Fans were generally pleased with Steve Carell’s farewell on The Office, but the New York Times brings up one point: It couldn’t have happened in real life.
In the final moments before Michael Scott’s one-way flight to Boulder, Colo., Pam (Jenna Fischer) tracked him down at the airport gate to bid adieu (viewers could see her but not hear what she said).
Barry J. Centini, airport director at the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport, tells the Times that Transportation Security Administration policy would not allow a person into the gate area without a ticket, not even to say bye to a dear friend.
“They can’t do that,” he said. “You cannot go through a screening without a ticket. You cannot go into the boarding gates without a ticket.”
“Not at this airport, or any airport,” he added. “I don’t believe you can get through a screening here or anyplace else unless you possess a ticket. And I don’t know if anybody would buy a ticket, go through a screening, just to say goodbye, and then come back and try to refund a ticket. I don’t know if they would do that. But who knows? Maybe on TV you can.”
He isn’t worried the NBC show misrepresented T.S.A. rules: “If you had the impression that you could do that here or any place else, you’ll find that that impression is not going to happen. If you think you can walk through and go out to the boarding gates and wave goodbye to people, or go out onto the tarmac, that’s not going to happen. Is it a concern? I think it’s a show on TV and they take their license to do the show and make it happen they way they want to. That’s not reality.”
