Showing posts with label airports. Show all posts
Showing posts with label airports. Show all posts
What makes an airport cool?
I've been musing about airports and thinking about my experiences at Melbourne and Perth airports last week and what made them so bad, and reflecting upon what makes an airport cool, what kind of things would actually make the experience so much more fun! The factors that make Melbourne so unpleasant are the lack of comfortable seating and places to relax, poor business and communication facilities, dismal retail and dining options, limited opening hours, a dirty environment, and a distinct lack of character. So that means my ideal airport would be exactly the opposite, and possess the following characteristics:* an abundance of comfortable seating, from reclining chairs to chill-out sofas and ottomans, in various formations and environments to suit different moods and needs;
* state-of-the-art communications and public business facilities (not only in airline lounges), from free easy-to-access WiFi throughout the airport and desk space with powerpoints for those who want to set up their laptop and work to reasonably-priced pay-by-the-hour lounges for those with long layovers who want to get serious about working;
* a wide range of useful and engaging retail outlets, from gourmet delis and a supermarket to excellent bookshops (not only stocking airport novels) and newsagents, to quality gift stores specialising in local products, and travel shops that don't only sell suitcases, but offer up everything from travel gadgets to tech accessories;
* an array of quality drinking and dining options and no franchises for starters: I want to see clean, quality cafes, restaurants and bars, ran by independent owners who care about what they're doing, and have a desire to sell more than muffins and soggy plastic-wrapped sandwiches. I want fresh food, made-to-order, and variety. Why can't airports have stand-up Italian-style cafe bars where you can grab a macchiato from an barista who knows not to ask "Is that a short mac or a long mac?" And why not proper fine-dining restaurants or chic bistros for those of us with long waits between connections? Obviously there's a place for fast food but can we please give the McDonalds and Subways a miss and only allow quality options, like a wood-fire pizza place or a Japanese sushi bar?
* everything should be open as long as flights are operating: there are many 24-hour airports dotted around the world that can manage this, Dubai for one; there should be no reason to close anything if there are still people streaming through the airport;
* the place should be gleaming; everything in the airport should be shiny and clean, and smelling fresh and lovely - from the public seating to the toilets to the floors throughout - there's just no excuse for grubbiness at a developed city airport in this day and age;
* the airport should be well-designed; from the practical stuff (security, check-in, baggage drop, signage, transport, traffic flow) to the aesthetic (departure lounge seating, shop-fronts, dining experiences, etc), the airport should look cool. It should not only be functional - it should work and be comfortable - but it should have form and style. Airports should look chic and inviting. They should make us want to spend time in them instead of wanting to get the hell out of there the first chance we get.
What do you think? What makes an airport cool for you? My favorites include Copenhagen, Amsterdam's Schiphol, Dubai and Hong Kong, but even they're not perfect. Do you have any favorites?
The developed world's worst city airports?
What are the developed world's worst city airports? And what makes an airport bad for you? I'm convinced Melbourne and Perth's airports must be somewhere on a worst airport list. Due to bad plane and bus connections, I spent a fair bit of time at both of these Australian airports this past week, and it was painful. Perth's domestic airport seems to work 9-5 despite flights arriving and departing at midnight. It's small, has few shops, fewer eating options, and needs a good scrub. But because Perth is a city with a small population, I'm going to be a bit more forgiving. Melbourne on the other hand has no excuse. It's Australia's second largest city, a busy business/finance hub, and a major tourist destination. There's no excuse for Melbourne's Tullamarine airport to be so appalling. So what makes it so dreadful?* Opening hours - nothing was open when my flight arrived at 5.30am, and most cafes and shops didn't open until 8.30-9am despite the airport being busy with commuters; if there are flights coming and going, then the whole airport should be open for business.
* No public lounges and few seating options – apart from the departure gates, there are few places to sit other than the airport's dismal cafes; there's not a single comfortable seat, only wooden benches and hard plastic café chairs, so plan your connections carefully or you'll have a sore bottom before you've even boarded the plane.
* No decent business facilities – can't get comfy and want to work instead? Forget about it. At Milan's Malpensa we can at least pay to work in a business lounge for the day with free internet, lots of desks, soft sofas, and complimentary refreshments. Nothing of the kind in Melbourne. Not only could I not access the expensive wireless internet service (and airport staff members had no clue either), I couldn't find any space to work and nowhere to plug in my laptop, apart from a dirty cafe. As I had a three hour wait I was prepared to pay for it too, but no such luck.
* Few enticing shops - nowhere to relax, no place to work, so you want to browse? Get that idea out of your head too. I found one average bookstore, an okay newsagent, three luggage shops, a music store that was closing down, an overpriced L'Occitane store, and a cheap fashion accessories shop (everything was going for $10). The only decent place worth killing some time was the Gourmet Traveller store.
* No appetizing places to eat or drink – of the four café/bars I found, one didn't have any food (“Saturdays are quiet” the guy said), the other had muffins and soggy white-bread sandwiches that looked like they had been made when I passed through the week before ("You're probably right!" laughed the girl when I told her), and who really wants to hang out at Gloria Jeans or Subway for godsake? And everything was expensive, from $7 sandwiches to $5 coffees.
* It’s dirty, stinky and tatty – Melbourne airport needs a good bath! From the food crumbs, hair and cigarette butts on the floors of the cafés (I thought it was non-smoking?!) to filthy, smelly lavatories with clogged toilets and dirty washbasins, this is one grotty airport. I finally found another bar just before I was about to board my plane - "Yes, this is the airport’s best bar" the bartender assured me - yet the furniture was dirty, scuffed and ripped (no, it wasn't shabby chic), the tables were sticky, drinks that had been spilled on the floor hadn't been mopped up, and there was that lovely all-pervading stench of beer.
I'm not looking forward to returning next week. So, do you have a city airport you hate? And if so, what are the factors that make it so bad in your eyes?
Pictured? Not Melbourne or Perth - that's Koh Samui's airport in Thailand, which is actually pretty darn cute.
Tackling the tediousness of travel
For those of you who don't like hanging around airports, who don't take some weird pleasure in the tediousness of travel, and who can't simply enjoy those moments of travel anticipation over a glass of bubbly in an airport lounge - we know who are you: you just want to get there - Daily Candy has some advice. Check out Bored Until Boarding for tips on how to occupy your time, from meditating and downloading podcasts to listen to in the taxi on the way to the airport, to tackling to-do lists and playing travel scrabble to escape terminal boredom. And what about: deleting messages on your cell phone (or even calling friends?); deleting emails in your in-box (or just sending a few?); writing a to-do list for when you arrive (mine always begins with: buy a local SIM card); doing some duty-free shopping (something for the hotel fridge?); reading about your destination if you're travelling for pleasure (or even for work); or simply talking to your travelling companion (or - crazy as it sounds - the person you're sitting next to!) Any other ideas?
Travelling Inspirations: air travel blogs
If waiting for your luggage to come off the carousel excites you - you can't wait to get outside the terminal and see what's out there, right? - or one of your favorite film scenes is the one in Wong Kar Wai's Chungking Express where the couple fool around with the model airplane in bed, then you're probably an air travel junkie like me. There are some inspirational blogs out there about air travel, airports, airlines, and the aviation industry: Airline Confidential by Richard Havers and Christopher Tiffney, authors of the book of the same name, is an engaging read about the fun of flying, the glamour of air travel, "the crazy wacky world of airlines", and people behaving badly and bizarrely; Another Passport Stamp is a blog about a London-based, American flight attendant's travels, layovers and quests for yet another passport stamp, sprinkled with some delicious eavesdropping and gossip; while Yu Hu Stewardess is the cheeky blog of a 'fly girl' who claims her stories are true but the details have been changed because "nobody wants to get fired or sued" - she hasn't written in a while so let's hope she wasn't fired, but there's some scintillating stuff in her archives! The Wings Stayed On is a commercial pilot's behind-the-scenes blog with some revealing 'day in the life' descriptions while Flight Blogger, sub-titled "if you fly fast enough, the sun never sets", covers the nuts and bolts of the aviation industry - literally - as he takes a look at where production is at on new aircraft (this one's only for the obsessives perhaps). The Airline Blog covers news and rumors in the industry; Thirty Thousand Feet is a blog about all things aviation with a portal with links to more blogs and sites about airlines, airports, and airplanes; while Aircrew Buzz is an aviation news blog with commentary on current events and issues. On a more practical note, In Flight HQ has a tech bent, offering up "tools, tips and techniques for being productive at 30,000 feet"; while One Bag blogs about "the art and science of travelling light", something as a travel writer I find impossible to master with a bag full of technology, books, press kits, and research materials to cart around.