From DC to Dallas, there was a layover in Ghost Town, USA.

In a world where every day the news cycle is discussing the latest developments with COVID-19, a world without coronavirus seems like a thing of the past – when in reality it was a world, we lived in just three months ago. Gone are the days of free-spirited travel and carefree selfies with strangers in places we only dreamed about or saw on tv.

COVID-19 has completely shaken then travel industry with multiple airlines not knowing what the future holds and bankruptcy beginning to seem like a very real possibility. And with new reports that a second wave of COVID-19 cases is ravaging across China, when exactly will it be safe to travel again? The CDC has put up strict guidelines on travel nowadays – essential travel only. Which is why airports seem more and more like deserted buildings depending on where it is you’re traveling to and from. I recently traveled to Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) from Washington Ronald Regan National (DCA) and the site and both airports was surprisingly different. Here’s my account of traveling during COVID-19.

Getting to the Airport

One of the WORSE things about flying is sometimes not even the traveling part, it’s the getting to the airport part. Usually, we’re plagued with traffic jams surrounding the arrivals and departure levels and dozens and dozens of cars stopping and going at each Terminal entrance door. The site was completely different at DCA. I left on a Saturday afternoon, around 11:45am and parked my car at a nearby parking garage because the airport had closed multiple terminal garages and the prices seemed to have increased a bit. I took an uber to the airport and got to my entrance door in less than 2 minutes. I flew American Airlines which has a hub at DCA but even with the rest of the terminals looking deserted even the airline with the most flights still had only one car outside of the uber I was in parked. (Why can’t all travel be like this?)

TSA Screening

Once I got into the airport, again it felt like a ghost town. A lot of airlines have canceled schedules and places where they used to operate close to 100 flights a day are now averaging less than a dozen flights per day. And because of this, a trip that normally would be non-stop or a short layover now requires you to fly into a hub with a long layover (sometimes overnight) before you resume the next day because of the increase of canceled schedules.

Once I got my boarding pass, I walked to TSA. I have TSA Precheck but didn’t think it would be of benefit since there was literally no one in the airport at the time. I got to the TSA security gate and there were two people in front of me. We all social distanced ourselves 6 feet while waiting in line. I removed my face mask once it was my turn and was giving a card that I took with me during the screening to signal to the agent that I was precheck so I could keep my shoes on and laptop in my bag.

The entire process took about 3 minutes and I left TSA and proceeded to walk to my gate. This terminal had nothing but American flights so there were a few people sprinkled here and there but nowhere near the normal hustle and bustle of a normal day at the airport.

Boarding the Plane

As I sat and waited for the plane to board, I took notice that there were no airport stores open. The only thing open was a small Dunkin Donuts kiosk type place. Nothing else in the area was open. This more than likely is in turn because of Virginia’s coronavirus reopen plan and it still being on a stay-at-home order. This is important later.

The gate agent began the boarding process and it went by fairly quickly – American has 9 boarding groups and we blew through the first 7 within 1 minute. When boarding the plane, I noticed that my seat was a middle seat, however I had the entire row to myself. There were reports that airlines were either blocking the middle seat altogether or moving passengers around strategically so that no one is sitting next to each other unless they were in a group or family. They gave us little snack bags when we boarded with a small bottle water, bag of peanuts and a wet one towelette as they announced inflight service would be canceled. The plane was nowhere near full most people had entire rows to themselves. Outside of this, and seeing people in masks, the experience was generally the same as pre-corona. We took off and next stop was Dallas.

Stay safe!