Skip to content

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. For Faultlines characters, BWI represented the gateway for long-distance travel impossible by train—visiting family in distant cities, touring for performances, attending professional conferences, and seeking medical consultations at specialized facilities. The airport carried particular significance as the site of Mo Makani's arrival from Hawaii in late January 2036, when Logan Weston picked him up at baggage claim in the gray accessible van and began a chosen family relationship that would span decades.

Overview

BWI offered domestic and international flights while remaining more navigable than larger hub airports like JFK or Reagan National. For characters 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 the Faultlines themes of justice, equity, and fighting 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 Oahu, Hawaii (January 2036)

After an approximately five-to-six-hour flight from Oahu, likely connecting through Los Angeles or San Francisco, Mo arrived at BWI in late January 2036. He had left his tropical home wearing winter clothes that proved inadequate for the Maryland cold, carrying limited belongings that represented an enormous leap of faith—relocating to the mainland for a PCA position with people he had met only via video call. Logan picked Mo up at baggage claim in the gray accessible van, and despite Mo's jet lag and the overwhelming transition, Logan's first priority was feeding him—stopping for food before heading home, demonstrating the practical care that would characterize their decades of chosen family. That airport pickup marked a threshold moment: Mo leaving everything familiar, Logan and Charlie extending family to a stranger, all three beginning a relationship that would sustain them through decades of crises and joy.

Transit as Vulnerability

Air travel exposed Faultlines characters 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 characters with seizure disorders, the combination of fluorescent lighting, sleep disruption, stress, and the altitude changes of air travel 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

Settings Transit Hubs Baltimore Locations