Jacksonsville International Airport

Celebrate Valentine’s Day at the Airport

Love really is in the air at many airports this Valentine’s Day.

We’ve been gathering news of the events and Valentine’s Day offerings at airports, including the pop-up marriage license bureau at Harry Reid International Airport (LAS) in Las Vegas and the carnations and hand-cut felt hearts Philadephia International Airport (PHL) is handing out.

Here are some more events to look for at US airports:

Free Love Poems at Long Beach Airport

Courtesy LGB Airport

On Valentine’s Day, travelers at California’s Long Beach Airport (LGB) will be able to get free custom-crafted love poems while they wait.

Current West Hollywood City Poet Laureate, Brian Sonia-Wallace will be in the airport between 5 pm and 7 pm with an antique Remington typewriter. He’ll commemorate individual travelers’ love stories with poems created and typed out on the spot.

A second typewriter will be available if passengers want to type their own poems or messages.

Free Flowers at Jacksonville International Airport

As they have since 2009, with a pandemic pause, Airport Ambassadors at Florida’s Jacksonville International Airport (JAX) will be handing out more than 1,000 red, white, and pink carnations to travelers and airport visitors on Valentine’s Day.

More Valentine’s Day Offers at Airports

Between 10 am and 12 pm on Valentine’s Day, Orlando International Airport (MCO) will be hosting a special Paw-Pup snuggle booth staffed by several of the therapy pups from the MCO Paw Pilots program. Look for the booth by the airport’s atrium fountain.

Be among the first to show up you may be one of the lucky dogs who wins a pair of Paw Pilots socks modeled by the pup in the photo.

Need some Valentines? San Jose Mineta International Airport (SJC) and John Glen Columbus International Airport (CMH) have you covered. And Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) is offering a Valentine discount code (good through 2/19/23) for 25% off mobile orders at LAXOrderNow.com.

Airport Lobster and other great amenities

Airports are still spending lots of time and energy reminding passengers to wear their masks, wash their hands, and observe social distancing protocols.

But we are pleased to see that airports are also getting back to the business of promoting (OK, showing off) some great, unusual, and much-appreciated amenities.

Here a few that popped up on Twitter just today:

*Free goodies, including historic postcards from Jacksonville International Airport (JAX):

*The return of lobster for sale at Canada’s Halifax Stanfield International Airport (YHZ);

*A two-fer from Sacramento International Airport (SMF) – a reminder of their “Flying Carpet” offering a birds-eye view of the area and their convenient CVS vending machine:

*And the news from Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) that the Flight Path Museum will be reopening August 7.

Know of a great airport amenity we could be celebrating? Drop a note in the comments section and we’ll check it out.

Flowers for moms at Jacksonville International Airport

Mother’s Day is Sunday May 8th and volunteers at Jacksonville International Airport will once again be on duty handing out about 1000 red, white and pink carnations to moms passing through the terminal.

This flower thing has become a tradition at JAX airport.  Back in 2009, volunteers handed out carnations on Valentine’s Day and again on Mother’s Day and the response was so positive that they decided to keep going.

(From the George Eastman House collection, via Flickr Commons)

Jacksonville International Airport offers travelers some other nice perks year-round. There’s an art gallery that hosts a variety of temporary exhibitions and permanent art that includes the work of Gregor Tuck, who cataloged the wide variety of gendered pictograms and glazed them onto the tiles surrounding the restroom entryways on Concourse C.

And if your mother was here, you’d know what she’d say… “Go before you get on the plane…”

Airports offer fresh art for travelers

If you enjoy spending your leisure time visiting art galleries, but instead end up wasting time in airports, you’re in luck. This season, many airports around the country are hosting intriguing temporary exhibitions and unveiling new permanent public artwork that can turn a long layover into a cultural adventure. Or at least keep you from getting bored.

Here are a few highlights of fresh airport art from my current “At the Airport” column on USATODAY.com.

Included in the story is the  “Environmental Steward-ess” outfit Nancy Judd of Recycle Runway made out of old leather seat covers from Delta Air Lines.

 

There’s also a new exhibit at New York’s Albany International Airport. In Keeping Time, seven artists explore nostalgia with “an eye for its intimate, humorous and often bittersweet nature,” says Sharon Bates, director of the airport’s art and culture program. Included in the show are paintings, several large site-specific installations and collages made from old paint-by-number paintings.

It's in the Book - by Ken Ragsdale

 

And, at Florida’s Jacksonsville International Airport, there’s a fun exhibition titled Kites and Flights with work by Melanie Walker and George Peters.

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Fresh art at Jacksonville International Airport

There’s a new aerial sculpture at Jacksonville International Airport (JAX).

Sky Bridges, by artists Melanie Walker and George Peters of Airworks Studio, hangs from the ceiling of JAX’s newly renovated connector bridge.

Kites and Flights, also by Walker and Peters, is on display in the airport’s Haskell Art Gallery through June 2011.

The exhibit uses kites to depict a variety of flying objects including birds, insects, leaves in the wind, clouds, airplanes, balloons and rockets.