Comments on: Evil, capitalist airports

By: Jeff

Jeff — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 14:15:44 +0000

As several people (32, 62) pointed out the Pittsburgh airport has quite a few amenities. The one not mentioned though is that they do have clean underwear in the form of an in airport Victoria’s Secret.

By: Jacob T. Levy

Jacob T. Levy — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 13:51:51 +0000

Sometimes the passenger actually is the consumer—and this is true for some of the passengers most likely to have hours for shopping in airports on a regular basis. If you have a choice as to what airports to connect through, it makes sense to pay attention to how miserable or pleasant the airport is. Given a choice, I’ll connect through Schiphol, because it’s by far the most pleasant of the options (for reasons that include those showers and nap-recliners). That also means that I’ll have chunks of 6 or 8 hours wandering around Schiphol instead of some other airport, and spending money at Schiphol’s other shops. (Moreover, that time will often occur while I feel punchy and addled by lack of sleep, to say nothing of the illusion that spending an extra hundred dollars when you’re in the middle of a $5000 trip matters less than spending that hundred dollars on a normal day would.)

In other words, the connecting-though market has different characteristic than the going-to market. Doing little things to make one’s airport an appealing choice means your very expensive mall can also do better business. At least some airports have a lot of room to be much smarter capitalists along this front than they are.

By: bad Jim

bad Jim — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 11:06:53 +0000

I smoke unfiltered Camels, and better or equal cigarettes can’t be found everywhere. France, Britain, the Netherlands, Japan, sure, but at best what’s on offer elsewhere in the EU are lamentably attenuated local products. One’s generally well advised to bring one’s own.

Except that every so often the duty free shop stocks my brand for ten bucks less than I shell out at Circle K. I suppose I ought to pay more attention to which airline flies out of which terminal at LAX.

By: ruth

ruth — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 23:17:46 +0000

Some number of years ago I spent 9 hours passing through the Miami airport (7am to 4pm). I don’t know if it still exists, but at the time it had a hotel. I quite cheerfully paid $50 for a room for 6 hours, and it was worth it for a chance to shower and lie down. Actually, at that point I didn’t much care what it cost, only that it was within the limit on my credit card.

By: Edwin

Edwin — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 22:14:01 +0000

The new airports all across Asia, in all the major centres, have all of these services, run by private concerns, for profit, they are very affordable, and it’s lovely, and they are CLEAN. They also have smoking rooms. I don’t know what N. America’s problem is (I’m an expat and find travel on that side barbaric.) The flights offer full service, even on a 90-minute flight between Seoul and anywhere in Japan—meal and free beverages (alcohol incl.) Travel in Asia is nice, but I hate travel in N. America.

By: antonymous

antonymous — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 16:32:58 +0000

This nonsensical blog entry really made me LOL

Cause all your looking for is a hotel room

BUT you’re really only crying that it’s too expensive

The only way to have this for cheap is Socialism or a japanese love hotel :)

By: Larry Craig

Larry Craig — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 16:05:36 +0000

As long as an airport has clean, “friendly” bathrooms than I am happy.

By: Blue Buddha

Blue Buddha — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 15:41:09 +0000

I’ve been to Los Cabos, MX for vacation a few times, and the first time I went, I had a layover in Houston, which is one of the worst airports I’ve been to. The next year, I went to Dallas, and found it to be much more amicable… now I avoid the Houston airport as much as possible.

Even though the Dallas airport is just one big shopping mall, at least its laid out nicely and has a large selection of food to eat and travel items that are not of luxury grade.

By: Paul Mc Namara’s WorldView » Airports

Paul Mc Namara’s WorldView » Airports — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 11:50:27 +0000

[...] Crooked Timber Here are the things most people would happily pay for at an international transit airport: – [...]

By: abb1

abb1 — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 09:52:38 +0000

…airline security…

Why, I suppose that was the kind of security consumers wanted.

I find it odd, though, that evil socialists prefer Gucci to K-Mart.

By: nick s

nick s — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 23:44:17 +0000

Free them up to market forces and, if people indeed want those things, you’ll see them implemented.

Which, of course, worked so well with airline security in the US. More subtle trolls, please.

By: Praisegod Barebones

Praisegod Barebones — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 19:14:47 +0000

Agree with 54 about airports and children.

Munich has a fairly large ‘lego-pit’in one terminal – with outsize lego – which is pretty good.

Munich also enabled me to find a nice bow-tie at short notice when flying to New York for a wedding.
(my own).

By: ejh

ejh — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 14:16:35 +0000

Mindless rant if ever there was one. Airports are the product of the nationalized/managed economy school of business. Free them up to market forces and, if people indeed want those things, you’ll see them implemented.

Evil? Socialism is evil.

Is the first sentence to be taken as the title of the rest of it?

By: Doug

Doug — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 13:14:50 +0000

80: I got onto a plane one fine Sunday morning in Biloxi and who else should I find on board? Van Halen. Apparently there was only one flight out early (ish) on Sunday. I got an autographed barf bag out of the deal.

63: Dougnuts are neither well known nor properly appreciated. Be sure to observe a limit of two, though, lest you end up with a three Doug night.

By: Jonathan Kulick

Jonathan Kulick — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 12:10:27 +0000

I recently was forced to transit through Heathrow, and the only consolation I could expect was to be able to stock up on Marmite. As it happens, in T4 one can buy every packaged British foodstuff, from Cream Egg to tinned smoked grouse, except for Marmite. Several sales clerks laughed heartily/scornfully/piteously at my inquiries.