Above the Skyline: Password Protected

I don’t remember when it happened, but at some point every simple task began requiring a password.

Not a key. Not a signature. A password.

You can’t check a boarding pass, a hotel reservation, or your own bank balance without proving you’re you. Even the app that tells you how many steps you walked today wants reassurance.

It’s never just a password. It has to be a strong password. One with a capital letter, a number, a symbol, and something you’ll definitely forget by the time you reach the gate.

The password can’t be meaningful, because meaning is predictable. It can’t be familiar, because familiarity is weak. So you invent something that looks like a seat number on a misprinted boarding pass. The system accepts it. You don’t.

Then you’re told not to write it down.

This has always struck me as optimistic.

We’re told passwords exist for our protection. That someone, somewhere, wants access to our account. It’s never clear why. If someone hacked my airline app, they’d learn I always pick the aisle seat and forget to check in until the last minute.

Still, the warnings are grave. If your password is weak, everything could go wrong. Your identity, your data, your life as you know it.

What I’ve noticed is that the more secure something becomes, the less accessible it is to the person who owns it.

I can’t log into my own account, but the airline has no trouble charging my credit card. That part works perfectly. The system never forgets that.

If you forget your password, you’re invited to reset it. This requires access to an email account that also has a password, a phone you may have replaced, and occasionally a security question.

“What was the name of your first pet?”

I don’t remember. It was a long time ago. The dog ran away. That feels like sensitive information, but not in the way they mean.

Sometimes you’re offered help in the form of a chatbot. The chatbot apologizes. It uses your first name. It doesn’t fix anything. Eventually, it suggests you contact support.

Support, it turns out, is only available if you log in.

Passwords don’t fail dramatically. They fail quietly. You type what you know is correct, and the system says it isn’t. It doesn’t explain. It just denies.

After a few attempts, you’re locked out—for your security.

This is when you realize the password system isn’t protecting you. It’s protecting the system from you.

Travel used to be about access. A ticket. A key. A pass. Now it’s about verification. Two factors. Three factors. A code sent to your phone, unless your phone is in airplane mode, in which case that’s your problem.

We call this progress. Maybe it is. Maybe complexity is the price of safety.

All I know is that I have a list of passwords somewhere. I’m not supposed to. If anyone finds it, they could learn everything about me.

Or at least where I’m going, where I’ve stayed, and how often I’ve had to reset my password to get there.

Which feels like a fairly accurate description of modern travel.

Above the Skyline — by Aram Gesar
Observations on how we travel now—and why it feels the way it does.

Above the Skyline is a reimagining of the Skyline Editorial previously published in AirGuide Destinations magazine. It offers a measured look at how modern travel actually feels. Aram Gesar observes the small frictions, unspoken rules, and design choices that shape journeys in the air and on the ground—often unnoticed, occasionally absurd, and always familiar.