of those who think we need an independent airport board, one made up of business, community, civic, and social leaders, rather than one confined to county commissioners from two counties, two counties that should be "best pals." I figure the six commissioners have enough to do, so just get out of the airport business and be done with it.
Pittsburgh is now the source of my pain. See, I need to be in Pittsburgh in early June for at least a day, two if I choose. Long-distance driving's charm left me long ago. If I can fly somewhere, anywhere, hand me that boarding pass, return my seat to wherever you want, and buckle me in.
Years back, a USAir 737 pilot told me a pretty cool story. Flying time, air time, from Avoca to Pittsburgh could be as short as nineteen minutes. Correct, nineteen - 19 - minutes. From wheels up to wheels down, nineteen minutes. Fuel economy, and landing slots at Pittsburgh, were the only reasons the trip ran roughly an hour. Now, if you haven't done the hop from here to there recently, you might not believe how long it takes. A quick story to establish a point of reference.
I once flew from Avoca to a small town in Idaho named Pocatello, where friends of mine picked me up and drove me to their home in an even smaller town hours away. I spent roughly eleven "airline" hours that day, and boarded and deplaned at least three jets operated by three airlines, not counting intermediate stops, to make the trip. I thought it was a remarkably long journey.
Europe was closer time-wise. There was so much up and down and up and down that I really hated flying for a long time after that day. That was over twenty years ago.
Here, in 2008, getting to the other side of the state can take even longer.
I'm not driving to Pittsburgh.
If you like to play Remember When, let's remember when about the only place you could get to from Avoca was Pittsburgh. That wasn't all that long ago. I think 2001 was the big bad year when USAir's fortunes really tanked, at least as far as Pennsylvania operations were concerned. Pittsburgh used to be the center of USAir's universe, the airport authority going so far as to build a brand spanking new airport, predicated upon the logical thinking that USAir would be its anchor.
Shortly after the new 'port was built, USAir
dumped 1,200 jobs in Pittsburgh and discontinued literally hundreds of daily flights. They also scrapped plans to build a major maintenance facility in Imperial, which is the town where the airport is physically located. Imperial would be Pittsburgh's Avoca, if our airport was in Avoca. Apparently, it's not, it's in Pittston Township. More deception. I give up.Poking around the last few days, I was astonished(and frustrated) to find that there is no direct service from Avoca, Allentown, Pittsburgh, Williamsport, or even Harrisburg, to Pittsburgh. Some of Pennsylvania's key cities are at least a couple legs/stops/changes away from our gateway to the west, the city of three rivers, the Pirates, Steelers. The town that gave the world Andy Warhol, and the "Imp and Iron." ("Imp and Iron" is a shot and a beer - shot of Imperial and a glass of Iron City, on tap of course.)
A trip to Pittsburgh from Avoca(or wherever the airport is)can now consume up to ten hours of your travel day. Depending on times you need, ten hours or more. The minimum time would be over four hours.
Over four hours.
In four hours you could wing it down to Key West from Newark. In roughly four hours you could have an early couple eggs over easy with home fries at La Guardia, then hit several mojitos with lunch in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. Add another hour, make it five hours, and you could be working on a tan in the US Virgin Islands.
All I need is to get to Pittsburgh.
The trip could take up to ten hours. Ten hours would be a few hours short of here to Honolulu. Ten hours is almost 75% of the flight to Australia. Ten hours would not only get me to The UK, it would give me time to get into London, find a great pub, and blow back at least two pints of an English best bitter. Chip could recommend a brand.
After a ten hour trip via either Philly, Detroit, Washington, Cleveland - and I am not kidding about that route - I'll be ready for a couple mojitos, or maybe an Imp 'n Iron or two. And I'll be tired, but enlightened as to the sad state of air travel here in the USA.
