I Believe I Can Fly
During a pandemic, check-in is a breeze at Santa Barbara Airport
by Megan Waldrep
What Flying During a Pandemic is Like from Santa Barbara Airport
A
s you might expect, I had mixed feelings about flying during a pandemic. Thankfully, the Santa Barbara Airport eased pre-flight nerves before I entered the building. For example, there are separated entries for Alaska and American Airlines on the North end, United and Delta through the main entrance, and signs requiring face masks at every turn. Upon entry, the airport wasn’t empty, but it wasn’t busy either. Without lines at the check-in counters (as in, not one person), the vibe is… chill. Relaxed. Enjoyable? No one is in a rush to catch a plane, people are kind and socially distancing, and hand sanitizer stations are filled and located anywhere you may roam. The best surprise was taking my time through the TSA screening. (To private jetters and TSA pre-checkers, the following may sound foreign to you.) With my boarding pass and ID in hand, I strolled up to the TSA agent’s desk
and passed my documents through a cut-out hole in the plexiglass barrier between us. What usually feels like a race to disrobe and unpack your perfectly packed belongings for the TSA scanners was the opposite – as opposed to limping out of the way wearing half a shoe, I had enough time to redress and pack up again like a civilized human. A first. After a short wait at the gate, about twenty passengers boarded the Alaska Airlines flight to Seattle. With seats in front and behind remaining empty, we strapped into entire rows to ourselves. The flight attendants ensured the cabin had been appropriately sanitized and proceeded with the pre-flight safety demonstration in masks and gloves. Besides the mortality check of turbulence, and hoping my N95 mask does its job, it felt like a normal flight. So normal, in fact, “maskne” (acne from wearing a mask) was my greatest concern other than the virus itself. (A vain yet strange
relief, I admit.) A twenty-minute flight brought us to our first stop in San Luis Obispo, where a cleaning crew would disinfect the plane before the next group of passengers came aboard. We were advised to either stay seated and direct the crew to clean around us or deplane with our belongings for a quick break. The cleaning crew turned out to be one cleaning guy, armed with a spray bottle of “high potency cleaning solution,” paper towels, and a vacuum which he used to trace each row of the cabin. The cleaning guy asked if he could further assist me in any way, and I asked to take his photo instead.
Here’s where the anxiety set in: enter twenty more passengers from SLO. A couple plopped down behind me, and one man scooted to the window seat in front. After the food service of bottled water and packaged snacks – instead of a variety of sodas and juice poured into ice-filled cups – the coughing and sniffling commenced, seeming to echo inside my brain. Each sneeze made me shutter, and I prayed the phlegmy hack from the woman behind me meant she was a smoker. The man in front of me let out a sneeze, and I felt ter-
I BELIEVE I CAN FLY Page 304
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