Who goes to the airport to greet their spouse when they arrive? I see small crowds of people at the baggage claim areas when I come in. As I move through them, seeing the hugs & hearing the repeated “welcome home”, I feel very alone since no one is ever there for me.
So - do you go? Or do you have people who greet you?
If you are like me, would your week be a little better if someone was there? Or would you rather just get your bags and be gone?
I do, every time. We don’t travel a lot, and I’ve always been happy to see someone waiting for me when I got home. So I extend the same thought to my family when they fly too. Plus I’m always happy to see them and know they got home safely.
My husband’s family will fly in from out of town, and his mom will meet them at the MARTA (rapid transit) station, not at the airport. I always thought this was a little bit sad. But they’re happy with it, so it’s not really my place to criticize, I guess.
My husband is away all the time, he has a lifetime total of over 3 million frequent flier miles. We have a very small airport so I get there a little late while there is a place to be at the five minute pick-up area. He’ll be waiting with his luggage. Otherwise it would be $5.00 to park every time.
We started this when the kids were little, it was too hard to always drag them out of the car. Also he used to never give me the correct return flight or call if a flight got cancelled so I got tired of getting the kids out of the car for nothing.
If his mom flies here we greet her, if my sister flies here she waits at the curb.
His family in Detroit has a system where you call right when you get off the plane and someone leaves then to pick you up. The timing works out perfectly for getting luggage and being by the pick up area.
With how insane most airports are I wouldn’t expect anyone to go to the trouble of parking and walking five miles just to hug me at the gate. We can hug later.
I live overseas so when I come home someone always picks me up. But I usually have to search for them because my family is easily distracted and tends to wander off…
My wife flies on business several times a month. I always just pick her up at the curb. She never checks baggage, so that’s not a problem. Parking, getting out and waiting for her inside is just too much of a hassle for both of us.
If I drive myself to the airport & leave my car in a parking lot it’d be silly to have somebody else drive a second car out to meet me when I return.
But if somebody drove me to the airport so we wouldn’t spend $20/day for parking while I’m gone, then somebody will have to be there to pick me up when I return.
OTOH, having somebody drive me to/fromteh airport spends their time & makes them captive to the vagaries of my travel schedule. Avoiding that may be worth $20/day or whatever your local airport parking costs.
So I really think what the OP is seeing is simply two different approaches to ground-side transportation, rather than anyone making a special trip to greet someone at the earliest opportunity.
We use public transport to get to and from the airport. I make a special trip whenever I can when my husband is coming home from somewhere, and meet him at the airport and we ride the T home together. It’s just nice. He does the same for me.
When either of us travels for business, we generally drive ourselves to the airport, so there’s no need for a pick-up. However, if for some reason I need to pick him up, I wait at the cell phone lot and he calls me when he’s gotten his bags. Same thing when our daughter flies into town. It makes for a quicker escape from the airport.
We’re just very practical that way…
While in the Army, not all the personal greetings in airports were nice.
I would rather have been ignored.
When I can, I pick my husband up from the airport after multi-day trips. It isn’t always feasible - it’s a long haul out there and we have two young kids - but I feel better knowing he’ll see friendly faces when he comes through the security gates.
Come to think of it, whenever I’ve flown by myself, there’s always been someone meeting me at the other end - family or a friend. When we’ve flown to the States my mom and dad have always been there to pick us up. It would seem strange to me to have to go out by myself and find the shuttle bus… call me spoiled 
My husband travels sometimes for his job but, thank Og, his company pays for a car service that takes him from our house to the airport and picks him up on his return. I am very glad that I don’t have to drive him because we live outside of Boston and driving through the city to get to Logan Airport is a nightmare. When I travel, I don’t get perks like a car service, so I take the suburban commuter train into the city and from there I catch a bus to the airport.
Since it’s at least a two hour car trip to the nearest commercial airport, and at least three to the one my company uses most often, when I flew on business my husband didn’t meet me at the airport. He met me at the commuter train station when he dropped me off/picked me up so we could avoid the obscene parking charges at the big city airports, the tolls, the aggravation…
At the small airports where I do the flying he’ll show up in the parking lot sometimes when I’m pulling off the runway, but really, it’s all become so routine that it’s no longer a big deal.
Generally, someone picks me up at my destination, but it’s more of a pain getting someone to to get me to the airport or pick me up on the way back. Sometimes, one of my friends will drop me off or pick me up, but usually I drive myself or take a taxi.
GT
I live about a hundred miles (okay, 85) from the nearest “real” airport, and I’m one of those chickenbrained nervous drivers who hate big cities and complicated interchanges, so I am always either picked up by someone (those are good trips) or I have to take the shuttle service home (those are bad trips). I have, in the past, made a special trip on the shuttle just to greet people getting back from trips, and talk to them on the drive home.
We live about 15 mins from the airport. I try to leave to pick up Suburban Plankton at whatever time his plane is due to land. That was he can get his baggage and be at the curb when I get there.
Because we live close, we often volunteer to let friends/family park their car at our house and we will drive them and pick them up. We always do so at the curb or else we’d have to pay $5 for parking.
About every two months I get to go home from Iraq. My wife meets me at the airport. If the weather is nice she brings the dog and leaves her in the car. It makes a big difference to me. A couple of times she couldn’t meet me, I don’t remember the particulars. When she meets me at the iternational arrivals gate, my home coming is immediant, when she can’t meet me, it delays it by the hour or so it takes me to get to DC from Dulles.
I posted this here once before, but it was a long time ago, so I will post it again, since it is entirely on topic. (A characteristic not notable in my posting career)
Orignally posted by Me
A young woman comes into the busy airport, and leads an older man to a quiet place near the windows to the great expanse of runways and taxiways below. She speaks with him, for a few moments, and goes to the counter to ask the attendant something. When she returns she tells the old man that they will have to wait about half an hour, or so, but the plane is on time, and no delay is expected. She sits down beside him, and gets out a book. The man sits quietly for a few moments.
As the first of many planes lands in front of the wide window, the old man comes to his feet, with some labor, and walks over to the window. He watches the plane land, and turns to the young woman.
“Daughter,” he says, “I think that’s the plane!”
She smiles, but makes no other answer. He turns, and watches the plane pass by. The next plane to taxi below must be the same one, he decides.
“Yep! Here it comes!” He calls out.
He watches the plane taxi by, off to a distant gate. His face displays only slight disappointment. He looks over to the gate his daughter has brought him to, which still shows an arrival time nearly half an hour away. This tiny drama plays out again, with each plane that lands. The cheerful and expectant announcement, the assumed identity of each passing plane and the mild but quickly dismissed concern over each disappointment.
Others wait here too, some awaiting travelers, some soon to be travelers themselves. They watch the old man with some bemusement. He seems much more lucid than his behavior would indicate. He does not seem confused, so much as he seems unfailingly willing to believe that each moment brings and end to his waiting. His endlessly rejuvenated optimism is not rational, but it is beyond any possible scorn, because it is so obviously genuine.
Twice, in half an hour, the plane of the moment comes to a gate near the one that his daughter sits near. Both times the man walks over, and watches the passengers exiting the gate, looking at each one, but for a moment. When the last one exits, he waits, and at length, returns to his seat, again to await the plane that must come, and must come soon.
At last, the plane that taxis up comes to the correct gate. His response is no more enthusiastic, nor any less, than it has been each time. The onlookers feel rather otherwise. A quiet expectation overcomes the common chatter of the traveler’s world. No one speaks at all. The moments stretch out, as the normal mechanics of air travel seem suddenly interminable to all that watch. Finally the passengers begin to come through the gate.
The old man and the silent audience look at each new passenger. They look at him each time. He simply looks on, to the next. Half a hundred people bustle by. A few are even somewhat disconcerted to notice that people are watching them intently. Most simply pass by, hurrying on to the destination of their journeys. In the end, the old man’s face is announcement enough for the watching crowd. He lights up with a bright smile, one which shows as much joy, and relief, and happiness as ever a man could feel.
“Mary! Mary, over here!” he shouts. She hears, and smiles, and waves. He walks to her. She walks to him. Perhaps they even hurry, though it would be difficult to tell. As they meet, they are the center of attention of a crowd, but to each other they are alone. They kiss, and hug, with a fierce and utterly tender desire to know, each of them that they are together.
She speaks loudly, “I am never going to leave you again.” she says. He smiles, and walks with her to leave the airport. He seems now to be content, without anxiety. She is beaming. The young woman joins them, and the tiny drama concludes. Nearby, strangers find themselves swept up in the strength of this love, grown old, but ever stronger.
Tris
Somebody once said there is nothing worse than seeing somebody off or being seen off. I agree in a way. For me, I like to slip in and out of the country with the minimum amount of fuss. After the hassle of customs and immigration, baggage, etc, I don’t need fretting relatives as well. Also, as Sydney airport charges like a wounded bull for casual parking, and I’ve been on the street within ten minutes of getting off the plane, or over an hour on other occasions, I don’t want people hanging around craning their necks for an hour watching the passengers emerge through that door. I hate doing that (you can’t even go for a coffee), so I don’t want to subject others to it. Just a quick phone call “Hi, I arrived in Outer Mongolia safely”, or “Hi. I’m home safe. Catch up on the weekend, yeah?” is all I like to do, and all I expect from others.
If I’d been away for a year, it might be different.
If I’m going to see my mom, we don’t get “met” - we have to take a shuttle bus two hours north after the plane (I don’t like the idea of her driving alone from Prescott to Phoenix and back) and when she comes to see us, my brother meets her - I think. O’Hare parking can be expensive so I’m not 100% sure but I think he does.
When I go to visit my parents in CA, they (at least one of them, anyway) shows up to pick me up. Which is always nice, especially now that my dad finally gave in and got a cell phone so I can call him if I can’t find him. When I was coming back from studying abroad for eleven months in college, they showed up at the airport something like an hour and a half late. (They forgot to take into account that there was a race at Sears Point, the X-Games were going on in San Francisco, AND it was Gay Pride Weekend when they headed out for the airport.) That was what, seven years ago, and I still bring it up from time to time.
But they don’t usually drive me back to the airport, they take me to the airporter pickup location, which is fine.