Another Thing I Miss Due to Bozeman’s Huge Growth (you too?)
You've noticed this one too, I bet. Under normal circumstances, I travel a lot. Always have. Bozeman's airport has for some reason always been one of my local happy places because I was either leaving on an adventure or returning to the home I love.
Important note: My thoughts here are not at all a slam to the Bozeman airport. They have done a really stellar job at improving and expanding the airport's size, services, parking and other amenities. We have so many direct flights these days that it's a breeze to get almost anywhere we need to go.
Here's what this IS about - I really miss the days where you knew or at least recognized at least a dozen people on your flight. In some odd way, it was as if we were all going on an adventure together. Or at least launching our adventures together. That's definitely not the case anymore. We're too big for that. Gone is the pre-flight catching up at the gate with old neighbors, classmates or co-workers that you hadn't seen in a while.
For the last several years, the gate area and in-flight camaraderie is next to nonexistent. Aside from actual travel companions, nobody's talking to each other at all. That's because they don't know each other. Hell, even the people who are traveling together don't talk to each other...they're glued to their stupid phones. Remember when you'd run into an old professor or a friend you hadn't seen in a while? It was the perfect opportunity to catch up. Everybody's in vacation mode and the vibe is great.
There's only been ONE person that I knew on any of my recent flights post COVID. My neighbor and I commiserated just the other day on a return flight from SLC about two separate delays for our flight home. And even before COVID, such interactions had begun to wane. Vastly different from just 5 or 10 years ago when the gate area was a pseudo social-club catch up lounge. My, how times have changed.