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Claro DeLeon, a special services representative at Bush Intercontinental Airport, checks a flight schedule. DeLeon helps passengers who request aid navigating the airport.

Story and photos by Dave Schafer

It’s a small world, after all.

Claro DeLeon, a special services representative at Bush Intercontinental Airport, knows this. He learned it when he saw an ex-girlfriend from Venezuela step off an airplane in Houston one day. It was reinforced when he assisted the nephew of a friend from Uruguay, and when he helped the grandson of a man he knew growing up.

Helping people is what DeLeon does. Sometimes, the person in need is sick or disabled. Sometimes he’s simply a pampered very important person who doesn’t want to deal with airport crowds.

Whatever the case, DeLeon and the other special services representatives in the international services division are there to make them feel special.

It’s a job DeLeon takes seriously, and he’s an old pro at it, having served longer than any other SSR. He’s developed a code of courtesy that respects others’ space and privacy.

That’s the reason he doesn’t ask why Father Christian Aranda has come to Houston. All he knows is that Aranda’s taxi ride is being charged to an account at St. Luke’s Hospital and that he doesn’t need a wheelchair.

It quickly becomes apparent that the lean, brown-skinned Father with braces on his teeth doesn’t speak English. DeLeon doesn’t pry further as he claims Aranda’s luggage and walks him and his mother through the airport crowds to the waiting cab. Instead, he talks amicably with them in Spanish. This is his house, and he treats them like honored guests.

“If you invite me to your house, you wouldn’t ask me to do the dishes.”

People person
DeLeon, 58, radiates competence. His receding hair is slicked down, his beard is neatly contained in defined lines. He smells like he just stepped out of a barbershop.

Everybody seems to know him, including the Transportation Security Administration guard who staffs the metal detector in Terminal C. The metal pin inserted in DeLeon’s left thigh during hip replacement surgery in 2003 elicits a whistle from the metal-detecting doorway.

For 17 years, DeLeon has crisscrossed the airport as an SSR. He carries a badge with the second-highest security clearance, but to the federal TSA guards, he may as well be carrying a Derek Bell rookie card.

The guard orders him to a row of chairs. Because he remembers DeLeon, he doesn’t make him undress during his search with the wand.

“I had clearance before they thought about working here,” DeLeon says after his shoes are back on.

Sometimes, the constant standing and walking, especially on hard tile floors, hurt his leg and hip. But he doesn’t complain.
“This is a very good job,” says DeLeon, who came to Houston as a banker 20 years ago.

When he goes to the American Airlines counter to check on Aranda’s flight, the man behind the counter greets him warmly and launches into Portuguese.

Portuguese is one of five languages DeLeon speaks. He also speaks Italian, French, his native Spanish, and English, which he calls his weakest language. His English words are rounded, the beginnings and endings not quite all there.

A mix of Spanish and Italian, DeLeon grew up in Uruguay, South America, where his friends were of different nationalities. He enjoyed interacting with people from other countries. His favorite part of this job is meeting people from all over.

As he walks through the airport, he’s greeted by passengers and airport workers. One man runs halfway up the down escalator to shake his hand.

It even seems as though he knows those he doesn’t know. “Hello, my friend,” he says in a smooth voice when he phones an airline. “Who is this?”

Helping person
Half an SSR’s day is spent behind an information counter, the other half assisting passengers. Aranda is DeLeon’s first scheduled assist of the day, so he spent the morning helping visitors get through the immigration counter: He helped an older woman with a bad hip; helped a confused man fill out the proper forms; and gave a man directions to a hotel after verifying the hotel was ready for him.

DeLeon makes visitors feel special. Here, he pulls Father Christian Aranda’s luggage off the conveyor belt.

Besides helping these weary travelers, he’s also keeping the line moving.

“We have to assume that every passenger is trying to make a connection,” he said.

Aranda’s passage goes smoothly. At the taxi, DeLeon gives specific instructions. Aranda says thank you, the only English he knows, and taps his forehead, stomach, right shoulder, then left shoulder in the shape of a cross.

DeLeon is blessed.

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