Air traffic controllers’ paychecks are not affected by the current partial government shutdown.
However, more than 60,000 Transportation Security Administration staff must report for work, even though there are no paychecks for them in the pipeline going forward as the shutdown continues.
Security checkpoint lines may start growing at airports around the country if a growing number of TSA workers begin to skip shift and look for work temporary work elsewhere.
But airports and community members are, once again, stepping in to lend a hand.
In late February, Virgnia’s Roanoke-Blacksburgh Airport (ROA) reopened the Care Cupboard it created during the last government shutdown and is accepting community donations of non perishable food and drink items, household items, toiletries, baby items, pet food and gift cards.
Supporting our ROA TSA colleagues.
The Roanoke Regional Airport Commission will reopen the Care Cupboard during the government shutdown.
At Portland International Airport (PDX), there are donation bins in the main terminal (near the stadium stairs) where anyone can drop off non-perishable food items, household essentials and gift cards valued at $25 or less.
And Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC) announced on Monday that it has started collecting itmes for a food pantry to provide staples such food, baby items, toiletries, pet supplies, gift cards and other items for federal airport workers.
We expect similar programs to pop up at other airports in the next few days.
If you spot any, please let us know.
Now accepting donations for SLC's Food Pantry!
SLC has organized a food pantry to assist airport federal workers who are not being paid during the partial government shutdown. The pantry provides staples such as food, baby items, toiletries, pet supplies and other essentials.… pic.twitter.com/jhKuvogkYj
— Salt Lake City Airport (@slcairport) March 2, 2026
These days it’s not something many people would make a special trip to eat.
And, unless you’re lucky enough to be flying in the upfront cabins on the best airlines on their most competitive routes, it’s a good chance that you won’t even be offered anything more than a cookie and soft drink during your flight.
But in the decades before airline deregulation, during the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s, airlines could only offer similar flights at similar prices.
“They needed to differentiate themselves by the services they offered in each class, said Dennis Sharp, Curator of Aviation at the SFO Museum at San Francisco International Airport (SFO).
And over-the-top inflight meals was one of ways airlines competed.
For example, says Sharp, a first-class TWA Royal Ambassador menu from the 1960s features scallops and mushrooms, sirloin steak and lobster Thermidor.
A Pan Am menu from 1973 includes hors d’oeuvres, grilled lamp chops, Kobe beef and braised salmon.
The Golden Age of airline meals returns. For 2 nights.
Portland, OR-based Bill Oakley, a former “Simpsons” head writer whose creativity is now focused on fun food events, has a hankering for the gourmet meals he never got to eat during what has been called the Golden Age of Air Travel.
So he pored over thousands of airline menus online and in museum archives. He located and read the few books written about early airline meals.
And after sifting through his favorites, he created a 7-course culinary event to be held over two nights in the pre-security beer hall, Loyal Legion PDX, at Portland International Airport on Feburary 20 and 21, 2026.
Loyal Legion culinary director, Marcus Hilliker, worked with Oakley to create a menu where each course draws on airline meals from the 1930s through to the final flight of the Concorde in November, 2003.
And by the end of the evening, guests will have “a nostalgic yet modern look at how inflight dining has transformed over the decades.” said Todd Traynor-Corey, vice president of guest experiences and products at event sponsor, Alaska Airlines.
Oakley is looking forward to serving as host of the dinner and sharing a humorous slideshow about what he’s learned about airline meals and in-flight menus.
He didn’t want us to share too many details about the specific dishes and special guests before the event so as not to ruin the surprise and drama for those who have purchased tickets for the sold-out event.
But the Stuck at the Airport food review team will be attending the event Friday night and we’ll share more details later.
What’s on the menu?
We can tell you that the 7-courses will include a very unusual soup, the snacks ‘stewardessess’ dressed in Gay Nineties costumes served passengers flying on Mohawk Airlines’ men-only “Gaslight Service” flights in the early 1960s and, of course, lobster and caviar.
And one course will also be based on the meal service that Alaska Airlines offered during a brief period in late 1960s and early 1970s when the carrier operated commercial charter flights between Alaska and the U.S.S.R.
Stay tuned for food…
(Photo credits include SFO Museum and Alaska Airlines Historical Archives)
Those charming therapy llamas, Panda and Beni, will be pretending to be reindeers at Portland International Airport (PDX) this holidy season with visits starting Tuesday 24 and repeating every week until Christmas with visits scheduled on December 3rd, 11th, 18th and 23rd.
The lovely llamas start their visits in the pre-security area of the main terminal at 10 am and mosey along to greet passengers in the concourses.
54th Anniversary of the D.B. Cooper Hijacking. Still unsolved.
Today, November 24th, marks the 54th anniversary of the day in 1971 when a man using the name Dan Cooper purchased a ticket on Northwest Orient Flight 305 from Portland to Seattle.
“Cooper” paid $20 for his ticket and shortly after the plane took off from Portland he handed a flight attendant a note saying he had a bomb in his breifcase. He then demanded $200,000 in $20 bills and four parachutes.
The flight landed in Seattle, the other passengers were released and Cooper then demanded that the crew fly him, the money and the parachutes to Mexico City.
But somewhere over southwest Washington, possibly near Ariel, Washington, Cooper lowered the rear steps of the airplane and jumped out..
In 1980, a youg boy came upon $5800 worth of rotting bundles of $20 bills from the original ransonm money along a river bank. But no trace of D.B. Cooper (as news reports mistakenly ID’d him) have ever been found. This remains the world’s only unsolved airplane hijacking case.
We already know the ZGF-designed expansion of the main terminal at Portland International Airport (PDX) made a very cool airport even cooler.
Now the amenities and features in the new terminal space, most notably the 9-acre mass timber roof, have inspired a fun rap video.
“‘PDX (Wooden Roof),” described in a press release as “the first and only rap video about the Portland International Airport’s mass timber roof,” debuted in April at a state travel conference held in Portland and is an original collaboration between DJ Avelanche, The Mayoress, Mike Likes Science, and Karma Rivera.
The video is joyous and fun. It shows off so many of the great new PDX Airport features, including the beloved PDX Carpet. And it is, hands down, the best love song to an airport and an airport roof ever.
Stuck at the Airport declares this The Airport Amenity of the Week.
Everyone loves the greenery, the 9-acre mass timber roof, outposts of beloved local shops and restaurants, the comfy lounging spots sporting bits of the famed PDX carpet and the fact that the coolest new amenities are pre-security.
Now there’s one more reason to make a beeline to PDX even if you’re not flying.
PDX now has a speakeasy bar, called Aurora, hidden inside Loyal Legion, the pre-security beer hall on the mezzanine level.
The celestial-inspired bar is named after the Roman goddess of dawn and was designed by Portland-based ELK Collective.
And rather than being speakeasy-dark, Aurora has a bright, art-deco interior, technicolor window treatments and west-facing windows offering views of the runway and Portland sunsets.
The menu includes local beers and wine and shareable small plates as a well as a creative and very reaonably priced cocktail menu with creative pours such as the Aurora Sour (RIttenhouse Rye, Midori, lemon, egg white, red wine float), Diamond Tooth (Haku vodka, yuzu, coconut, lemon) and Hot Soup (Wild Turkey, bone broth, sesame, green onion tincture).
Want to get into the PDX speakeasy?
The entrance to the Aurora speakeasy at PDX airport is in the Loyal Legion beer hall space, on the pre-security mezzanine level, between the main bar and the restrooms. Look for the words “Curiosity Opens the Door” next to the unmarked entrance.
Hours are 4-8pm Monday through Friday, though airport officials say those hours may expand as the summer travel season picks up.
The password to get in?
No password is required. According to our insider at PDX airport, “Guests only have to approach the bar team and ask a question to receive the access code,” because… ‘Curiosity Opens the Door.’
Oregon’s Portland International Airport (PDX) opens its doors today on a swanky new main lobby in the terminal that everyone will love.
The Stuck at the Airport team visited a few days before the space opened. Here are some (more) images from our tour.
The old carpet is back. In some places.
There are plenty of places in the airport that are carpeted. But PDX has brought back the social media-famous old carpet patten in a handful of spots in the terminal.
Stadium seating and giant video screens
Two sets of stadium seating with wood benches face each other in the middle of the main terminal lobby. Behind them – over the security checkpoints – are giant video screens with art and imagery of Oregon landscapes.
Art abounds in the new main terminal at PDX
Live trees, a 9-acre wooden roof and live plants
The new main terminal at PDX feels like a park with dozens of trees, a 9-acre timber roof, thousands of plants and lots of places to sit down and enjoy it all.
Construction has been going on for more than three years.
But the temporary walls come down on August 14.
And that’s when travelers at Portland International Airport (PDX) will see the new airy, tree-lined pre-security lobby, the massive, vaulted wood ceiling, new and returning shops, lots of art, the latest technology at the security checkpoint, and many other new amenities.
And they’ll know the wait was worth it.
StuckatTheAirport.com got a preview of the lobby at Portland International Airport.
Here are some snaps from our tour.
The center of the new lobby has two sections of stadium seating that will be great for hanging out with friends and family before going through security. This is also where performances will take place. We spotted a grand piano off to the side.
At the top of each section are small lounge areas with – hooray – sections of carpeting that bring back the well-loved and Internet-famous old carpet design. So get ready for a new stream of foot selfies with the #PDXCarpet tag.
Stay tuned for more about the new lobby area at Portland International Airport.
Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP), home to exhibits and experiences celebrating rock and roll music, science fiction and other expressions of popular culture, wants to The National Museum of Pop Culture.
And this week a bill was introduced in the House of Representatives to get the process in motion. The bill will have to pass through congressional committees before it can be voted on by the House of Representatives and the Senate, and then the President would have to sign the bill into law. But we’re confident that will happen.
While that process is going on, we encourage you to visit the museum when you’re in town to see exhibits that include Massive: The Power of Pop Culture, Hidden Worlds: The Films of Laika, Hendrix: Wild Blue Angel, Fantasy World of Myth and Magic – and much more.
Help test out the new main terminal at PDX Airport
Portland International Airport (PDX) will open its new main terminal sometime in August. But first, they need to test it out.
As part of that process, the airport is seeking volunteers for a PDX Dress Rehearsal on Saturday, August 3. Volunteers will serve as pretend travelers and test out the check-in and security systems and share feedback.
As a bonus, the airport is giving volunteers a $50 gift card.
But as luck would have it, when the new main terminal opens later this year, it will feature patches of the old carpet pattern in a few places.
The PDX teams had a local company recreate the original pattern and will be installing 5,865 square feet of that carpeting in spots where passengers and visitors will most likely be sitting, resting, and listening to music in the new main terminal area.
We can barely wait!!!
Let’s hope they bring back all the PDX Carpet souvenirs too.
The Stuck at the Airport collection of airport and airplane-themed socks just keeps growing. The latest addition comes from Bradley International Airport (BDL), near Hartford, Connecticut. BDL was also kind enough to send along a notepad with the airport’s slogan: Love the Journey.
The BDL socks join the socks in our collection that sport the retired pattern of the carpet at Portland International Airport (PDX) which spawned the passenger trend of taking “footies” on airport carpets nationwide. We’re looking forward to the wearing our PDX socks when PDX airport opens its new main terminal area in May.
