On March 28th or 29th 1971, I boarded an airplane by myself in Atlanta, flew to Daytona Beach, and got off the airplane with my grandparents waiting for me at the terminal.
I was 3.
I was the only one in my family flying that day, and when I boarded the plane the stewardess asked the old lady* sitting next to me if she wouldn’t mind watching me for the 2, 3 hour flight.
My flight back a week later was also solo, but I was the grand old age of 4 (my birthday was at my grandparents) and a seasoned traveler by then.
*I mean, she could have been 29, but to a 3yo, most adults are old.
IME, you can’t park curbside for any longer than a quick hug before some mirthless goon ambles up and tells you to move along before reaching for his ticket book.
They have a cell phone lot right outside the entrance to the airport. She can call you when she is ready to exit baggage and, by the time she gets to the curb, you will almost be there. Still, it’s sweet that you meet her, acquire the baggage, and walk with her.
Sure. It used to be routine, whether seeing somebody off or picking them up.
I have a vague faint memory of somebody actually coming out to the plane to see someone else off, probably at a fairly small airport, maybe back in the’50’s. That memory’s vague enough that I won’t swear to it, though.
I certainly did it on occasion prior to 9/11; I remember meeting my then-girlfriend (now wife) at the gate when she was disembarking after flying back home to Chicago from the Soviet Union in '91.
The last time I did something like that was meeting a friend at the gate at ORD in August of 2001, so that we could drive together up to the Gen Con gaming convention in Milwaukee. That was about five weeks before 9/11.
The current Austin-Bergstrom International Airport opened in 1999. Many travelers left Austin from the shuttered Robert Mueller Municipal Airport and returned to the new ABIA. Not long after opening, I just had to see the new airport that had been discussed for my whole life. I took my young daughter and we easily went through security and visited the gates on the airside. My favorite part was when she and I would great arriving passengers with a cheerful “Welcome to Houston!”
There’s a cell lot for Midway but it’s a short jog from the airport and doesn’t really eliminate the whole “people trying to drive slowly looking for their friends while other people suddenly see their friend and cut across lanes to park while people in vests are yelling at everyone to keep moving or to move faster or to be parked somewhere else” thing going on.
$6 is a minor price to pay to avoid that and the short term lot is right off the baggage claims. Admittedly, this is just for my own airport usage. Your experiences will vary for other airports. Plus, like I said, this way I can meet my wife inside and hang out with her while she waits for the bags and help carry them out. Money well spent.
Yes, I have vague memories of going to meet relatives at the gate at the airport when I was a kid.
For that matter, I have vague memories of my dad taking me to the airport just to look at the planes.
Prior to them building the new Terminal B around 2008, the short term lot at Sacramento’s airport was free for the first half hour. It was super convenient as it was right across the street from the old (now demolished) terminal. The free parking went away when the new terminal opened, I suspect to help pay for the construction of said terminal. Except for a cell phone lot far from the terminals.
That’s no good solution for me. The pickup lane is slow and crowded despite the cell phone lot. Parking is expensive, and a bit of a hike from baggage pick up. And then the traffic to get home is awful.
I usually catch a cab and don’t ask my husband to fetch me.
We always went to the gate to see people off or pick them up. They had a great knick knack store complete with the best popcorn ever. Or at least the best popcorn at the airport.
This would have been the 60’s into the 70’s. My first flight as a kid was probably in a DC-7 in 1964. It was noisy and unpleasant. I ate ONE molasses cookie and was air sick the whole 500 mile flight. But there was an observation deck to watch the planes at my new home airport. I want to say it had the coin operated viewers but I could be mis-remembering that.
When i flew as an unaccompanied minor, my family took me to the gate, but i was usually seated next to some random businessman. (I mostly flew the shuttle between Boston and NY, or sometimes Newark.) In retrospect, i wonder if they were sad to have a chatty child next to them.
But i liked to fly, and i was never sick or anxious or anything like that. Other than being overly chatty, i was a perfectly okay seat mate.
This capability has existed forever, called a “Gate pass”. But you couldn’t just get one willy-nilly. If you were accompanying someone in a wheelchair, you might get one. “I want to meet someone at the gate”, not so much.
A few years ago my wife’s older brother and his wife (both in their 80s) were flying through our airport with a three-hour layover. She wasn’t feeling well, but convinced me to go to the airport, park, and try to wangle a gate pass. I first went to the regular counter and was rejected; then I went around to the First checkin (this was a Saturday morning, so things were slow). The lone agent was helping someone else. When they finished, she looked up, saw me, and said “Can you wait a sec?” and I said “Sure!” with a big smile.
A couple of minutes later she was still doing paperwork and another agent appeared. The first one pointed to me and said “Can you help him? He’s been waiting”, and under her aegis, the second one gave me the gate pass, no problem.
Best part was when I got to the gate. My brother-in-law was talking to the gate agent, asking directions. His wife saw me coming but didn’t say anything as I walked up, grabbed him by the arm, and said “Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to come with me.” He’s normally the joker of the family, and the momentary look of terror on his face was priceless! And then we had a nice visit.
Nice to see that things will be getting somewhat more sane.
Things got pretty brutal after 9/11, but airport security existed long before that due to hijacking incidents. But I remember way back in my early youth when there was no airport security at all. So the whole family could go to the gate to see somebody off or welcome them home, except for incoming international flights where you had to wait for them to clear customs and immigration.
Also, I was old enough to fly solo back before jet bridges (passenger boarding bridges) became common, so you still had to walk out onto the tarmac and climb stairs to get in the plane. That practice was still common decades later at smaller airports. It was pretty cool because you got to get a close look at the plane. Jet bridges seem specifically intended to take the fun out of flying for a little kid!
I’ve walked into and out of airplanes on staircases quite recently. Probably even this summer. That’s common when you land far out and are herded into a bus to get to the terminal. But i think in Iceland we walked from the terminal to a rolling staircase not that many years ago.
Jet bridges are really nice when the weather is really hot, or raining, or…
I don’t know about MIdway, which I can believe is a mess, but where I fly the person arriving can tell the person parked in the cellphone lot exactly where they are. That speeds things up, and eliminates the circling around the airport looking. A lot of short term parking I’ve been to gets crowded.
As for the OP, I’ve flown long enough to remember when visitors went to the gate. When we left for Africa from Idewild in 1961 my grandfather drove us and stayed with us until we left. And in the early '70s I took the Eastern shuttle between Boston and New York, where you bought your ticket on the plane. Zero security. In 1970 I smuggled my hamster onto the plane in my camera bag.
Security started after all the hijacks to Cuba in '74 or so.
