The Nation's Best Run Airport — and Why It's Still Not Good Enough

Indeed, when passengers lose their cool in the airport today, it's more likely because of scheduling snafus and missed flights than overaggressive security. As the lines have grown shorter, passengers are getting to the airport later—and sometimes running afoul of stricter check-in rules. Though United Airlines has reduced its recommended arrival time from two hours before departure to 90 minutes, signs greeting passengers at its ticket counter in Denver announce a one-hour cutoff time for check-in. That means passengers who arrive with their bags even 55 minutes before departure will be told they are too late and have to rebook on a later flight. (Other airlines, such as Delta, post the same one-hour cutoff but are more forgiving, allowing check-in as close as 30 minutes before departure.)

United officials say the full hour is needed to ensure that passengers get to their gate on time; if they are not onboard by 10 minutes before the departure time, the airline must remove their bags, thus delaying the flight. That is cold comfort to Jennifer and Greg, a young couple in jeans with two small children, who were rushed to the front of the check-in line 50 minutes before their flight to Boston, only to be told they had missed the deadline. After arguing fruitlessly with a ticket agent, Jennifer slammed her coat into a stroller and spewed an obscenity. The toddler in her arms burst into tears. The couple glumly booked another flight and settled in for a four-hour wait, complaining that no one at United had warned them in advance of the one-hour cutoff time. (Nor was anyone likely to tell them the wait at security at that time was only a few minutes, meaning that if United had allowed them to check in, they almost certainly would have made their flight with time to spare.)

Well, it's not quite like the old days, when things were so easygoing that Denver teenagers could drive to the edge of Stapleton Airport and neck in their cars by the runway. But passenger outbursts are one sign that airport life is creeping back to normal. "Soon after 9/11, passengers were beautiful about the inconveniences," says United gate agent Rick Gisi, "but now it's back to thinking about me and I."

One person who would like to get back to thinking more about me and I is Baumgartner. Denver's airport chief is hoping to get through the busy summer travel season without any major crises—and is looking forward to a long-delayed vacation this fall. Last year, just after Sept. 11, he had to bow out of a trip to the Grand Tetons, and his wife wound up going by herself. This year Baumgartner, an outdoors lover and former town manager of Crested Butte, Colo., has vowed to go to the Tetons with her. He wants to do some fishing. Best of all, he's going to drive.

—With reporting by Wendy Cole and Rita Healy/Denver