SRQ, Sarasota Bradenton International Airport: A Tribute

The Sarasota Bradenton International Airport, frequently referred to simply by its official Airport Identification Abbreviation, SRQ, is the most delightful little airport I have ever had the occasion to experience. And I've been traveling domestically for quite awhile. I can even remember way back when smoking was allowed on planes (to date myself), but in other words, I have had exposure to my fair share of airports, large and small, beyond my quaint little SRQ.

I've seen many airports of varying sizes go through complete facelift operations. And while each construction project's result showed notable improvement, I still can't remember a single one that could even compare to the great SRQ. Never before has the beauty and cleanliness of an airport facility, not to mention the organization of operations, resonated with me as strongly as this luxurious Sarasota Bradenton travel arena has. Luckily for me, the glorious SRQ International Airport also serves as the main air travel departure and arrival facility of my beloved Sarasota, Florida hometown. Imagine, I got to drive past SRQ almost daily growing up. And yes, it was as great as you could imagine.

Now granted, SRQ Sarasota Bradenton Florida Airport does not see the same giant hoards of travelers at one given time that its larger city airport friends do such as, let's say, New York's LaGuardia Airport or Boston's Logan Airport. So it should be noted for the record that the wear and tear that larger airport facilities encounter as a result of moving a mass load of people on a constant basis is absent from SRQ for obvious reasons.

However, SRQ Sarasota Bradenton International Airport does serve about 1 million passengers a year both in season and off which is still quite a lot. And aside from minor repairs to the airport facility terminals here and there, I cannot recall a major renovation occurring to this SRQ Airport of your dreams and mine in several years. Yet it still maintains its high quality in both organization and assistance with ongoing traveling bodies as well as a visual appeal that quite honestly, with its Florida theme location considered, borders on perfection.

Here are a few major points about the SRQ International Sarasota Bradenton Florida Airport facility that should be used as examples for airports of a similar capacity to (strive to) follow:

**The SRQSarasotaBradentonFloridaAirport website matches its physical location in organizational effectiveness.

What a fabulously well designed website the SRQ-airport.com URL address presents us. Alert notices at full view on the left column let you or the people you are traveling by air flight to visit in the Sarasota Bradenton areas know about updates to the airport that might help save time such as new screening procedures or delays on curbside parking.

Flight information as seen on those TV screens inside the terminals themselves can be viewed and accessed right at the top of the SRQ-airport.com homepage to check flight status. The website designers even feature the information within fun television monitor style graphics so there is no confusion about what you are looking at.

Finally, a third great aspect of the SRQ website homepage that can absolutely not go unmentioned is an up to date weather report, in detail, ( and with appropriate accompanying graphics -for instance a pretty yellow shining sun) of the Sarasota Bradenton area.

**The folks at SRQAirport appreciate our business.

As if the meticulous upkeep of the SRQ Sarasota Bradenton Florida Airport facilities were not indication enough that the majority of the airport staff, in all hierarchical positions put their customers' satisfaction and service first, a quote on the airport website gives us written proof.

Along with a few brief paragraphs in which the SRQ Airport crew, through the words of the appointed website content writer, welcomes passengers and visitors to the Sarasota Bradenton International Airport facility, the content in the middle of the SRQ Airport homepage says it all: "Whether you are arriving or departing for pleasure, business or both, thank you for choosing us!" That last part, from "thank you" and on is even written in bold, italic typeface for extra emphasis. Also note the use of the exclamation point for punctuation.

These seem like minor details, perhaps, but they collectively add to the cozy type of familial or at-home aura or vibe that can be felt while experiencing both the online SRQ-Airport website as well as the physical SRQ Airport location itself. You can just picture this sincere "Thank you" sentiment delivered to you by any and every single SRQ Airport employee you come across during your Sarasota Bradenton travels. It makes you want to frantically find a way to interact with the sunshine-friendly person who wrote the content on the website and let them know that you thank them for thanking you.

**The energy of the SRQSarasotaBradentonFloridaAirport atmosphere silently encourages you to be a good person.

The SRQ Sarasota Bradenton Florida Airport is the kind of business operation that on multiple levels makes you want to be polite. It also makes you proud to be in Sarasota for whatever reason takes you there. The SRQ Sarasota Bradenton International Airport makes you want to be a good person in all sorts of ways but most especially in the way you behave in a public setting. More specifically, SRQ Airport inspires the type of good person who doesn't say bad words.

Call me crazy, I know it sounds outlandish and absurd to even entertain this fact of subtle persuasion that the airport's aura gives out but oh its there. Just walk through any door to the SRQ Airport facility and give yourself ten minutes to test my theory before you officially write it off as bunk. It has the wholesome feeling and instantaneous happiness effect that Disney World aspires to brand itself with- only it doesn't try hard, not as many people smell (though admittedly some do, it is Florida), and fewer people are walking around in identical outfits as their other half and/or very large and intimidating costumes that are designed to resemble species of the animal kingdom that don't really exist. .

**They are not stingy at the SRQAirport.

Doesn't it seem like anything you ever want to do for fun or as a necessity of life or anything you have or want to buy is just really overly expensive these days? There are deals out there for everything but they're hard to find, very often limited and full of restrictions, and often times not even a remarkable deal anyway to begin with. In this economy even large corporations or businesses that have plenty of funding to spend on perfecting their customer service approach are being frugal and greedy with their money and high costs.

But just when you are about to give up on the kindness of humanity altogether and accept the perpetual oppression from corporations and businesses that you have no choice but to use, SRQ Sarasota Bradenton Florida Airport comes pummeling through the crowd of its competitors and offers a really quite amazing deal. To the point because I know you can't wait any longer , SRQ Airport is offering 30 minutes of free parking for your friends and family and/or transportation acquaintances in their short term parking lot.

This is especially nice for those parties waiting to greet incoming travelers, as the SRQ Airport website writer mentions, because this way they can greet their loved ones in "air conditioned comfort" instead of avoiding the usual airport parking fee by circling around the airport a million times until you happen to come out and spot them. Not to mention that the A/C factor is key. If you have ever been to Sarasota, Florida anytime of the year you know that quality air conditioning is an absolute necessity for any place you should find yourself going.

**The indoor environment of the great SRQSarasotaBradentonInternationalAirport facility is appealing to the eyes (aka the folks at SRQ are artistically and aquatically inclined.)

SRQ is a very small airport with only one terminal and that in itself consists pretty much of a single hallway as a pathway to all of the departure and arrival gates. Despite the lack of abundant space in which most larger airports cram with store after store of novelty items and all that fun yet boring at the same time stuff that everyone tends to bring on planes, SRQ makes very excellent use of the extra square footage it does own.

At any given time at the SRQ Airport you can potentially see a new and updated fun exhibit or installation, as the people who run this decorative section of the airport facility seem to enjoy getting involved with the community. Artwork from students at the nearby Ringling School of Art and Design often lines the SRQ Sarasota Bradenton Florida Airport walls, as one example. Another great interior feature to exhilarate all of the senses is a beautiful waterfall near the entrance. And finally, my favorite part of the miscellaneous SRQ Airport décor yet is none other than the crystal clear and well maintained aquarium from the local Mote Marine Laboratory of Science where travelers can ooh and ahh at the whatever collection of colorful fish and sharks (yes, usually two of them) may at the time be inhabitants there.

**The major areas of the SRQAirport facilities and terminal maintain an architectural layout and design that is conducive to the activity of traveling.

SRQ Sarasota Bradenton International Airport offers everything you might expect of your ideal version of an airport facility and proudly contains most of the things that are missing from all the other airports you've had the misfortune to travel in around and about. In short, the SRQ Airport location and its organization are practical and convenient.

All important areas of the beloved SRQ are very well marked and are separated from each other, though only to the necessary degree that such separation is required in order to maintain airport organization and operational efficiency. Furthermore, anyone who has traveled via airplane knows it is common for airport strollers (or frantic sprinters) to look above in hopes of encountering consistent written directions or easy to understand universal signals to assist them in maintaining a time efficient directional movement toward the next destination of their airline traveling trip.

Only in most airports this order and instruction that one partakes in an urgent visual search in attempt to find, is actually a farfetched notion and such practical information is instead replaced by a chaotic montage of stimuli in the form of repetitive and persistent airport signage. Dozens upon dozens of written guideposts thrust themselves into your (the helpless airline traveler's) line of vision all at once and in multiplying numbers while simultaneously delivering upon your conscious and wavering sanity the written version of shrilling screams which utter nothing but vague, sometimes contradictory commands that serve no real purpose other than to compete with one another for your eyeballs' attention. .

And in a hypothetical, ideal version of a big city airport or in any other airport aside from the exemplary smaller sized travel facility known as our infamous SRQ where such an ideal already exists, these information guideposts would announce directional assistance presented in the form of large, easily interpretable graphic images imprinted upon some type of background with carefully selected contrasting colors that allow the particular label to stand out among the dozens of other written guideposts that all, one traveling through the SRQ could not even manifest in their most absurdly outrageous and wildly exaggerated imaginary fantasies such an obtrusive bombardment of information as is common at other airports, not even if they tried. Such to clearly distinguish each section and the particular airline traveling activity it facilitates from the other sections that serve a different purpose.

For instance the baggage claim areas are clearly defined on the first level of the airport and are adjacent to and again, conservatively spaced apart by way of a short but effectively transitional hallway from the check-in section for the various SRQ airlines. The shopping areas and food and beverage counters are unique and plentiful enough in quantity to allow for a good assortment of refreshments of which you can nourish yourself prior to boarding your plane and yet few enough in number for all of them to fit cozily in one corner of the airport, which surely if you've traveled anywhere by plane you know is quite a rare commodity.

More bluntly put, there are no lengthy hallways filled with endless lineups of candy and cheesy souvenir junk shops you not only don't want to look at but that you do not even have time to spend gawking around the aisles of, that simply take up unnecessary (and enormous in some airports) blocks of space where instead, if it weren't for this extraneous commercial garbage built where they could have put more arrival and departure gates, you could potentially be comfortably seated in your appropriate waiting area admiring your airplane out the window with no worries whatsoever about whether or not you can run fast enough to make the mile long stretch from the concession area to your departure gate in time to actually secure yourself in a seat on board.

**Free Wi-Fi Internet Access.

I saved the best for last. The fact that any airport anyway would charge its travelers to utilize their internet network for what is probably an average of 30 total minutes for each passenger in a total six month span, or for frequent business travelers, we'll in all fairness allot a few hours of use over 6 months, is absolutely appalling in my opinion. I mean really, do they absolutely, these airport people who decide on such unnecessary Wi-Fi costs, have to insist on charging? And the best is most airports who charge you to go online (with your own computer, let's also note) try to make themselves look generous by offering your choice of maybe two or three package deals. For instance they may allow you to purchase a years worth of access or otherwise pay more on an hourly clock. Package deal or not, charging passengers to use their own equipment to access the facility's wireless network would possibly be understandable if the typical traveler spent at least on average a consecutive total of four or more twenty-four hour days and overnights in one given airport facility (and online the whole time, in addition). But most people have at most time to write a quick email to check in with their business associates or to let the person that will be picking them up at their destination know the most current status of his or her flight.