Tomorrow is my last day in the office. And wednesday is my last day in pittsburgh. I’m emotionally excited, incoherent, and stuff. =)
Also, I realized recently that the cool people who want to meet me in Kansas City are going to have a hard time getting past airport security. It’s only an hour and a half layover. Probably have to board half an hour before take off, so make that an hour. In which time I would have to get off the plane, and through security, both ways, as well as to & from the respective gates. This is sounding a little dicey to me.
Stupid, irrelevant, useless restrictions of additional airport security. Bleh. The terrorists had tickets.
Actually, no it won’t be as much of a problem as you think, since you’re not familiar with the airport. It’s a little hard to visualize, but the three terminal buildings are all shaped like incomplete rings:
Here’s a better diagram. The gates line the outer edge of the ring. The innner portion of the ring is a big hallway that is open to the general public:
All that separates the gate areas from the main hallway is a glass wall and the security checkpoint at each separate gate area (which services 3-5 gates).
So, each small gate area at MCI has its own security checkpoint. It’s not like most airports where there is a terminal building and one or more separate concourses (where the gates are), such that everone has to get funnelled through one security checkpoint. I agree, with that sort of building, a visit wouldn’t be feasible. At the KC, airport, however, it’s actually workable. All you’ll need to do is walk off the plane and boarding ramp, then walk about another 25 or so feet until you get out of the gate area itself. Then, once you’re done visiting, you can pop back into the gate area through the security checkpoint. In my experience, it’s never taken more than 5 minutes or so to get through gate security. Just make sure to have your travel papers with you when you get off the plane, so that you can get back through the checkpoint. I’d say that you’d basically have a full hour to chat, barring any flight delays.
If you have any questions, feel free to drop me a line (my email’s on my user info page)!
What he said. KC’s airport sucks huge furry monkey balls, but atleast it still makes seeing people just blowing through possible.
Unfortunately, and I won’t be in KC after all when you fly through. We’ll both be in Knoxville, TN. Me for working, him for getting to actually spend some time with me.
However, we _are_ in Pittsburgh for the weekend. :o)
Stupid, irrelevant, useless restrictions of additional airport security. Bleh. The terrorists had tickets.
This isn’t actually about security, though, it’s about crowd-control.
The security check-points at airports are woefully inadequate. There are efforts going on right now to improve this (I have word that the improvement is significant) in terms of both thoroughness of the search as well as speed.
Limiting access to just ticketed passengers simply lets them cut down the population that needs to be searched, and lets the process move that much quicker. This way they can carry out more extensive searches right now with limited capabilities they have available.
It’s my understanding that when the new procedures are in place, the limits on the non-ticketed public will be lifted.