Sack out at the airport

A few years back, I booked an itinerary that involved a 14-hour flight from my home airport to a hub in Asia, leaving mid-afternoon and arriving at about 9 p.m. local time, with an overnight wait of 10 hours before my ongoing morning connection. After being awake for almost 24 hours, I wanted nothing more than a comfortable bed, but where? I decided to book the hotel closest to the airport, but with baggage, waiting for the shuttles, and re-entering security, I was lucky to get about five hours of sack time. Although better than slumping all night in a seat in the terminal -- an alternative approach many of my plane-mates took -- it was far from ideal. My final take: "There's gotta be a better way."

Turns out, there is a better way: A few big airports around the world are adding short-term and overnight private mini-rooms with stretch-out beds airside of security. You can rent by the hour for quick naps or overnight for longer stretches:

-- Minute Suites (www.minutesuites.com) operates installations at Atlanta and Philadelphia airports, presumably with plans for additional locations. Each suite includes a "daybed sofa," bedding, TV, desk and chair, and airport Wi-Fi or direct computer connection. The main difference between one of these suites and a conventional mini-hotel room is that the suite provides no plumbing -- you have to use the airport's facilities. Minute Suites are expensive: $30 for the first hour, then $7.50 for each additional 15 minutes, with 15 percent discounts for stays of four hours or more and 25 percent off stays of eight hours or more. That adds up to around $200 for an overnight, which is more than you might pay for a full-featured hotel room outside the airport, but you can't beat the location for a quick stop. You can book online thorough the website.

-- Yotel (www.yotel.com) operates more full-featured "cabins" at Amsterdam Schiphol airport. Even the smallest include sink and shower, as well as the expected bed, desk, TV, and computer hookups. The cost is actually lower than the cost of Minute Suites, starting at 40 euros (about $52) for a four-hour minimum. Yotel also operates at Heathrow and Gatwick, but outside security -- a lot less useful.

-- Napcabs (www.napcabs.net) operates really small cubicles at Munich airport, including just bed and counter but no plumbing, with rates of 15 euros per hour during the day and 10 euros per hour overnight. And Sam's Snooze provides similar accommodations at the Delhi airport for $10 an hour (see details through www.newdelhiairport.in).

If you just feel gritty after a long trip and don't need a lie-down bed, some big airlines operate premium facilities airside at their most important hubs that include shower facilities, clothes pressing, and other welcome services. Unfortunately, as far as I know, they're limited to business and first-class passengers. Many years back, I tried United Airlines' facility at Heathrow (after using a frequent flyer upgrade) and found it the best way I know to start recovering from an overnight flight. Unfortunately, those facilities aren't available to the folks in economy class who really need them the most.

If you're willing to exit an airport's security areas, you have lots more options. Quite a few big airports have onsite hotels that are connected directly to a terminal by either a walkway or the airport's internal people-mover system. Many of these hotels rent rooms by the hour during the day for naps, showers, or just relaxation. And some airport-area hotels that aren't directly connected do the same. But having to leave and re-enter security can be a real deal-breaker, and I know of no inside-security facilities other than the ones described.

Airside sleeping accommodations -- even if minimal -- can be a real benefit when you have a really early flight and want to be at the airport the night before, when you arrive really late and prefer to crash quickly, and especially if you have an extended connecting time. I'm surprised that such accommodations haven't caught on more quickly. Maybe you'll see more in the next few years -- let's hope.

(Send e-mail to Ed Perkins at eperkins(at)mind.net. Perkins' new book for small business and independent professionals, "Business Travel When It's Your Money," is now available through www.mybusinesstravel.com or www.amazon.com)

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9-foot statue of Reagan to be unveiled at airport; travelers warned of delays during ceremony

By Associated Press

8:03 a.m. CDT, November 1, 2011

ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) — A 9-foot-tall statue honoring Ronald Reagan will be unveiled at the airport that now bears his name.

The airport just outside the nation's capital has borne Reagan's name since 1998, following the passage of Congressional legislation that was opposed by some who were not enamored of Reagan's legacy.

Airport officials are warning travelers that Tuesday's unveiling ceremony could cause traffic delays outside the airport. Between 11 a.m. and noon, car traffic heading for the airport's departures and arrivals ramps will be reduced from four lanes to one and will then be detoured around the event site.

The airport suggests using Metro or the airport's parking garages rather than driving up to the terminals between 11 a.m. and noon.

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Man has been living at Vancouver Airport since Aug. 17

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — It's like the movie "The Terminal," only it's real. A man has been living in the Vancouver airport since Aug. 17 — at the airport's invitation.

"I can't leave. I'm stuck here," Jaeger Mah explained to an airport volunteer who invited him to a party outside the airport Nov. 3.

Since the party happens to fall on the last of Mah's 80 days at the airport, he added, "Perhaps I could come after midnight."

Mah, 29, embarked on his unusual sojourn as the winner of a contest sponsored by the airport to mark its 80th year. The airport invited anyone willing to living there to submit a video application, and five of the 160 entries were posted online for a public vote. Mah, an entrepreneur with a video company and a background in entertainment marketing, dubbed himself "the Anderson Cooper of YVR" and won with 4,128 votes out of thousands cast.

The gig doesn't involve anything close to the discomfort suffered by passengers who've tried to nap in airport seating during a layover. Mah spends his nights at the airport hotel — though he admits to occasional naps in secret terminal spots — and he's got no complaints about the food, either. He's figured out which VIP lounges will feed him and which have the best snacks.

"I'm not sleeping on the benches," Mah says, "but I'm meeting some incredible people."

As he strolls through the terminals in a Hawaiian shirt, shorts and worn hiking boots, it's clear he's become a fixture. Employees wave or shout hello. One stops him at the bottom of the escalators by the domestic baggage carousels and asks why he didn't show up for samosa snacks one day.

"I forgot," he says sheepishly with a boyish grin. All is forgiven.

Airport spokeswoman Rebecca Catley says the goal of the project is to show people what happens behind the check-in counters and security screenings at a big airport.

"A lot of people don't realize what goes on at an airport," she says. "We get a lot of requests for behind-the-scenes tours. We can't do that from a security perspective."

That's where Mah comes in. Armed with a digital video camera, he documents the airport's stories and posts them online. "My process consists of Facebook, tweets and blogs," he said. "You're constantly engaging with your fans. You have to give them what they want to see. I'm pimping myself out big time."

For his 14-hour days as contest winner and late nights spent editing video, he is being paid a per diem rate and a $15,000 fee.

"I want to devote my life to telling stories," he says. "You could call it some kind of journalism."

Mah's adventure brings to mind the 2004 film "The Terminal" where Tom Hanks' character found himself stranded at New York's JFK airport, denied entry to the U.S. but unable to return to his revolution-bound country. The film may have been inspired by the real-life drama of Mehran Karimi Nasseri, an Iranian expat who could not gain entry to other countries and spent years at France's Charles de Gaulle International Airport.

Unlike either Hanks' character or Nasseri, Mah's stay has a definite end date. Still, he says, there were nay-sayers.

"People said 'Don't do it,'" he chuckles. "My dad said, 'If you want to do it, do it.'"

When The Associated Press caught up with Mah on Day 64, he was touring the airport's wildlife control operations. Standing at the edge of a runway with planes taking off, wildlife officer Nick de Jongh taught Mah about the various guns and noisemakers used to scare birds away from planes.

Hoisting a pump-action shotgun to his shoulder, Mah fired off a round. And grinned.

As the wildlife truck rolled past landing jets, Mah got a tweet from a follower who saw pictures of him in the old airport sheriff's cells he described as like being at Alcatraz.

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O'Hare has a new garden right in Terminal 3; aeroponic produce to supply airport restaurants

By Associated Press

12:26 p.m. CDT, September 22, 2011

CHICAGO (AP) — Dining at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport couldn't get any greener.

That's because vegetables and herbs used at some airport restaurants will be grown in a garden in Terminal 3.

The city Department of Aviation says it's the world's first airport aeroponic garden. That is a method that uses air or mist to grow plants instead of dirt.

The new garden is a joint project with the travel dining group HMSHost. Produce including lettuce, peppers, green beans and herbs will go to that group's restaurants at O'Hare, including Tuscany, Blackhawks Restaurant and Wicker Park Seafood & Sushi.

The garden will provide year-round cultivation, and will feature an exhibit promoting the benefits of aeroponics.

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TSA will stop making kids take off shoes for airport security

By Michael Muskal, Los Anegeles Times

2:28 p.m. CDT, September 14, 2011

The Transportation Security Administration has decided that children 12 and younger are less of a terrorism risk -- at least as far as airports are concerned.

The agency, charged with anti-terrorism security at the nation's airports, will no longer require children to remove their shoes before they go through airport scanners, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told Congress on Tuesday. The policy change will also curtail pat-downs of children.

"We do want to move, and are moving, to a more risk-based approach to screening passengers," Napolitano told Congress. TSA wants to "try to streamline procedures for those passengers who are low-risk, which enhances our ability to focus on passengers who either we don't know or who are high-risk," she said.

Napolitano spoke during a hearing at the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. The new policy is expected to be implemented soon.

TSA, part of the Homeland Security Department, already has used a modified pat-down for children 12 and younger as part of a pilot program to speed up security searches. Still, the agency is not abandoning all such searches or the requirement to remove shoes at times.

"There is a need to keep security precautions unpredictable," Napolitano said. "There will always be some unpredictability built into the system, and there will always be random checks even for groups that we are looking at differently, such as children," she said.

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TSA chief, the man behind the airport pat-down, an optimist about everything but terror

WASHINGTON (AP) — Each day, dozens of U.S. intelligence officials crowd around a conference table in a small, windowless room in a government building across the street from a shopping mall in northern Virginia. At the head of the table sits the man who perhaps more than anyone else affects Americans most tangibly in the sprawling fight against terrorism since the 2001 attacks.

John Pistole, who for decades breezed past airport security checkpoints as an FBI agent — is the faceless bane of every air traveler who must remove his belt, endures an intimate pat-down or is instructed to throw away a 6-ounce bottle of shampoo.

Pistole, 53, has among the least-desirable roles in Washington as head of Transportation Security Administration, the government agency that more than others traces its lineage to the terrorist hijackings that killed nearly 3,000 people.

Based on top secret intelligence he sees daily, Pistole, a 26-year FBI veteran, sets the rules for protecting the nation's 457 airports and America's planes, trains, buses and ferries.

Pistole's story is the story of a changed nation, one that has worked feverishly to track down terrorists, fix intelligence problems and try to keep from trampling on privacy while enhancing security.

It was Pistole who, just weeks on the job, called for airport screeners to start using a new security pat-down — one that involved feeling around travelers' genital areas and breasts. It was an unpopular measure, but one Pistole believes offers the best chance of preventing a suicide bomber.

Just Friday, U.S. counterterrorism officials were investigating intelligence about an al-Qaida threat to New York or Washington, possibly involving a car bomb to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

"I'm an optimist in life in all ways other than when it comes to terrorism," Pistole said. "And I think every day that goes by, we're a day closer to the next attack."

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On Sept. 11, 2001, Pistole was working in the FBI's inspections division, conducting a routine interview with a New York judge. He turned on the television and saw the second plane hit the World Trade Center.

"Well, this changes everything," he remembers thinking.

Pistole, who grew up in the small town of Anderson, Ind., comes from a family of educators. He practiced law before he joined the FBI in 1983. At the time, the bureau had a storied history of putting bank robbers and mobsters in prison. After 9/11, Pistole was tapped to help transform the bureau into one that prevented terrorism.

"We were building the plane while it was flying," said Raymond Holcomb, a former FBI agent and author of the book "Endless Enemies: Inside FBI Counterterrorism."

"John was there at a most critical watershed moment," Holcomb said.

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Around the same time, the new Transportation Security Administration was struggling to get off the ground. It had to hire thousands of screeners, coordinate with airlines and buy screening technology.

"None of us really knew how to set up lines at airports," said Norman Mineta, the transportation secretary at the time, who was charged with creating this new agency from scratch.

Mineta turned to The Walt Disney Co., an organization familiar with snaking lines and anxious guests.

The past 10 years have been a bumpy road for the TSA and travelers.

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Paris airport brings Star Trek holodeck to terminal with virtual boarding agents

ORLY, France (AP) — An airport in France is experimenting with "virtual" boarding agents in a bid to jazz up its terminals with 21st century avatars who always smile, don't need breaks and never go on strike.

The pilot project at Paris' Orly airport began last month, and has so far been met with a mix of amusement and surprise by travelers, who frequently try to touch and speak with the strikingly life-like video images that greet them and direct them to their boarding gate.

The images materialize seemingly out of thin air when a boarding agent — a real live human — presses a button to signal the start of boarding.

They are actually being rear-projected onto a human shaped silhouette made of plexiglass. Three actual airport boarding agents were filmed in a studio to create the illusion, which the airport hopes will be more eye-catching and easier for passengers to understand than traditional electronic display terminals.

"Bonjour! I invite you to go to your boarding gate. Paris Airports wishes you a bon voyage," the image appears to say, while the name of the destination flashes in front of him.

Airport authority AdP came up with the idea for what it calls "2-D holograms" earlier this year, when it was brainstorming ways to modernize Hall 40, one of the dozens of boarding gates at Paris' second airport, south of the capital.

"Children like it, it's fun. They're attracted to it and try to play with it," said Didier Leroy, the airport's director of operations. "There's finally very few who find it useless or just a gizmo."

The technology behind the images was developed by a Paris audiovisual marketing agency, L'Oeil du Chat. Similar virtual agents are in place in airports in London and Manchester since earlier this year.

Hall 40 serves about 30 or 40 flights a day, Leroy said. Around 1 million passengers a year pass through it, mainly on their way to destinations in the south of France and Corsica. The airport decided to make it a "laboratory" for testing new ways of organizing its boarding gates. It received an overhaul this spring that created 40 percent more space and 20 percent more seats so that it can now hold up to 400 waiting passengers.

As passengers boarded a flight to Bastia in Corsica, one small boy of about five years old approached the hologram, this one showing a middle-aged man in a striped shirt and neatly trimmed beard. "Hello!" the boy greeted it. The pre-recorded image smiled, blinked, folded his hands, glanced to the left but said nothing.

Leroy said the airport's experiment with virtual reality will be evaluated by the end of the year, after which it could be expanded to other boarding halls at Orly or to Paris' larger Charles de Gaulle airport.

Not all passengers were as taken with the virtual hosts as the boy.

"It spooks me the way his eyes seem to follow you," said Cedric Olivier, 32, an Air France pilot waiting for his flight. Other passengers hurried past with barely a glance at the hologram, more concerned about boarding the plane and finding space for their carry-ons.

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Greg Keller can be reached at http://twitter.com/Greg_Keller

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