To all the Airport Representatives out there!
In the last couple of days, I met some passengers who had been on transit through International Airport Montello. All of them had enjoyed their transit stays tremendously, but some of them took an early flight home, because they were afraid to get lost in the wired worlds of our facility.
Question is: Why did some leave prematurely?
World wide passengers are always in a hurry. It seems to be the nature of passengers, especially transit passengers to speed up, before they are forced to wait again. In speed mode everything has to move fast smoothly. There is no time and place for disorientation. The calculated route follows signs, which clear the way and cut a quick path through the transit jungle! So, if suddenly there is unidentifiable signage, passengers feel like being without their machete, unprotected against the oncoming bewilderments on unfamiliar territory. Straight forward looking symbols, and brief and clear announcements have a calming effect in these kind of situations. The symbol for the woman’s toilet should be a circle on top of a triangle on top of two rectangles! No inventions need to be made on this one anymore. It's like, why would someone like the moon to look like a square?
Symbol and Name recognition – until today (see date on top of this article) they were missing at International Airport Montello. But now, due to another restructural attempt, we might be able to share some familiar territory with the rest of the world's airports → Please Welcome the Passenger Facilities!

Below that, everything is camouflaged as “Internal” operations, and therefore does not need to qualify to be “passenger traceable”. How this part of the airport operates, strictly depends on the personal approach patterns, staff and crew members consider effective and relevant in getting some planes off the ground.

Hu, I think I said things that made me tired and for the rest of my shift, I will retire to the transit lounge, listen to another round of Sea Shore Sound and keep singing about this signage thing.
Point an arrow for me, if you detect another direction in which this could be going.
See you around, in the air or on the ground.
Straight Forwardly,
Fletcher Franzy

The Presidio International Airport had a single sloping runway just off the highway. It was called “international” because it also had an outside payphone from which, if you flew in from Mexico, you could in principle call on Customs to come up from the river for the entry formalities. This happened may be twice a year. Prosidio was probably the quietest international airport in the United States.
Mine was the only airplane there that afternoon. I shut it down in the sun beside a wrecked trailer in which for a while a missionary pilot had lived while proselytizing the river peaople. He had told me he was a soldier in the army of the Lord. After only half-year he had retreated, leaving the trailer with broken windows to collect the desert air.
from: INSIDE THE SKY - A MEDITATION ON FLIGHT by William Langewiesche

When I googled “Presidio International Airport” there were only 4 entries in the world wide web.
Number one was this entry: by the The Baja Bush Pilots Headline News
It's the preliminary agenda for a meeting of the Amigos de la Aviacion,
held in San Diego, CA,
August 20 / 21, 2004
The very last subject to be addressed in this meeting was the following:

“2.) That Presidio International Airport has no services. The FBO is closed, the telephone has been removed from the telephone booth, and the last time I was there, the self-service fuel pump did not work. And, flight Service could not be reached prior to landing, when on the ground, or until I was about 40 miles out of El Paso. How can an airport be International with no one there.”

They got some airplanes (Aircraft operations: avg 23/week) and we got all the services. I think it would be great to team up with Presidio. If they sent a plane over once in a while, IAM could send them a fresh brewed cup of coffee and a metal chair for their own cell phone booth back.
Franzy

Same motto, but slightly different idea of how to get up there. Airplane vs. Skyscraper. Interesting!

from an ad in The Wall Street Journal. March 11-12,2006

We just got in a fashion statement proposition for the Juan Staff. The form of the bonnet refers to the special cooking process that is involved in preparing a 21st. century coffee special. More images are posted at the coffee shop. Shall we order some of these outfits?
Franzy

The uniforms seemed to have silently pleased everyone. There was a ten day period to oppose the style plus an extra day for “slow” response, but no one tried to fight or embellish this style. So we ordered some uniforms for Juan and some even better looking ones for the other airport representatives.
Yeah! :) Management

April 2006