3 airports go extra mile to annoy

By Steve Stephens,  Travel Writer

Travel writers who don’t enjoy travel are like shoe salesmen who don’t enjoy feet — definitely in the wrong business.

And I enjoy travel very much. But travel — perhaps even more so than most other human endeavors — is sure to be beset by setbacks.

The very nature of hauling oneself from familiar surroundings into the great unknown carries with it inherent disappointments — disappointments that will, from time to time, make themselves manifest.

I try not to dwell on the negative aspects of travel. Beyond warning readers of great avoidable pitfalls, I usually write exclusively about my positive experiences on the road. If you want someone who’s going to trash a B&B for the thread count of the sheets or a mom-and-pop diner because of a smudge on the coffee cup, well, as Johnny Cash once said in an unlikely cover of Bob Dylan: It ain’t me, babe.

But I do have my minor gripes, and most of them center on air travel. I love the fact that humans can move through the air at 500 mph, reaching their destinations quickly and safely. I hate the rest of it.

And, by golly, the new year gives me the perfect excuse to dump a few of those gripes on you patient readers. So here is my “Worst of Air Travel” list for 2012. (The Transportation Security Administration is the absolute worst, but I’ll restrain myself on that subject lest I’m awarded an economy excursion to Gitmo.)

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