Winging It

I read your column about the airport in Phila. My family had a terrible experience on June 22nd. We were flying via Northwest to Bosmon, Montana via Minneapolis - St. Paul. Our flight was at 6:30 AM. We stayed at the Airport Marriott the night before so we were there in plenty of time. Our family (there were 9 of us) were shocked that after we checked in our luggage and received boarding passes that the security line was back to the parking lot. We asked the young man who seemed to be in charge about our plane and that with the length of the line we would not make the flight. He did not even look at our boarding passes. He only said "get in the line and I will tell you when to get out" After awhile we again asked him and he said the same thing. We knew we would never make it. At this point my husband asked a TSA agent what to do and she said go the first class line and go through security. I guess this person in charge of the line did not like this and came after us. He even singled out my husband and told him he called the police on him. There was a policeman who just stood there. All this time we did not say anything that would offend him, we just wanted to get on that plane.

To make a long story short, by the time my family of 9 and probably about 10 others got to the gate they had just closed the ramp to the plane and would not open it.

There are not too many planes going to Bosmon so we had to start all over again the next day. This was not easy - we drove home and had to get up at 4AM. We also expended alot of money on this vacation and we missed a full day.

If this was our fault I would not be writing to you but this was the fault of a person who had alot of "bad attitude" and thought he wanted to control people.

He did not work for TSA but I can't remember the name on his shirt but I understand their main job in the airport in taking people in wheelchairs to and from planes. What was he doing taking charge of a security line?

Tom, will these nonstop U.S. Airways flights between Philadelphia and China primarily be for transporting Philadelphia area businessmen to China or Chinese businessmen to Philadelphia? Your article I don't feel made that fully clear

TOM'S ANSWER: The service will be available to anyone who wants to use it..

Okay, to be more specific, not very long ago the Philadelphia Inquirer ran the following excellent op-ed piece:

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/20070703_Chinas_recipe_for_economic_success_includes_slave_labor.html

So naturally I'm quite curious how that factor will play into these new nonstop flights to come between Philadelphia and China.

Since your article about these proposed new flights appeared in the Business section of the Philadelphia Inquirer, I assume these flights will primarily be business oriented, while if so, I and I'm sure many others would like to know more about the nature of business we'll be talking about here, particularly when they'll be nonstop flights between a city that now ranks as the number one illegal arms dealer in the U.S. and a country whose economy centers heavily on slavery, among other highly questionable things. Will these more or less be "no questions asked" flights?