Great to fly again, even as the pandemic continues to alter the travel experience

On my first flight in more than a year, downtown Cleveland is revealed from the air.
Janet Podolak

Shut down from traveling by the novel coronavirus pandemic, I’m just back from my first flights in 14 months — a long weekend foray to Baltimore to visit a daughter and grandson for Mother’s Day.

There were some differences, but it was a good experience.

I’d flown an average of two to three times a month the past two decades, including four international trips in a span stretching from 2019 to early 2020 before the pandemic shut down flights and closed borders. As a result, global air traffic saw its greatest decline in aviation history, falling by 65.9 percent compared with 2019, according to the International Air Transport Association.

Figures released by Cleveland Hopkins International Airport revealed a 40 percent decline in domestic arrivals and departures — a number that increased to more than a 90 percent decline when factoring in international flights.

In 2019 the Cleveland airport reported more than 10 million passengers on arriving and departing flights. That number fell to slightly more than a million in 2020, when the pandemic hit.

When I returned from a Caribbean diving-and-snorkeling trip in March 2020, I was on one of the last flights from the island I had visited. A friend, who was due to return to Cleveland a week after I did, remained on the same island until July, when she was finally able to get flights back home.

Many popular destinations in other countries remain closed, require a lengthy quarantine or COVID-19 testing before arrival. In January, Cleveland Hopkins opened a testing site near its information center on the ticketing level. Tests can be given by appointment or on a walk-in basis, although some take several days for the results. I and those I’d visited have been vaccinated.

Fractured ribs from an accident in March almost sidelined my Mother’s Day trip, but thanks to the wheelchair service offered by Cleveland Hopkins and Southwest Airlines, I was able to reach Baltimore.

I left my car at Park ‘N Fly, the off-airport parking site that has long been my favored go-to. The shuttle bus driver helped me get my bag from the trunk of my car and called ahead so a wheelchair would be waiting to take me to my gate when I arrived at the airport.

I’ve honed the airport arrival, check-in, security and gate experience into a science during my many years of jaunts for travel writing, but considering my disability and new pandemic protocols, I knew to allow plenty of time. I arrived at my parking space two hours before my flight time.

I asked the person pushing my wheelchair how long he’d been doing the job.

“Just since the pandemic,” he replied. “I had been doing curbside check-in.”

Curbside check-in is no more. It’s one of the things suspended during the pandemic.

I checked my bag at the Southwest Airlines desk because even though it was small and light, I knew that my rib injury would not allow me to hoist it into the aircraft’s overhead bin above my seat. As a wheelchair passenger, I would be given the privilege of boarding the flight in advance, the agent told me.

There were fewer agents than usual at the counter, but thanks to the availability of online check-in 24 hours in advance and lobby kiosks to print out baggage tags, the process seemed to go smoothly.

Despite published accounts of unruly passengers and those who refused to wear the mandatory face masks, everything went smoothly through security.

As a frequent traveler overseas, I have Global Entry status, which not only whisks me through immigration and security checks when I return from overseas but also gives me TSA Pre-Check status for domestic flights. The small “TSA-Precheck” that appears on my boarding pass allows me to go through security without removing my shoes and jacket or taking my plastic bag of 2-ounce toiletries out of my carry-on bag when I go through security. Despite more and more people having the TSA Pre-Check status, it remains a big time saver at the airport.

As we wheeled to the Southwest Airlines boarding area at the end of B Concourse, I noted the cleaning of vacant boarding areas. Employees wore backpacks with hoses for spraying sanitizer on seats, railings and in passenger areas, wiping down frequently touched surfaces as they went. Everything smelled fresh as spring.

Instead of assigning seats, Southwest assigns boarding positions for its passengers when they check in. When passengers board, they choose their own seats from what is still available. The earliest check-in gets the first choice of seats. Instead of charging for a checked bag as most airlines do, Southwest grants a free bag check-in.

My flight was filled, including the middle seat in the three-seat rows. Until fairly recently, airlines tried to keep those seats open in the name of proper social distancing.

Because I was two hours early for my flight and everything went smoothly, I had 45 minutes to kill before my flight began to board. Although Cleveland was the first city in the country to open a municipal airport, it has remained relatively small and well-organized. Usually, that results in a positive passenger experience.

But I almost missed my return flight from the much busier Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport when I cut it closer than I did in Cleveland. There were no wheelchairs available when I arrived 90 minutes ahead of my 3 p.m. flight.

“You should have been here a half-hour ago,” said the manager of the wheelchair operation when I sought transport to my gate. “There are a lot of people in need of a wheelchair today.”

Sure enough, an online check of the suggested arrival time at this airport suggested a two-hour advance time.

It was a close call — and my TSA Pre-Check status may have saved the day — but I arrived at the gate just five minutes before the flight began to board.

One lesson learned: Check the airport’s website well in advance and plan accordingly.

Get the latest pandemic-related information as it pertains to Cleveland Hopkins International Airport at clevelandairport.com/covid-19.