Boarding Passes Are Adults' Hall Passes

Reader Averill Hecht writes in about the post 9/11 policy of only allowing ticketed passengers past the security checkpoint:

I am an employee at US Airways and have been against "ticketed passengers only" since 9/11. I have been so adamant about this I started my own site to try to let "meeters and greeters" through to the gate areas. Please visit my site and read it and post comments and suggestions, if you wish, on ending this silly Fed. Regulation.
It's at www.changeairportsecurity.org

Also, write the TSA and your congress man or woman and tell them you want this policy ended as well.

Airports used to be my favorite public spaces.

Travel writer Pico Iyer once wrote that "Airports are among the only sites in public life where emotions are hugely sanctioned, in block capitals. We see people weep, shout, kiss in airports; we see them at the furthest edges of excitement and exhaustion. Airports are privileged spaces where we can see the primal states writ large—fear, recognition, hope."

I miss seeing the lines of people waiting for loved ones, friends and ailing grandparents to exit the tube from the plane to the concourse. I miss seeing the lingering final goodbye kisses of long-distance lovers, too sad to hide from the eyes of bored business travellers waiting for a boarding call.

I know there are reasonable arguments to be made for keeping non-travellers out, but it costs.

Photo: _nickd