Over the weekend, I flew home from Pittsburgh International Airport. What, to my surprise, they had good, strong FREE wireless Internet in the airport! Come to find that they made a very conscious decision to do this. Makes them seem advanced in being traveler-friendly. Left a good impression on me.
“We are very excited to bring a Wireless Communications Access System to Pittsburgh International Airport. This will especially help the business traveler deal with the demands of traveling for work. For Pittsburgh International Airport, it is another way to enhance its already glowing customer service reputation,” Allegheny County Airport Authority Board Chairman Glenn R. Mahone said.
Contrast that with Boston and Massport. Gives the unfortunate impression of Logan and Boston being [fill in adjective ].
Denver: not free
Seattle: not free
Chicago O’Hare: not free. They did, however, have nice kiosks with power outlets for laptops.
<
p>
This is a no-brainer for airports that have frequent stop overs, as it attracts people to choose their airport as the middle bit of their travel.
<
p>
For airports that are generally only the start or the end of a trip (Boston for domestic, but probably not as much for international), it’s not so much an issue of increased customers, but merely one of increased customer satisfaction.
<
p>
A modern airport should have plentiful comfortable places to sit and use a laptop while plugged in, and it ought to have free, reasonably high speed Internet. It ought also to get good cell phone reception, have clean bathrooms, and food and beverage choices. For that matter, so should rail hubs like North and South Station, and even Back Bay.
…but I doubt that many people, even business travelers, select their airlines based on where they have their stopovers. It’s the airlines that determine where the stopovers are on direct (but not non-stop) flights.
<
p>
As to your point in the last paragraph, it has occurred to us that several airports, particularly in the Germanic countries, have become shopping malls with a few airplane gates attached. That’s certainly the case with the Munich airport, and, after Zurich was renovated a couple of years ago, it’s obviously the case with that airport, too. One can even buy caviar at the Zurich airport, on each of two levels.
take the airport into consideration, and I know others who do too. One is in airport about 20 times per month.
<
p>
When there are a number of choices and you’re going to get a layover, why not choose based on some factor if costs are roughly equivalent.
<
p>
Sure, it’s a small percentage of people… but it’s also the percentage of people who travel the most. Traveling salesmen and the like. The kind of people who are on a first name basis with a half dozen airport bartenders.
<
p>
It may also reflect on a philosophy of the city, sort of a “welcome to ______”. Charlotte has wonderful white rocking chairs, and I rock out on ’em every time I have a layover there. O’Hare has great laptop kiosks, and I’ll look for them from now on. Now that I know Pittsburgh has free wi-fi, I will always lean toward a layover in the Burgh given closeness in other choices [time, money].
… used to make a point of making stopovers in Frankfurt and not Charles De Gaul.
I recently read an article on NBA refereees. It’s a good read. What’s pertinent to this discussion is that referees, just like players, travel all the time. ‘Cept, they don’t have private jets and busses like many teams do. So they fly commercial. Used to be (like, not that long ago) they could show up 5 minutes prior to a flight, get on and go. No worries.
<
p>
Not any more.
<
p>
That’s the modern (American) airport… designed to make travel a utility the intrudes very very little. Designed and engineered for the most rapid transit time between the curb and the airplane seat. That paradigm is poured into the very concrete (seats not comfortable for more than 5 minutes inhabitation; open spaces designed to diffuse queues; fast-food eateries with insufficient and uncomfortable seating: etc…) Layered, abruptly and, by many accounts, very incompetently atop this architecture is a hysterical system of checks and queues, working against the very design of the buildings. The post modern airport will balance these tensions and they will probably be very comfortable spaces… in 20 years time.
However since US Airways stopped using PIT as a major HUB, 1/2 of it’s gates are unused. I actually made GOTV phone calls using voter vault for Doug Obey at the PIT airport when I had a three hour wait for a plane back in the spring.
Layed over in airport XYZ on election day? Come down to gate B-12, where we’ve got a GOTV operation going. Make phone calls for Joe Candidate. We’ll provide the snacks and make sure you leave in time to board your flight.