On the arriving plane was a passenger whose husband had just died of a heart attack on another flight. Colladay guided her through Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, drove her in his silver Ford Fusion to the medical examiner to see her husband's body and arranged for a flight home for both of them. Airports are mini-cities with their own movie theaters, fire departments and shopping malls. The positions are highly sought-after and considered glamorous, with chaplains saying they love the excitement and unpredictability of airports. During weather delays, chaplains take the heat off gate agents by standing nearby — passengers tend to be on their best behavior when in the presence of a priest. "When I came into the job, my predecessor said you have to buy good shoes," says the Rev. Jean-Pierre Dassonville, a Protestant who just retired after 12 years at Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris. The Rev. Wina Hordijk, a Protestant minister at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, recently saw a teenage girl sitting by herself, crying. The Rev. Jonathan Baldwin, who is assigned by The Church of England to London's Gatwick Airport, was once asked by a couple to join them as their son and his new wife returned from their honeymoon. Employees at ticket counters, security checkpoints and control towers are under extreme stress. To relate, chaplains learn airport lingo, for instance calling workers who unload luggage from planes "ramp rats." The focus of this year's annual conference of the International Association of Civil Aviation Chaplains in Atlanta — yes, the chaplains have their own trade group — was marketing. When volcanic ash shut down European airspace in 2010, New York's chaplains provided stranded passengers with bagels and cream cheese, fresh shirts and socks, laptops to check emails and helped refill medications. When the Rev. Peter Holloway, an Anglican priest at Australia's Melbourne airport, died in June at the age of 91, he was buried in a cemetery directly below the landing approach to Runway 16.
Reported by SeattlePI.com 7 hours ago.
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