Travel Minute — Why Can’t Airport Boarding Areas All Be Like This?

Is there anything more boring than sitting around—or often, standing around—and airport boarding gate?  A stiff chair is about the only amenity around.  But it doesn’t have to be like that.

Ever been to the JetBlue terminal at JFK?  Or the new Delta terminal at New York’s LaGuardia airport?  There you’ll find free iPads and bar-height tables where you can work and use the iPad to order a beet-and-orange salad or a martini.  There are plenty of power ports for recharging your smart phone or laptop. 

The company behind the iPad thing is a concession company called OTG, and it has plans to put 2,500 iPads in Delta’s Concourse G at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport and another 2,500 at the Toronto airport.  The idea is to make a traveler so comfortable he or she feels like spending some money on food and drink.  Most current waiting areas only make you feel as if you’d like your flight to leave early.

These work stations also allow more room between you and your fellow passengers.  You have horizontal space to spread out—something sorely lacking in 99% of the world’s waiting areas.

I do hope this is a trend.