Come Fly with Me

Airports rarely achieve anything approaching a sense of place. The good ones feel merely like nice airports, the crummy ones like a decent Canadian prison. At bottom, they function as a series of interconnected waiting rooms in that vast network of nowheres we pass through before we get to a somewhere. And though I can’t quite confer that ineffable San Francisco-ness that we all adore onto the new Terminal 2 at SFO, the spruced-up portal to the skies comes close. Close, that is, if your vision of San Francisco is a copy of The Believer in the bookshop, an ersatz Ferry Building food court, and a welter of large, questionable pieces of public art. Which is to say, it comes close.

I visited Terminal 2 on a recent August morning, several months after its April 14, 2011, opening. I wasn’t flying anywhere, but The Bold Italic had, in essence, assigned me a two-hour layover. 

Entering the large white hall and approaching the pair of check-in counters (Virgin America is to your right, American Airlines to the left) you might wonder if you’ve stumbled into a medium-sized Scandinavian airport. Natural light and blond wood abound. The charging cacophony that typically accompanies domestic travel was nil, a giant topo map sculpture hung overhead, and the prospect of spending the TSA-recommended 90–120 minutes prior to departure here sounded like a passable way to enjoy the morning.

I soon met up with airport duty manager Bob Rotiski for the tour. He told me that the design of T2 by mega-architecture firm Gensler was very consciously “customer focused.” He explained that after 9/11 travelers reported being far more interested in getting checked in, passing through security, and getting quickly to their gates before considering where to order that margarita. As such, a lone Starbucks marks the only pre-security eatery in the place. You may well be hard-pressed to finish that iced cinnamon dolce latte as you wait for security, though. Bob told me that the average wait to get through the line is under eight minutes. 

I cannot lie: Bob took me through the staff security check where, though there was no line at the metal detector, I still had to take off my shoes. Once through security, I entered the long, shop-lined corridor that comprises the heart of Terminal 2.

From the soaring ceiling hangs a series of massive steel and fiber sculptures by Janet Echelman, looking like a small smack of jellyfish. Below is one of the terminal’s “recomposure” rooms. A fitting term, as after security I typically have to repack, redress, and generally gird myself for the flight ahead.  

Continue on and the chance to further recompose is strong. I ducked into Kiehl’s, a kind of rock ’n’ roll apothecary, and asked the saleswoman what she recommends for that particular sort of dry skin you can only get at 35,000 feet. She immediately tapped Kiehl’s Ultimate Strength Hand Salve. A large tube (five ounces) can be yours for $19.50. The travel size is $12.50.  

For a more vigorous brand of relaxation, try a chair massage at XpresSpa. My neck and shoulders got a 15-minute working over for $40, and though the stream of passersby did diminish the experience a bit, as did remaining fully dressed, it wasn’t half bad. I usually go for the shoeshine myself, but the bootblack was nowhere to be found.  

Further down the long hall, I passed another art exhibit entitled “A Century of Silver and Metal Work” installed in a handful of glass cases. Then, I finally arrived at the new terminal’s architectural coup de grâce.  

A hemispherical space opens out from the end of a corridor that houses all 10 of the terminal’s gates, each one radiating out like a spoke on a wheel. In the center of the circle is a day-lit plaza offering all manner of food, drink, and distraction. You can more or less see everything that’s on offer from your gate, and as a clever trick of the retail-minded layout, you have to walk through all of it before you catch the 8:15 to Phoenix.