How to kill time in airports

Airports are boring places. The standard waiting time is three hours from check-in to departure. But whether the wait is three hours or more (due to, say, some horribly long flight delays), I find ways to avoid boredom.

I read a book at the departure lounge. That could be a travel book — say, reading up on the places I am visiting. Or I learn new tricks and tips about creating a website with Dreamweaver. If I am stuck in an airport for five hours, I will finish off the whole manual over a restaurant meal paid for by airline vouchers.

I read and send e-mail on my laptop. Writing up my reports and travelogues is time well spent, too. Details are still fresh in my mind. I play video games. I watch a movie. (Once I played a CD of the Pacquiao-Marquez fight on my laptop. I found a crowd forming a semi-circle behind me.) Or I listen to music (airports can be noisy). Or I surf websites like the one that gives some instructions — you’ll never know when it could come in handy someday — on how to land a Boeing 747. There is even one about what I should do in case I am in a hijacked plane.

I make last-minute calls or text messages with my cell phone.

I write with a pen in a pocket notebook, taking down short notes. This is faster than turning on my laptop and waiting a minute for Windows to show up on the monitor.

Taking a nap is safe, as long as I make sure that my feet are resting on top of my trolley and my arms are hugging my laptop. I set the alarm on my cell phone for l5 minutes before departure time. If my alarm fails and to be sure I am not the last to board, I tell the departure clerks to wake me up.

Sometimes I chat with fellow passengers. My opener is “Are you vacationing in (destination)?” I find strangers drop their guard when they are fellow passengers. It must be the psychology of ants in harmony because they belong to the same ant colony.

In my last travel, my talk with fellow passengers sounded like we were in a focus group discussion. One elderly passenger on my left complained that plane seats are cramped. He was afraid of death due to the “economy class syndrome” or deep vein thrombosis. The toilets, the woman on my right said, are the size of coffins. When she turns around, her hemline swipes the toilet seat clean. A passenger to my back said he paid $50 because he changed to an earlier schedule. (Changing flight dates used to be free.)

I also try to kill time by trying to answer puzzles like: Is there a better way for passengers to board a plane than from back to front? I don’t have the answer yet. But if there is a faster way, that could mean an extra flight for a plane flying short distances or an extra use of a terminal’s gate. The key, one passenger said, is whether a new boarding sequence would make passengers load their hand luggage in overhead bins faster, get out of the aisle, and let other passengers move to their seats.

If I am hungry, I bite on snacks or chocolate that I bring along during the wait at the departure lounge. If you’re a passenger like me, one who’s already missed sleep the night before and has just walked half a mile to get to the boarding gate, you prefer to hold on to your lounge seat. These hard-backed plastic seats are uncomfortable. But to give up my seat in order to move to a coffee shop or do last-minute shopping for duty-free items at prices above tax-paid prices downtown is not for me.

Besides, when reentering, I do not relish the idea of again having to load my luggage up on the conveyor for the x-ray screening, removing my shoes and my belt (with a prayer that my pants will hang on for dear life), and walking through a metal detector.            

About the only exercise to liven myself up is standing and stretching my legs l5 minutes before boarding time. That should keep my blood circulating and avoid a blood clot when I am buckled into a seat in the plane.

Now, avoiding boredom during the flight is another story altogether…

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E-mail rjpajarillo2002@gmail.com.