Flying through Coronavirus

With the nation under varying degrees of quarantine guidelines, folks are not lining up to fly. In fact, people are being discouraged from leaving their houses at all. Places all along the East Coast are shutting down, including New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, etc. It has been rumored that the next major East Coast state that would be hit was my home state of Maryland. With an uncertain future, I decided it would be best to fly home while I still could and what I saw on my travels was absolutely insane.

Upon arriving at the Bozeman airport, the usually full Premium parking lot was empty. There was one car in the departure terminal line, and it was mine. Getting through the Bozeman airport has never been an issue. My usual time for getting my bags checked and going through security clocks in at about 10 minutes. That day, it took me three. I counted 10 other passengers in the entire airport, and they were all on my flight. When I settled into my seat (6 feet apart from everyone), I put on my ski mask and fell asleep until we arrived in one of the biggest hubs for Delta Airlines: the Minneapolis airport.

After hearing rumors that people were getting scanned for temperatures as they were getting off of planes, I was both excited and nervous to see what would be waiting for me at such a big airport. Upon getting off the plane with the 10 other people on the flight from Bozeman, there was no scanner. There were no guys with carts queued up to give rides to the elderly as they got off the plane. There was nothing. Completely empty. No one. The first thing that came to mind was “this is what the apocalypse looks like.” The only restaurant that was open was Chili’s, so I pulled in for a beer and nachos with no one else but my thoughts and the kind bartender gave me another beer for free.

As I got on my next flight to Baltimore, the plane was packed. There were 12 whole people on this one and we all were dumbfounded by the lack of activity in the airport. 3 ½ hours later, we landed in Baltimore to another completely empty airport. Notoriously known for having the worst baggage claim system, the Delta ground crew got me my bag within a matter of seconds of arriving at baggage claim.

Getting back to my parents house, I reflected on the things I saw (or lack thereof) and it made me think about how fragile our world really is. This virus is shedding a new light on all aspects of our society and I am interested to see what our world will look like when it has run its course.