Tag Archives: D/FW Airport

International news, local news

Almost a perfect ending

My two-week sojourn to Germany ended today, and by golly it could have been a perfect landing for this weary traveler.

Except for one little thing … well, two actually.

My luggage didn’t show up!

Over many years traveling, some of it internationally, I have had extraordinary good luck when it involves luggage. I guess today my luck ran out.

I checked into the Nuremberg, Germany airport this morning two hours ahead of my flight to Paris. A two-hour layover there preceded my boarding a plane bound for Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.

Two hours is plenty of time for the luggage to be transferred, right? I sat on the packed Boeing 787 for 10 hours. I got off the plane and went first to customs and then to baggage claim, where I waited and waited some more.

Two pieces of checked luggage didn’t make it.

The kid at the customer service counter looked at my claim tickets and said the bags were “still in Paris. I guess they must have had a weight issue for the plane.”

The luggage will get here in a day or two. Hey, no sweat. I have plenty of clothes hanging in my closet.

You know what? None of this hassle today is going to take a single, solitary thing away from the marvelous time I had with dear friends.

However, first things first. I need to take a nap.

local news

Flaps up in McKinney?

Voters in the next-door city of McKinney, Texas, are going to vote this week on a measure to expand the city’s airport to include commercial air travel.

I wish I could cast a vote this coming Saturday on this measure, which is a $200 million bond issue to add four gates to McKinney National Airport, expand the runway and build some parking lots. I would vote in favor of it … despite the organized opposition that is building against the plan.

There is something appealing to me, who lives in Princeton (about five miles east of the airport) to be able to drive just a short distance to catch a flight to — oh, I don’t know — somewhere, rather than drive all the way to Love Field or to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.

I haven’t a clue as to whether this bond issue will pass voters’ muster. Opponents complain about the increase in traffic, congestion, noise and assorted other issues related to boosting air travel in the area.

McKinney Mayor George Fuller, though, talks about the huge job creation and the enormous economic impact an expanded National Airport will have on McKinney and the surrounding communities … such as, oh, Princeton! He also points out that H-E-B grocers are building a store in McKinney and that, too, will bring lots of traffic to the city.

There. I’ve had my say on that matter. I won’t be able to vote on it. I just thought it would be worth mentioning that I am going to cheer for the airport expansion with the hope that it will bring greater amenities to the city I call home.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Commercial air travel is coming?

McKinney, Texas, is home to what they call a “national airport.” Well, it looks as though the city that runs the place is asking its residents for a serious upgrade at the terminal just down the road from where I live in Collin County.

The McKinney City Council is putting a $200 million bond issue on the May 6 ballot, asking residents to spend the money to create a commercial air terminal at the “national airport.”

I wish I could vote in that election. I just will have to endorse the notion of turning McKinney National Airport into a place where we can fly aboard a commercial aircraft.

I believe the community is ready to approve such a notion.

McKinney, just as Princeton is where I live, has entered serious growth mode. Just take a gander at all the commercial construction along Farm-to-Market Road 546 and you understand what I mean. Unlike Princeton, which is developing rapidly into a serious bedroom community with lots of houses springing up out of the dirt, McKinney is adding substantial professional and commercial development, too.

An airport upgrade, thus, seems to make sense as the Collin County seat continues to grow. What’s more, turning its national airport into a commercial transportation venue would save air travelers — such as me — the misery of driving all the way to Love Field or Dallas-Fort Worth airport.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Preparing for a sad, but also joyful, duty

I am preparing at this moment to take a four-hour ride from Dallas-Fort Worth airport to Portland, Ore., where I will participate in what can be best described as a cycle of life ritual.

I will bid farewell to my beloved uncle, Jim Phillips. I will be there along with his wife, his children, many of his grandchildren, one of my sisters and virtually all of my cousins on my mother’s side of my boisterous family.

It will sadden me to say goodbye. It also will enable us to rejoice in the full and fruitful life he had over the span of his 93 years on this good Earth. We will gather to remember the richness that Uncle Jim brought to us. I trust we all will in our own way pledge to cling to those memories as we move on through the rest of our lives. Those thoughts will not sadden me. They will make me smile.

These events are part of what all families must endure. Indeed, as I am now well into that stage of my own life, having just turned 70 a little while back, my sisters, along with my wife and sons, realize as I do that the clock is ticking for all of us. The number of our family elders with whom we grew up is diminishingĀ  far too rapidly.

However, it is the inevitable march of time over which no one has any control.

It’s been said many times by many people perhaps over many adult beverages that “Not a single one of us gets outta here alive.”

So it goes ā€¦ and so it will be.

business news

AMA gets chance to boost city business climate

Amarillo long has seen its international airport as a gateway to the city’s economic well being.

If you look back over recent history, you find examples of the city forking over public money to keep jet service between the airport and Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport; critics called that initiative a form of “economic bribery.” I called it at the time a bold and creative initiative to help make business travel more comfortable for those seeking to do business in Amarillo.

The money came from sales tax revenue collected by the Amarillo Economic Development Corp.

So, with that the city has announced that American Airlines is going to begin daily non-stop service between Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport and Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport. They’ll fly once daily between AMA and PHX.

The AEDC, City Hall and the Chamber of Commerce see it as a big business opportunity, connecting Amarillo with a key hub out west, enabling travelers to avoid flying east to DFW just to connect and fly west.

That’s a good idea … if the city markets the opportunity as aggressively as it did the AEDC subsidy it paid to American Airlines back when it sought to entice the carrier to keep the jets flying to DFW.

Since I am fully retired and since my wife and I will spend the vast bulk of our domestic travel time in our fifth wheel RV rather than in airports, I don’t have a particular dog in this so-called fight.

For the rest of Amarillo — which appears to be entering an accelerated growth mode — this new air service is good news.

Let there be more.

International news

My worst nightmare — of the moment — will not occur

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I had a “worst nightmare” moment sitting in a restaurant at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.

The nightmare involved a young woman with two young sons, one of whom had just finished screaming at the top of his lungs aboard a 10-hour flight from Frankfurt, Germany to D/FW Airport.

The little darlin’ sat about five feet from my wife and me aboard the Boeing 777.

He screamed. He threw things. He carried on … and on … and on.

Mommy did zero to stop him. Nothing to comfort him. She made no outward acknowledgment of embarrassment or of shame.

The kid screamed at the top of his lungs. For 10 stinking hours!

My worst nightmare?

That Mommy and this kid would board our plane for Amarillo as my wife and I made our way home from a marvelous vacation in Germany and The Netherlands.

Thank almighty God in heaven. I have seen no sign of the kid.

So far.

Pray for us. Please.

 

International news, local news

A pleasant airport/flying story … finally!

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We’ve all bemoaned how unpleasant air travel hasĀ become since 9/11.

Long lines at security checkpoints; having to virtually undress to get through the scanners; occasionally brusque treatment from Transportation Safety Administration personnel; old folks and babies being whisked away for more intense interrogation.

I’m going to impart to you a pleasant airport tale that, frankly, caught my wife and I by surprise as we traveled to Germany.

We arrived at Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport well in advance of our departure. We checked out luggage at the American Airlines ticket counter. We then proceeded to the security area expecting to be all but frisked and body searched by an overzealous TSA agent.

The fellow who greeted us checked out boarding passes and then handed us each a shiny card and said we could present it to the other agent standing by the body scanner. It would enable us to proceed through an “expedited” scanning process, meaning we didn’t have to take off our shoes and go through all the other normal nonsense.

Zoom! We were through slick as a whistle.

We proceeded to the gate area, where we purchased a hot drink and a bagel. The young woman asked us a bit later if we wanted coffee refills. “Well … yes. That would be nice,” my wife said. So, she gave us a refill and wished us safe travels.

We flew to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport aboard a brand new Embraer jet; a flight attendant told us it was brought online just this past spring. The flight was smoooooth, man!

We then went looking forĀ where to eat at D/FW. We found a sandwich joint. The waitress could not possibly have been nicer, more courteous and efficient. She, too, wished us well as went to our gate.

Then we boarded a Boeing 777-200 jumbo jet for the nine-hour flight to Frankfurt. We departed at precisely the scheduled time and took off.

To top it all off, we arrived at our destination 30 minutes ahead of schedule.

So … there you have it. Traveling by air can be a pleasant experience.

Now, if only I could learn to sleep on an airplane.