55 Airport Jokes Every Traveler Has Lived

I joined TSA Pre to skip the line. Then everyone joined TSA Pre. Now TSA Pre is the line, and the regular line is where the calm people live.

The agent asked if I had any liquids. I said no. The bin search found a yogurt I forgot I owned. We were both disappointed.

The sign said laptops out of the bag. I took my laptop out. The agent said tablets too. I took my tablet out. He said also the laptop sleeve. At that point I was just unpacking my apartment on a conveyor belt.

I took my belt off. I took my boots off. I took my watch off. The scanner still flagged me. The agent pointed at my pocket. It was a receipt.

The body scanner highlighted a yellow square on my hip. The agent asked what it was. It was a Tic Tac. I have lived this exact scene four times.

I got the additional screening tap. I do not know what I do to earn it. I think the algorithm just remembers my face fondly.

The wand beeped over my shoulder. The agent ran it over the same shoulder six more times. We never found out what it was.

I am the last person on earth who prints the boarding pass. I do this because I do not trust the app and the app does not trust me back.

The app boarding pass would not load. I had signal, I had the app open, I had the right flight, the QR code was just gray. The agent waved me through out of pity.

The gate changed from B4 to B47. B47 is in a different time zone. I started running before I read the rest of the message.

Boarding group anxiety starts the moment I sit down at the gate. I have a confirmed seat and I am still standing in line forty minutes early like the plane might leave without me.

The agent said we will be boarding by group. I tensed up. I am in group 7. There are 7 groups.

Group 9 does not exist on any boarding pass and the agent still called for group 9. Six people walked up.

The agent said we are now boarding the entire plane. That is not a boarding group. That is a surrender.

My carry-on fit the sizer at home. It did not fit the sizer at the gate. The sizer at the gate is a different sizer.

They gate-checked my bag. I watched it roll down the ramp. I will see it again in a city I am not flying to.

Overhead bin tetris is a sport. The winner is the person who got on in group 2 with a bag the size of a small refrigerator.

I had seat 27B. 27B is the middle seat. 27B is always the middle seat. 27B exists to teach humility.

My seat did not recline. The seat in front of me reclined fully. We were not the same species for the next four hours.

The kid behind me kicked the seatback for ninety minutes. The parent told the kid to stop. The kid stopped for eight seconds.

The seatback screen had three movies from 2014, a map that did not load, and a game of solitaire that crashed when I won.

I bought the snack box. It contained a slice of cheese, four crackers, a foil pack of olives, and the regret of fourteen dollars.

The airport sandwich was fourteen dollars. The fillings were lettuce and the concept of turkey.

The bottle of water was seven dollars. The same bottle is one dollar at the gas station thirty feet outside the terminal.

I have lounge access. The lounge is full. The lounge has a line outside the lounge. We are in the lounge for the lounge.

My old lounge is now a Starbucks. The Starbucks has the same line the lounge had, and the chairs are worse.

The priority line had thirty people. The regular line had four. I stood in the priority line because I had earned it.

I asked the agent about my elite status. She said the elite status went up a tier this year. I am now one tier below where I used to be.

I did the math on the loyalty program. To get the next tier I need to fly six more times this year. To get the tier after that I need to move into the plane.

I checked the upgrade list. I was number 4. They cleared 3. I have lived this exact disappointment in eleven cities.

The upgrade was denied at the gate. I watched a man in cargo shorts take seat 2A. I will think about that man for a year.

The boarding music is the same playlist at every airport. I know the third song by heart and I do not know its name.

The safety video has a celebrity cameo now. The cameo is doing a bit. I am trying to find the seatbelt.

The captain did the door-closing speech. He said we are number 18 for takeoff. Eighteen. I counted the planes in front of us until I lost track at six.

There was an unaccompanied minor in row 14. He was eight years old and calmer than every adult on the plane.

The flight attendant asked if there was a doctor on board. Three doctors stood up. The situation was a guy who needed water. The doctors sat back down.

The connection time was thirty-five minutes. The inbound flight was twenty-five minutes late. The connecting gate was at the other end of the airport. I have run that hallway and I will run it again.

I missed the connection by four minutes. The next flight was in nine hours. The agent said she could put me on standby. I said for what. She said the same flight tomorrow.

The rebooking line had ninety people. There were two agents. There was a third agent on break. The break was permanent.

I called the airline. The hold music was twenty-seven minutes long. I learned every note. I could compose a sequel.

The app rebooked me automatically to a flight that left thirty minutes ago. I am not sure who the app is helping.

The hotel voucher was for a hotel forty minutes from the airport. The shuttle came every hour. I slept in the terminal.

The lost luggage form had a question for the color of my bag. The options were black, blue, and other. Every bag is black. Every bag is also other.

The baggage claim said five minutes. Twenty minutes later the carousel started. Ten minutes later the carousel stopped. My bag was not on it.

The carousel stopped with three bags still on it. Nobody claimed them. The bags went around alone like a sad parade.

The gate agent over the PA sounds like every gate agent at every airport. I think it is the same person. I think she is everywhere at once.

She said we apologize for the delay. She said it the way you say it when you do not, in fact, apologize.

She said the delay is due to weather in another city. The city was sunny. We checked.

She said we are awaiting a flight crew. The flight crew is on another plane that is also awaiting a flight crew. It is flight crews all the way down.

She said we are awaiting the inbound aircraft. The inbound aircraft has been awaiting its own inbound aircraft since 4 a.m. There is no aircraft. There is only a chain of waiting.

The parent on the moving walkway stood still with the stroller across the full width. The sign said stand right, walk left. The sign was a suggestion.

The moving walkway is a moving sidewalk for people standing still. The not-moving sidewalk next to it is for people in a hurry. I do not know who designed this and I would like to talk to them.

The airport coffee at 6 a.m. is six dollars and tastes like a battery. I drank it. I will drink it again tomorrow.

Duty-free had the Toblerone in the size of a child. I bought it. I do not eat Toblerone. I think I bought it for the airport.

The only open restaurant in the satellite terminal at 10 p.m. was also closed. The sign said open until 11. The chairs were on the tables. The lights were off. The sign was lying.