Going Back In Time For Air Travel

I took a trip back in time last week.  It was amazing.  I was going on a trip and arrived at the airport just 45 minutes before my flight was to depart.  I went straight to the American Airlines ticket counter and checked in.  There was a problem with my seats on the second flight, but the American Airlines person at the counter noticed it before me and was able to fix our seats so that they were together before I even asked about it.

We then went through a very quick and painless security check and sat down and waited for about 20 minutes before the flight boarded.

It felt like what flying was like 15 years ago.

The reason is that we were flying out of Roswell, New Mexico.  There is only one terminal and one gate.  There are three flights a day and they all go to Dallas/Ft. Worth.  It's a very simple operation, but it is well run and all of the staff was very nice and professional.

There used to be a very big base in Roswell, so runways are nice and big.  Some of the biggest airplanes the Air Force had were flown from this airport in the past - B52s and B37s included.  It is still used for some military flights as I saw a large military cargo plane taking off just before us, but there are also now the commercial American Airlines flights and private aircraft using the airport as well.