Ahhh... Good Ol' JFK

There’s plenty in the news these days about this storied, world-class airport… and, since it deals primarily with the horrendous delays being experienced there, most of it is not good.

I don’t have much in the way of memories of it when it was called Idlewild Airport, but I can clearly remember when its name was changed to the present form. I have passed through JFK on many occasions, mostly during my “Go to Europe as Often as I Can” phase. As I recall from those earlier trips, it was a given that you would depart from Kennedy Airport if you were traveling to Europe from the United States… much like if you traveled domestically in the eastern US, you would almost certainly go through Atlanta.

As a matter of fact, it became somewhat onerous to have to use Kennedy airport. This was compounded by the fact that nearly all flights (at least the ones available to me) from within the US connecting to European destinations arrived in New York at the smaller, and non-overseas gateway, LaGuardia Airport. That meant that you not only had to change airplanes, but you also had to change airports. I have traveled between LGA and JFK via nearly all the modes of transportation that were available at the time… taxi, bus, limo and helicopter. It was fun and interesting… the first three or four times.

Then came deregulation and very shortly thereafter, you could choose from other cities for your European departure point. Most of the major airlines went to the hub and spoke system after deregulation and virtually all of them wound up with at least one international departure from their respective hubs. Some of them still have one international departure from their hub. Like many others, I pounced on the opportunity to get to Europe and back without traveling on or above the Van Wyck Expressway. Among the airports from which I launched transatlantic travels were Atlanta, Miami, Dulles, Newark and Chicago.

The change was refreshing to say the least. It seemed heavenly to be able to get off a domestic flight and board an international flight with your only change in transportation from your arrival gate to your departure gate being a mobile lounge or a driverless train or a moving sidewalk or your feet. After some time and several trips, however, the novelty wore off sufficiently enough to allow the consideration of other factors when deciding upon a departure gateway. I’m speaking of highly important considerations such as the fact that foreign airlines charged about the same airfare as the US carriers did but they didn’t charge for drinks.

For the most part, those foreign carriers operated out of Kennedy Airport. So… for at least a few trips interspersed in that timeframe, it was back to good ol’ JFK. It wasn’t at all bad… in fact it was almost like getting together with an old friend. Many things about it were the same, but some things had changed, too. There were more available flights to Kennedy than before, cutting LGA out of the loop, which was very appealing. Getting from one terminal to the other wasn’t all that bad either. There were busses and short-haul cabs for that. There were also your feet.

Coming back to the US through Kennedy was not noticeably different than it was before, though. I have always found the New Yorkers to be cordial at the very least and very friendly more often than not. To this day, Kennedy Airport remains the only place I have returned to from Europe and been told, “Welcome home.” It has been at least eighteen years since I have been to Europe through JFK. We will not be going through there on this upcoming journey and, from what I see in the news, it’s probably just as well. It seems that there is a move afoot, through massive over-scheduling, to make passing through Kennedy Airport an onerous experience again.