Location
National Airports Network
A national lattice of terminals, control towers, and concourses that tightens into a defensive grid when crisis hits. Runways fall silent and announcement systems cut off mid-sentence; fluorescent halls go dark while abandoned trolleys and luggage piles clog concourses. Security checkpoints harden into chokepoints, grounded aircraft block tarmacs, and snarled ground traffic strangles medevac and law-enforcement movement. As invoked in the President’s hypothetical timeline, these airports operate as both lifeline and liability—procedural delay at any node can stall rescue, magnify panic, and turn routine transit into a bureaucratic theater of containment.
1 events
1 rich involvements
Detailed Involvements
Events with rich location context
S1E6
·
Mr. Willis of Ohio
Privilege and Protection
The National Airports Network is referenced as the procedural chokepoint that would slow rescue—airport closures, grounded planes, and snarled traffic become part of Bartlet's argument about how quickly ordinary time turns catastrophic.
Atmosphere
Procedurally fraught and bureaucratic in Bartlet's telling.
Functional Role
Illustrative logistical barrier that explains why a kidnapping could metastasize into an international crisis.
Symbolic Significance
Represents institutional inertia and the limits of immediate executive action.
Access Restrictions
Subject to national security controls and closures in a crisis.
Runways, concourses, grounded aircraft (evoked)
Announcement silence and clogged concourses
Security checkpoints transforming into chokepoints
Events at This Location
Everything that happens here