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BWI Marshall Airport

BWI Marshall Airport (Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport) served as the primary airport for the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area, located approximately nine miles south of Baltimore and thirty miles northeast of Washington, D.C. BWI was the gateway for long-distance travel impossible by train, including visits to distant family, performance tours, professional conferences, and specialized medical consultations. Mo Makani arrived there from Hawaiʻi in late January 2036 before beginning work with Charlie Rivera and Logan Weston.

Overview

BWI offered domestic and international flights while remaining more navigable than larger hub airports like JFK or Reagan National. For people living in Baltimore, the airport served as the practical infrastructure for air travel that the Northeast Corridor’s train service could not provide—connections to the West Coast, Hawaii, international destinations, and regional cities without rail access. The airport’s renaming in 2005 to honor Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall—a Baltimore native who argued Brown v. Board of Education and became the first African American Supreme Court Justice—resonated with histories of justice, equity, and resistance to systems that harmed marginalized people.

Physical Description

BWI featured a single main terminal with five concourses (A, B, C, D, and E) arranged in linear fashion, a design that was relatively straightforward compared to the maze-like layouts of larger airports, making navigation more intuitive for travelers managing disabilities, medical equipment, or sensory processing challenges. The main terminal housed ticketing, baggage claim, ground transportation, and security checkpoints. The concourses extended from the main terminal, connected by moving walkways and accessible via a train shuttle for longer distances, particularly to Concourse E.

Accessibility features throughout the airport included elevator access to all levels, accessible restrooms in all concourses, wheelchair-accessible pathways with level changes managed via ramps and elevators, a visual paging system supplementing auditory announcements, and accessible parking with shuttle service. The TSA Cares program provided travelers with disabilities or medical conditions the option to request additional screening assistance, accommodation for medical devices, and reduced-stress navigation of security by calling seventy-two hours before departure.

Sensory Environment

BWI presented the standard sensory challenges inherent to airport environments—fluorescent lighting throughout the terminal, constant announcements echoing through concourses, crowds moving in all directions, food vendors creating mixed smells of coffee, fast food, and baked goods, temperature fluctuations between overheated interior spaces and cold jetways, and the underlying hum of HVAC systems and distant aircraft. The layered sounds of gate announcements, security instructions, rolling luggage on hard floors, thousands of simultaneous conversations, and children crying created an acoustic environment that was overwhelming for travelers with sensory processing differences.

For neurodivergent travelers or those managing chronic illness, airports presented some of the most challenging environments to navigate—necessary infrastructure for air travel but actively hostile to comfortable existence. The combination of harsh visual stimulation, unpredictable crowds, time pressure, and the physical demands of navigating terminals made air travel a calculated risk for characters like Jacob Keller, whose epilepsy and autism made fluorescent lighting and sensory overload potential seizure triggers, or Charlie Rivera, whose POTS and wheelchair use demanded careful energy management across the sprawling terminal.

Accessibility and Navigation

The airport’s accessibility infrastructure operated at the federal standard required of commercial aviation facilities, with practical accommodations that addressed the most common physical access needs while leaving significant gaps for travelers with complex or intersecting disabilities. Elevator access extended throughout the terminal, though crowding during peak travel times could make elevator use difficult for wheelchair users competing with families, luggage carts, and other travelers who chose elevators over escalators. The TSA Cares program represented the best available accommodation for security screening, though the advance notice requirement—seventy-two hours before travel—assumed the kind of predictable scheduling that emergency medical travel or last-minute itinerary changes could not accommodate.

For wheelchair users, the accessible pathways and elevators throughout the terminal provided functional navigation, though narrow jetways and the airline’s provided wheelchairs—often inadequate for passengers with complex mobility needs—created vulnerability during boarding and deplaning. Gate-checking personal wheelchairs meant trusting expensive, precisely configured equipment to baggage handling systems designed for suitcases. For travelers managing diabetes, like Logan Weston, blood sugar management was complicated by security delays, flight schedules disrupting meal timing, stress affecting glucose levels, and the screening of insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitors. For travelers with POTS, like Charlie Rivera, temperature regulation challenges, difficulty standing in security lines, dehydration risk, and energy depletion from terminal navigation all required advance planning that able-bodied travelers never had to consider.

Departures

Mo Makani—Arriving from Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi (January 2036)

After a long trip from Oʻahu, Mo arrived at BWI in late January 2036. He had shipped some belongings ahead and wore winter layers that proved inadequate for temperatures in the high twenties. While waiting outside for his ride, he shook hard enough that his teeth knocked together, and his hands became stiff and numb.

Logan had planned to collect Mo personally but was having a pain flare that morning. He sent a car and directed Mo to meet it at pickup point B5. Mo warmed his hands at the vehicle’s vents during the drive to the Rivera-Weston home.

Transit as Vulnerability

Air travel exposed disabled travelers to vulnerability in ways that ground transportation did not—being hours from one’s care team, managing medical equipment through security screening, maintaining medication schedules across time zones, and navigating an environment designed to move people efficiently rather than accommodate the full range of human bodies and needs. For people with seizure disorders, the combination of fluorescent lighting, sleep disruption, stress, and altitude changes created elevated seizure risk. For those managing chronic pain or fatigue, the physical demands of airport navigation—even with accessibility accommodations—depleted energy reserves before the actual flight began. The airport represented the cost of connection across distance, the tax that travel levied on bodies that could not afford to pay it but had no choice.

History

Baltimore/Washington International Airport opened on June 24, 1950, as Friendship International Airport, built to relieve congestion at Washington National Airport and serving both the Baltimore and Washington, D.C. metropolitan areas. The airport was renamed Baltimore/Washington International Airport in 1973, and in October 2005 it was officially renamed Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport to honor Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, a Baltimore native whose legal career fighting segregation and championing civil rights had shaped American constitutional law. BWI expanded significantly over the decades, adding concourses, modernizing facilities, and improving accessibility. Southwest Airlines established a major hub at the airport, making BWI an important mid-Atlantic aviation center.

Notable Events

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