I have the opportunity a couple of weeks ago to take a short trip. I flew to Wyoming for some fishing. I left on Thursday and returned on Sunday. I do wish I had stayed longer, I did enjoy myself.

As for how it went. I had a service pick me up and take me to the airport. I usually do this. But due to Covid, all trips are now “private”. They don’t stop to pickup other people along the way. They will take a family as long as they are at one address. That was the first part that was different on this trip. So it was just me and the driver in the van, with our face masks on. The driver said he was required to wear his.

Once I got to the airport, it was a lot less crowded. There was still some kiosks for self check-in, and you could approach an agent for help. Since I usually get TSA pre-check, but it was not listed on my ticket, I went to an agent for help. They had those big dots on the ground for you to stand at to maintain social distancing. All went well there, and yes masks were required.

At the security lines they again had spots marked off for social distancing. Not everyone was good about them, but I did notice most people didn’t crowd each other. While in line, masks were still required.

When I got to the front of the pre-check line the security agent took my id, requested I put my own ticket bar code on the machine, and asked me to lower my mask so he could verify I was me. My face matched my id, and my id matched the name on the ticket. Once that was complete (took moments), they told me to put my mask back on, and had me proceed to the line for scanning my carry on luggage. Other than wearing a mask, luggage scan and body scan went as normally expected.

I picked up my carry on from the belt, and proceeded to my gate. I was early, so I went for a bit of breakfast.

Many of the restaurants in the airport were open. But of course, seating was at a premium. Also, they required you order first (credit cards only), then take a table and they would bring your order out to you. Finding a seat was the difficult part.

One other issue, was the person I was traveling with wanted some gum. I wanted a bottle of water. The shop would accept credit card only for the purchase. So a small, less than $5 purchase had to go on a credit card. I’m not sure what they did for those people that didn’t have credit cards.

And this entire time you had to have your mask on, other than when you were eating.

We didn’t have long to wait for boarding. At boarding, they called the groups, and I can’t say social distancing was maintained. But again, we put our own tickets on the scanner, so the airline agent never had to touch them. On the walkway to the plane, social distancing was a bit lacking. But everyone did wear their masks.

The plane was packed, as in maybe there were a few seats empty, but overall the flight was full. We had to take a second flight to our destination, and that flight was also packed.

Such was my experience flying American Airlines in time of Covid.

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