Taildraggers to Cellphone Lots

Whoever came up with the idea of cellphone lots was a travel genius.

What's a cellphone lot? It's basically a dedicated parking lot that is close to a terminal at a major airport. Instead of waiting for someone by driving around and around the terminal, you drive to the cellphone lot and wait there.

These lots are called cellphone lots since the arriving passenger will usually use a cellphone to let the waiting driver know that their flight is on the ground and unloading.

At Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix the Cellphone Lot has its own digital board that lists incoming flight data. All of the parking spaces face this big "scoreboard." There's also a porta potty, another necessity.

All of this is very clever and makes picking up an arriving passenger a snap.

The first time I can remember picking anyone up at an airport was probably in the 1950's when we lived in Marshfield, Wisconsin. My Mom took us kids to Stevens Point to pick up my Dad. It seems to me that Dad had flown to Dayton, Ohio. North Central Airlines, which later became Republic and then Northwest, served that part of central Wisconsin back then. The plane was a taildragger, probably a DC-3, with a goose (or was it a duck?) painted on the tail.

From taildraggers to cellphone lots. My, how times have changed.

Copyright 2012
Wanda Hayes Eichler