I was passing through the Honolulu airport today, and I noticed this desk and telephone. It’s notable to me that it’s still there, because I once used that phone and was threatened with arrest.
It looks like the phone is intended for public use. It faces the public side, just as it did those many months ago when I used it. In fact there’s a remarkably similar desk just down the corridor with an identical phone, and it has a sign next to it that says to pick up the phone and dial “0” if there’s nobody at the desk.
The story of how I came to be an airport-phone outlaw is long and involved. In brief, though…
- my incoming flight was delayed and I was told I would be re-scheduled after takeoff
- my connecting flight (same airline) left before we landed, I had not been re-assigned, and nobody could tell me anything about how to get to my destination except to go to the desk above
- there was then, just as now, nobody at that desk
- I loathe telephones, so I didn’t just pick that one up but spoke with a number of airline personnel at nearby stations all of whom told me that someone would be at that desk who would help me… but after a couple of hours nobody had appeared at the desk (and I have never, in several trips through this airport, seen that desk staffed)
- I finally picked up the phone, dialed zero, spoke with a very nice operator who said she’d connect me to the airline
- a representative of the airline answered and I asked how to reschedule my connecting flight
“How did you get to that phone? That’s airport property. I could have you arrested!” She wouldn’t help me get a flight.
I finally ended up paying cash for the last empty seat on the last flight of the day to my destination. As I was boarding the plane, an angry mob of people were forming who had been told that they would be able to travel on that flight, but they were actually only on standby for an already full plane. I was never refunded for the flight the airline caused me to miss.
So the desk is still unstaffed, the phone is still facing customers, and presumably people are still getting sent there and there’s still an airline employee ready to threaten anyone who dares use the phone to try to get help.
—2p