I remember disembarking onto the tarmac, walking across it, and up a narrow staircase into the gate, where family would be waiting.
And yes, I remember going through what seems like such minimal security check now, to see relatives off at the gate.
I also remember taking and seeing people off or greeting people on puddle-hoppers with no security at all, because the plane didn’t have the range to be hijacked to even Cleveland.
We were in a city about an hour south of Indianapolis, and there was a puddle-hopper (commuter plane) to Chicago 7 days a week leaving IIRC 4 times a day on the week days, and once a day on the Sat & Sun. It was a 45 minute flight over a 6hr drive, and I took it to visit an aunt and uncle in the summer a couple of time. My grandmother visited up during winter break, then if the cousins from Chicago had not come down, she went up on the puddle-hopper to visit them.
You just went into the one-room gate/check-in, and got your boarding pass, sat down, and then when the plane boarded, someone walked over and told you it was time to board. you walked outside, and up the steps.
Greater security needs, raising speed limits from 55 the whole way, to 65 and even 75 in some places, a new, cheap tollway that cut about 45 minutes off the drive for like, 50 cents, and much more reliable and gas-efficient commuter cars killed puddle-hoppers, even before the overwhelming need for security post 9/11.
FWIW, the 6hs drive to Chicago now takes slightly over 4hrs.
Yes, when my cousin returned from Vietnam my aunt, mother and I were waiting to greet him at the gate.
It was a big deal for us kids to go to the airport and watch the big jets come and go. We got to go up on the roof and watch then though paid binocular scopes while my dad sat at the bar waiting for his family at the gate. And of course they were smoking while waiting at the gate for them.
The one time I got to do something like this post-9/11 was when I picked up my unaccompanied minor child. The procedure for getting a pass was similar — this sounds basically like an extension of that.
When I was a kid, we would park at the airport (no charge for parking) and go out to the special deck where you could just watch the planes take off and land. They even had some of those enormous magnifier viewers (coin operated). I still have pix I took of the planes.
Yes, i flew a lot as a kid, and someone from my family always met me at the gate. Security was rational, not nutty. (Let’s check for big chunks of metal, like guns! That Swiss army knife in your pocket? Obviously not designed to be a weapon, you can keep it. I used to travel with a pocket knife, and i just put it with my keys and coins for security to look at.)
This new program seems a bit oversold. In order to meet someone at the gate, you will need to apply on advance for a pass. There are already other programs to do that, so you can get into meetings held inside security. (Did you know there are meeting rooms at O’Hare? Suuuper convenient for a group from across the country, as everyone can get a direct flight to O’Hare, and no one needs to schedule a big chunk of time at the end in case security is backed up. But the people who aren’t flying there can get in with ID. At least, that was true years ago, but well after 9/11.) You can also get a pass to accompany a disabled person past security, i think.
The difference between this and other programs is that you don’t need to have a specific stated reason. You just need to have TSA pre. But you do need to apply in advance. I wonder why they are doing this.
The Manchester NH airport used to have that post 9/11, I specifically remember my Dad would fly out of Manchester & I’d bring the kids to watch the planes until “his” took off. But apparently they reconfigured and the observation deck is now in the secure gate area. Too bad.
Oh, yes. My dad travelled a lot for business, and I can recall meeting him at the gate.
I’m liking that! Even if I had TSA PreCheck and that privilege, I probably would never avail myself of it. It’s much easier to just swoop in and pick them up curbside then to access the parking garage, travel to the gate, and then travel back to my car with passenger and luggage in tow.
Friendship Airport (nice name) was razed to the ground, rebuilt and rechristened Baltimore-Washington International Airport (not nice name) eons ago. No observation deck, massive, expensive parking garage. The airport used to be fun. Then the asteroid killed off all the dinosaurs (except me).
I flew home for Christmas one year, and was met at the gate by my two older brothers. We were about halfway down the concourse when it occurred to me that brother #2 lived in New Jersey and wasn’t going to make back for the holiday. Nice little surprise, accompanied by my belated “what are you doing here?”.
The real obstacle these days isn’t really the security checkpoint (you can greet loved ones at the exit to baggage claim), but rather the price and distance of airport parking. I’m glad the modern expectation of flyers is that they will be picked up at the curb. More convenient (and affordable) for everyone.
Yeah. I remember going to the gate in Dallas to pick family members up. The last time I picked someone up at the gate was at what was then Little Rock National Airport in 2001. My mother asked me if I needed her gate information and I told her no. The airport is so small all the gates are in the same area. You don’t need someone’s airline or gate information because you can’t help but find them.
The last time I remember meeting someone at the gate was in the late 90s.
I flew a lot in the mid 1970s through the mid 1980s and remember it well.
I have pictures of my family sending me off to US Navy bootcamp in 1981 at one of the Pittsburgh Airport gates.
I don’t think people usually did that when picking up a friend or a spouse from a routine trip. But if it’s your unaccompanied minor child, or your elderly mother who needs help in the airport, it’s much nicer to greet them yourself than to depend on some airport employee. And if it’s your son returning from his mission, or your daughter returning from her stint in the army, i think it’s also nice to see them as soon as possible.
Yes, I remember, when I was a kid, in Spain in the 60’s and 70’s, but only for intra-Spain flights. For the flights from abroad you had to go through customs first, that area was sealed off. That was before Spain joined the EU, in 1986, and before Schengen. But by then security had taken over (there was some terrorism in Spain then, but not jihadists. They feared mostly Basque separatists.) Then airports were conceived as shopping malls, with a security check at the entrance and gates at the other end, and you had to go through the duty free shops whether you wanted to buy something or not.
The only exception was Tegel airport in Berlin, which had a unique design: It was hexagonal, you accessed the gates from within the hexagon, the planes were parked outside, with fingers to access them. Each gate had its own security check, and you could wait outside, inside the hexagon, for incoming guests. That was a nice, interesting airport:
Tegel airport was closed in 2020, when they opened the new Berlin Brandenburg International (BBI) catastrophe we have to endure today.
Then came 9/11 and security went crazy and flying stopped being fun. That was before BBI, which shows things can always get worse.
I did it all the time. It was the “polite” thing to do back in the day. The one upside to TSA security theater is that curbside is the expected greeting point.
I remember my parents meeting my family at the gate for a few years when we visited for Christmas, and I hated it. My daughter was a baby/toddler, and my parents couldn’t wait to hold her, but I just wanted a few minutes to organize, run to the bathroom, make sure she was clean and cute, grab a snack before the grandparent chaos.
It’s funny because, when I need to pick up my wife at Chicago Midway, I always use the short-term parking garage. I’d rather pay $6 for the hour and be able to go inside to meet her, help get her bags and walk out with her than do the rotating loop around the pick-up curb with baton wavers in hi-vis vests yelling at me the whole time. Maybe parking is less of an option at other airports.
My primary gate memory was in the late 90s when I was involved in an online thing with a girl several states away. She was traveling with her family and they had an hour layover at O’Hare so we arranged to meet up. Except she got the time wrong, I met her right before she had to leave again and we spent a brief few minutes making out by a news stand before she was off. Amicably didn’t work out down the line but left a great impression.