After 6 weeks of teaching and over 2 months in my new apartment, I am making a short escape from NYC to visit my mom and sister in PR. In my Impacts of Technology class, we just finished a week on large-scale and complex technological systems, with a focus on industrial farming. We read a few sections of Micahel Pollan’s fanstastic book, The Ominvore’s Dilemma, which combines the odd qualities of being seductively alluring (thanks to his exquisite writing) and repulsive (thanks to the content, well at least the part on factory animal “farming”). I can’t recommend it enough and look forward to reading the rest, when I find the (magical) time to do so.

Now that I am at the airport, I am struck at how little I know about this place, which is also a large and complex technological system and I bet revealing its technological and cultural innards would provide as fascinating (although not quite as gross) of a story as that of factory animal farming.

There are many questions I would love answered: How exactly is coordination secured and what are the toughest elements to airport coordination? Where are the lines of cooperation and those of competition between airlines? What factors and values go into the design of the airport? (I know that for one thing, in American airports, there rarely seems to be enough electrical jacks; I am now sitting under the telephones, the only place with jacks in terminal 8 at JFK, and the funny thing is that there are a row of 7 unused phones and only one jack and I am sure it would be more useful to have 1 pay phone and a row of 7 jacks, instead). What sorts of airport technologies have put people out of jobs? What technologies have created new job opportunities? What sorts of social hierarchies are there in airports? Like who runs the big show? Is it a CEO? Or is something more like a university provost? What is standardized by the FAA, and what elements are more flexible, and thus different airport to airport? Is there a sense of camaraderie among airport employees, or are loyalties built primarily among employees of one airline or among the classes of workers? Given that unions are quite strong among airport employees and from the top (pilots) down (food workers), what is the political culture of airports/employees like? (I remember once overhearing a group of machinist and ground crew talking about the ugly face of globalization and NAFTA over coffee and I was dumbfounded and pretty psyched too). Are airports one of the few last remaining places in th US that provides for decent job security? Why do so many of the ground crew have such athletic, bulging calves? Is it a result of the physical demands of the job? Or is it that the type of job (“outdoors” with lots of heavy lifting), attract the athletic types? Do they have to pass certain physical standards as to pilots? Was there always first class seats? Or did that come about when flying became cheaper? Are employees trained to deal with irate passengers? In what ways do pilots bitch about the long waits/delays they also have to endure? What can they do when they are waiting, as we did for an hour last night, during the massive traffic jams that are especially noxious in NYC-area airports? Do pilots have any say in the way airports are run? Why do they consistently provide less chairs than are needed in lounges, even in new terminals, as the one I was in tonight? Do air traffic controllers ever meet face-to-face with pilots or do they largely have a virtual relationship? Are programmers who patch, improve, and build traffic control systems housed in the airports, or elsewhere?

Airports are not only fascinating for technological and sociological reasons but I reckon there is a lot of interesting psychological work that must happen in airports. I imagine that during those long, endless waits in the lounge, on the security lines, on the tarmac, people must often take the time to reflect, on where am I going, where am I coming from, and not in the literal sense but the metaphorical one. I know that I have spent many hours in airports letting my mind wander to places and thoughts in ways that don’t happen as easily or often elsewhere. And in many instances, I don’t think that this propensity to indulge in some reflective thinking, is a matter of time, that is waiting. For me at least, it is the fact that many times when I fly, I am moving between worlds.

While I have flown hundreds of times, I never have been shed of the sense of awe I feel about planes and their ability to shrink space and time so quickly. For me, it is less the act of flying itself (that feels boring, tiring, annoying, mostly because of the insane waits and delays and I never seem to get the right amount of sleep the night before) but the visceral contrast it brings. In the morning my life is of a particular tone and rhythm, currently situated in NYC and by evening, I am back at home in PR, surrounded by thick humidity and the loud sound of coquis. Once there, my as currently configured in NYC, has little direct bearing to those around me. Planes don’t just transport, they shift and convert your inner and outer world…

So, if anyone (who got this far) knows of a good social history of the airport, do tell. I would love to read it.