An excellent thought-provoking article. From Emirates first class luxury to this! They say travel broadens the mind and, Patrick, it has. Thank you.

Inspiring article. Even with a destroyed economy and uncertain future, We have things im America 100 billion times better than the rest of the world. Kudos Patrick!

Just keep on travelin', Pat... That's what you're good at.

I'm not sure why I often read your articles.... but that was an excellent piece of writing.

You don't claim to have the answers to such fundamental, gut wrenching questions such as why people often find it easier to have compassion for animals than humans... and that makes your article even more powerful... and true?

I've had a similar experience in a very different circumstance. I have yet to come to grips, or perhaps conclusion(s) is a better word, about what that says about me, my society or mankind in general.

Covering such things (I'm at a loss for words to describe what you have written... "such things" is lame... but its the best I can do right now) from the unusual angle of someone who is interested in airports and the aviation industry gives a refreshing perspective that I don't think any aid worker, crusader, tourist or politician could provide.

In the midst of all of *that*, it seems logical to me that you would have felt impotent attempting to help the people there. But you could be a friend to that hedgehog, and so you did. You do what you can.

Thanks for the writing.

I flew through there this week. Confusing, smelly, dirty, expensive, rude.

I wanted to exchange a 20 Euro note before returning to the USA - the clerk gave me $20 in return, so I asked for my money back...

One Euro = approximately $1.34, except in Frankfort...

I don't presume to know why you wrote what you wrote but I am glad you did. It was a poignant, moving, eloquent reminder to appreciate what we have and when the opportunity presents itself, to try and help make things a little better. Well done Mr. Smith.

You've gone beyond what might be considered a yuppieish-techie subject - airline travel and how it works - to a human story. I think, in many ways, this is the best thing of yours I've ever read.

However, I have to argue with your belief that travel broadens the soul. It's true that most of us will never travel beyond the United States; I never expect to, have no absolute need to, and have no desire to. I can see it all on TV. And maybe rubbing one's nose in the face of the poor of an African slum is something that might raise one's social conscience, but as you found, it just makes you feel powerless, helpless and cynical.

The next great advertising slogan for travel won't be "Discover the world is going to hell and you can't do anything about it! Carnival Cruise Lines, with flesh-rotting diseases in each cabin at no extra charge!"

I look on travel the way that Douglas Adams's characters looked upon the Babel Fish, the little fish that telepathically translated all varieties of communication between all species. It is responsible for more wars and hatred than anything else humanity has created. After all, we wouldn't have raped and killed the American Indians if we didn't know they existed.

Yes, Patrick, it's nasty out there and getting worse all the time. We in the west are living in a fragile bubble which is about to burst and then the whole world is going to come tumbling in.

You never really hear it discussed anymore, but it is the root cause of a lot of the misery you so eloquently describe, and that root cause is pretty basic, too many people, -- over-population.

Yet there they are, Buhs and the pope, one preaching abstinence, the other condemning birth control and condoms, both safe in their respective bubbles, and its hard to say who is more stupid, evil or insane.

Your post made me sad.

Send "Joe the plumber over there.

Your best column ever, and it has nothing to do with aviation.

May I recommend Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders?

http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org

>>I remain appalled by the average American's geographical know-nothingness and lack of interest in visiting foreign countries.<<

>>Perhaps then we wouldn't have such a vulgar sense of entitlement and a xenophobic worldview.<<

I regret having to bring politics into an ATP discussion. But it's been getting ugly of late. Those 2 sentences of yours pretty much sum up the reason for much of that ugliness. Well put.

You mentioned white elephants. They exist in this part of the world as well. Case in point, Montreal's Mirabel (CYMX). It was a child of the Pierre Trudeau government with grand plans of the installation serving the thriving and expanding metroplois that Montreal was envisioned to be at the time. As well, completion was planned to coincide with the 1976 Olympic games that were coming to Montreal thanks to our then mayor, Jean Drapeau. He's the same man who brought the world to our doorstep with Expo '67. Charges of graft and corruption surrounding the Expo event have largely dimmed over the years. They flared again with the '76 games with all of the construction pay-offs and rake-offs that we still feel in our tax burden even to this day. Many hectares of land were expropriated from farmers in the region to gather the land mass required. Most of those folks didn't get the real land value paid out to them and many never made it back on their feet.

So Mirabel opened in time for the Games. What a grand facility it was! A minimum of walking was required for the traveler. The distance from the check-in counters to the boarding exits was normally not more than 100 yards. Pax would board PTVs (personal transport vehicles) that would whisk them directly to their appointed aircraft..and back on the return home. Roomy, bright, passenger friendly (except for a little issue that's forthcoming), with a convenient first class hotel attached to the facility should it have been required for an early morning flight..what more could a passenger desire in an airport? Not much, really. Except....

Mirabel never really got to be as "passenger friendly" as it was supposed to be. The proposed highway link to it, Autoroute 13, was never completed. Its contruction was halted some 20 miles from the airport requiring a switch to another highway a few miles over to complete the journey. The proposed high-speed rail link from the center of the city was never even started. International passengers who had to connect to domestic (Canada/US) flights needed to switch airports because Mirabel handled only overseas traffic. So a 30-45 minute transfer ride was required to get to Dorval (CYUL), now aptly(?) named Trudeau International. Mirabel never saw domestic traffic even though it might have been in the original plan. Why?

In 1976, just after the Olympics, the people of Quebec voted in the Parti Quebecois as our provincial government. Their platform was simple. Take Quebec out of Confederation to become its own sovereign territory. The effects of the mass exodus of corporate head offices and general population that followed due to fears of seperation are still felt to this day. Many maintain that Toronto has Quebec to thank for its meteoric rise to Canada's premiere city. Meanwhile, after blowing out a good segment of its tax base, Quebec is still trying to recover. And Montreal can only be described today as a second class port.

Mirabel is still operating as a cargo terminal. The hotel next to it closed many years ago. All passenger traffic has reverted to Trudeau and a major renovation/expansion has been underway there for the past several years in an attempt to regain some of the functionality required to bring the facility into the 21st century.

I can well understand your consternation over the purpose of the new Dakar airport. I wonder how much influence politics is playing in it all. Possibly a major rake-off in the works?

When I saw the title, I thought you were going to talk about LAX. Can't be far behind.

>>It's true that most of us will never travel beyond the United States; I never expect to, have no absolute need to, and have no desire to. I can see it all on TV.<<

What a sad, sorry excuse. This is the kind of thing, I think, that Patrick is attempting to address in his column. The blatant IGNORANCE and INSENSITIVITY of people who think as you do. Sure, you can see it all on TV. But you can’t TASTE it, SMELL it, TOUCH it, or communicate with and begin to understand the people who LIVE it.

It has often been said that travel is the best education. I certainly concur with that semtiment. I feel sorry for you in that you seem to have no desire to further your “education”. You might do yourself a favor by waking up and smelling the coffee. Travel and education is not responsible for wars and hatred. Ignorance and myopia would be more to blame there.

...and the writings of both men are practically peerless in their ability to make a reader grimace at the sorry state of humanity that underlies the thin veneer of Civilization.

Bravo to you, Mr. Smith, for suggesting that every college student perform humanitarian service overseas as part of their education. If more first-world citizens had first-hand knowledge of the squalor of places like Senegal, hope for said places might become more than idle optimism. What goes through the minds of tourists as they pass through the slums of Dakar on their way to Senegalese coastal resorts? That the new airport will spare them these heart-rending sights is reason enough not to build it.

Surrounded by the grinding horror of the Route de Rufisque, it is no wonder that you tried to save the hedgehog. The human beings you saw are as mortally tangled in the slum as the hedgehog was mortally tangled in the fence. Obviously it will take far more than a knife fashioned from a broken bottle to rescue the people, but perhaps your article is a start.

It's true, the average American doesn't travel overseas very often (or at all). By contrast, the average European is always happy to share their plethora of travel stories: the kick-ass hostel in Berlin, the club scene in Tokyo, that totally hot Australian chick/boy in Prague, vodka tasting in Petersburg, upscale beach resorts in Malaysia, Croatia, Senegal, Turkey (just like the Riviera, but such a bargain!), etc. Accumulation of air miles does not necessarily equate to broader horizons.