Given the current state of commercial air travel, many flyers are just trying their best to stumble through the airport without losing a passport, a child, or their sanity. It’s rough out there… especially during the frantic holiday season.
But transportation secretary Sean Duffy apparently sees a very different version of American air travel — one in which we have the luxury of priorities beyond just praying our flight isn’t canceled. One in which we use our idle “pre-departure window” (LOL) to squeeze in a light workout.
At a recent press conference, Duffy suggested that airports should consider adding “workout areas” — think pull-up bars, step-up boxes, maybe a few yoga mats so you can stretch out your travel-day angst while a stranger’s filthy roller bag wheels graze your scalp. This all came moments before he engaged in an actual pull-up contest with RFK Jr. at Reagan National Airport, because apparently, this is now what transportation policy looks like.
This is the same transportation secretary who told us last month to “dress a little better” at the airport. As I previously reported in my column about the DOT’s tone-deaf civility campaign, the department seems weirdly committed to the idea that air travel in 2025 would be pleasant — glamorous, even — if only we the passengers stepped it up. Hard pants! Better manners! No pajamas! And now, if we could just hit the terminal pull-up bar between boarding groups A and B, everything would be great.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, here’s what flying actually is… a panicked sprint through the terminal when a delayed flight shrinks a connection to 15 minutes. A resigned slog to the bar for a $22 drink when a flight is casually delayed by another two hours. A middle seat barely wide enough to breathe. A silent prayer that your checked bag isn’t about to haul off on an unauthorized solo adventure.
And amid all of that, America’s top transportation official thinks what we really need is… a chin-up.
It’s not that I’m anti-exercise. Far from it. I fully register the importance of moving one’s body for overall physical and mental health, and I love a brisk airport power walk! But installing mini-gyms in terminals feels like yet another instance of officials offering cosmetic fixes to problems that are fundamentally structural. Flying is unpleasant because the system is strained, understaffed, overcrowded, and increasingly expensive — not because passengers are wearing cozy pants and failing to bang out a quick eight reps before boarding.
To be fair, Duffy’s “Make Travel Family Friendly Again” initiative does include real, thoughtful improvements: more nursing rooms, designated family security lanes, expanded play areas for kids. I’m fully on board with any move that makes it easier for exhausted parents to survive the airport gauntlet with dignity intact. (The pull-up bars, though. The pull-up bars!)
But the recurring theme here — whether it’s asking us to dress up, calm down, or now, work out — is that passengers are the problem. If travelers could just get it together, the thinking goes, flying might magically feel like the so-called “Golden Age of Travel.” Never mind the realities these days: the government shutdowns, the delays, the crowds, the shrinking seats, the ever more intense storms triggered by the climate crisis, the endless nickel-and-diming that makes us long for the days when a checked bag didn’t require a second mortgage.
So when Duffy asks, “How can we make the airport experience better?” I humbly suggest we start with the basics — like reliable flights, reasonable space, functional infrastructure. After that, sir, we can talk burpees. Until then, I will continue to face the airport the only way I know how: in comfortable travel clothes, holding onto my coffee for dear life, and trying very hard not to cry in the security line when I see that delay post.
If he wants to join me there for a different kind of endurance test, be my guest.