On a Monday morning, coming off a fantastic weekend and facing a long work week, you may be half asleep, but you notice the important things. You notice when the taxi is two minutes late, you notice when the person in line in front of you going through airport security has no idea how to pack to fly, and you notice when you are granted the luxury of departing from “a close gate” at O’Hare airport.
To put this in perspective, O’Hare, for all it’s intricacies, has a standard hub and spoke model, where the majority of the gates are far from the hub. On occasion one may half to walk nearly half a mile to one’s gate. And if you’re making a connection in O’Hare, strap on your running shoes, so you can take advantage of the exercise opportunity as you inevitably have to make it from the end of one spoke (terminal) to the end of another spoke. Interesting to note is that nearly everyone you speak to, who flies through O’Hare regularly, will tell you that they “always” have to fly out of the gates at the end of the terminal, as far away as possible from the hub (baggage claim, pick-up and drop-off area and security checkpoints).
Today, for the first time in many moons I got to fly from the close gate, that is, right next to where the spoke meets the hub. I made it from the security line to my gate in under thirty seconds, and that’s not because I was sprinting down the terminal. Sure, I’d rather have the close gate one of those times when I am actually running late and could use the extra time, but I won’t look with ungrateful eyes on this gift. Indeed, I’m reminded of Robert Frosts “The Road Not Taken,” and I expect that this rare opportunity to use the often unused close gate will “[make] all the difference.”
