When someone comes into town do you pick them up at the airport? It’s a lot easier, especially with electronic requests for a ride and just entering an address into a phone app (and no need for local currency, even), to just have them Uber or Lyft. In some parts of the world it’s Grab or Didi.
But picking up someone from the airport is an act of love. It takes effort and planning. It’s twice as much driving, and it involves waiting. It’s precisely because it is harder and more costly that it works as a signal of how much you care.
Picking someone up (or taking them to) the airport is such a signal of intimacy that it has entered popular culture. From “When Harry Met Sally” to “Seinfeld,” the act of transporting a person to or from the airport shows that you care. A lot.
I’m reminded of those wonderful opening and closing scenes in the movie “Love Actually,” consisting of an extended montage of people greeting one another at an airport terminal and — hugging their hearts out.
In a male relationship, picking up someone at the airport is going all the way, akin to helping someone move.
There are several strategies for picking someone up at the airport.
- Cell phone waiting lot. Have them call you when they land (or monitor it yourself online) and approach the terminal when they’re ready to be picked up, timing depending on whether they have checked bags to wait for or not. Call this “the drive by.”
- Pick them up at departures rather than arrivals, since that’s often less crowded. Call this “the expert move.” This shows them you know what you’re doing, they’re in capable hands.
This is especially useful with no checked bags as they don’t need to head down to baggage claim. With checked bags it usually means heading back upstairs – with luggage – and isn’t helpful.
- Park and go inside the terminal this is more expensive (parking cost) and more time-consuming, but it’s a more intimate gesture. You greet them earlier and escort them out, helping them with their bags. It shows next-level caring and that you couldn’t wait to see them. Call this “next level caring.” You need to research where to meet them, knowing where they’re going to come out of security, and take care not to miss them though. This takes extra work if you are surprising them, and it’s much easier if you coordinate meeting them via text.
- Meet them at their gate. This is next level because it’s unexpected in the post-9/11 world and because it takes real effort and thus is a more powerful signal to the person you’re meeting. Call this “the bold gesture.”
For this you either need a gate pass or a ticket to go through security (in the U.S.). Several airports let you arrange in advance to go through security when you’re not flying, because they want more concessions spend. You can get a gate pass if you’re renting an American Airlines Admirals Club conference room ($65 for members/$85 for non-members). Or buy a refundable ticket, use it to go through security, and cancel the ticket – though consistently buying tickets you do not intend to use may get you in trouble with the airline.
Here’s the next challenge. Say you meet someone at the airport, and whether you meet them at the gate, just outside security, or outside the terminal (you want to get out of your vehicle and help them with any bags) how do you greet them because the greeting says everything about your relationship. Is it a hug and how long does it last? A hearty hand shake? Jerry Seinfeld and Jason Alexander obsessed over the airport pickup greeting:
The funny thing is that when you ride by yourself to and from the airport in an Uber you can work in the back seat. Someone picking you up might be late, and someone taking you to the airport means you’re relying on two people – you and them – to be ready to leave on time. Doesn’t that double the chances you’ll be late?
From a pure efficiency standpoint doing the airport trip solo is a winner. But when someone offers to take you or pick you up can you really decline? Precisely because it’s such a grand gesture and show of intimacy, saying no is declining the person and not just the favor.
Though I am less seasoned than most of your readers, I only fly, on average, twenty times a year, mainly to Mexico and an occasional trip to Asia. My wife loves me and always offers to drop me off and pick me up. But I also love her. That’s why I always tell her no. The one-hour-plus drive to MCO is a nightmare. Why would I ever want to put a loved one through that?
For those of you who are primarily vacation fliers (once or twice a year), if a friend or loved one drops you off and picks you up, do you gift them something (a gift card or take them out to dinner) and spend at least equal to what you saved in parking, or just brag about how much you saved by not having to pay airport parking (or for UBER)?
I have a friend who forgetting to pick up his wife from LAX one night was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. Got a call from her divorce lawyer the next morning.
Well, and then there’s “LAX”…
@NedsKid
I’m scoring that one a “push”. The pain of divorce is roughly on the same order of agony involved in a night trip on the 405 to the Third World Bazaar that is the Arrivals Pickup Loop at LAX between 7PM and midnight.
Dear Señora Leff,
Señor Leff wants you — and any other available relatives he considers adorable — to pick him up from the airport more often.
Sincerely,
Señor Leff’s Free Mind-Reader (with words worth only what they cost)
@Tom: LOL. Yeah, especially from where they were at in Malibu. Down the mountain to PCH to the 10 to the 405.
There are a few friends where I tell them please do not try and come get me. At least not at the airport. I’ll get a car or I’ll take public transit to somewhere nearer to them. My parents used to live in the SF Bay Area… I’d tell them I’ll take BART at least to the east bay.
I think this is a satirical takeoff from the rather schmaltzy Washington Post piece. As such, it is quite well done and I’m guessing Gary had some fun with it. There are times when it makes sense – picking up a minor, heading from the airport not to a local destination but somewhere too expensive for Uber/Lyft, being right near an airport that is easy in and out – but in most cases it really isn’t necessary or important
I’m not picking him up at the airport!
LAX love = 1) driving TO airport then black car home or even more love 2) FLY OUT OF BURBANK.
When I was traveling regularly, my wife insisted on dropping me off and picking me up at the airport. Part of this was I tended to have to take long trips (my record was 11 months, albeit with some opportunities to come home for weekends or vacations) and she wanted my car in the driveway so people would think she wasn’t alone. She and my daughter also wanted the extra hour on each side of the trip with me (we lived half-way between PBI and MLB so either drive was about an hour), plus I would do the driving when I was in the car, so she only had to drive part of the roundtrip.
The worst drop-off did not involve me. Instead, it was when my wife and I were still dating . I had a summer internship in Lorain, OH and she was flying to CLE from ATL to help me drive home. She had never flown before, so I asked my brother to take her to the gate in ATL (this was pre-9/11 and we had flown several times growing up on family vacations). He had just turned 21 and liked to take any opportunity he had to exercise his new-found right to drink, so he suggested that they get a drink before going to the gate. However, he had forgotten about security, so they stopped at a bar outside of security. As a result, my wife got to the gate after they had closed the doors (thankfully, the TWA agents were willing to reopen the doors for her, so she still made her flight), but you can believe I read my brother the riot act when I got home.
I hate being picked up I would much rather walk out on my own schedule and get into a taxi then have to deal with waiting for someone to pick me up. My P2 can show her love other ways I’ll make my own way when I travel.
I hate being picked up I would much rather walk out on my own schedule and get into a taxi then have to deal with waiting for someone to pick me up. My P2 can show her love other ways I’ll make my own way when I travel.
I honestly think it is nice when you have love ones or friends pick you up from the airport after travel