Los Angeles Internatoinal Airport

Celebrating the history of airports

History, , , ,

The history department here at StuckatTheAirport.com is a big fan of anything having to do with the history of airports.

Airport libraries? We’ve read up that.

Moving walkways at airports? We’ve researched that too.

And we’re always glad to learn more about airport history over on the AirportHistory.org site.

The team there recently posted their top five illustrated airport history stories from 2021, starting with #5: a photo feature celebrating Vancouver International Airport on its 90th anniversary. You can see that feature here.

#4 on their list is a great story about the history of Montréal–Mirabel Airport. #3 is a story about Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) in the 1960s (see that story here).

And #2 on their list is a roundup of the world’s 10 busiest airports at the dawn of the Jet Age in 1961. See that story here.

And we are not surprised to see that their #1 story for 2021 is a piece featuring some great photos celebrating the 40th anniversary of Singapore’s Changi Airport, one of our favorites. See that story here.

Walking & touring LAX Airport

Lounges, , ,

05_A walnut wall offers privacy, but lets light in, at the Delta ONE lounge at LAX.

I had the pleasure of being on site Wednesday when Delta Air Lines celebrated the completion of its $229 million refurbishment of Terminal 5 at Los Angeles International Airport with the opening of its first private check-in lounge, Delta ONE at LAX.

The lounge area of Delta One at LAX. - courtesy Delta

The lounge area of Delta One at LAX. – courtesy Delta

Look for more of these lounges to open in New York in early to mid-2016 and, after that, in Atlanta, Salt Lake City, Seattle, Minneapolis and international airports after that.

While at LAX, I also took the opportunity to test out my new distance wheel, which I’m using to figure out the longest distance a passenger might need to – or be able to – walk when making a connection at various airports.

Kudos to Nancy Castles, the public relations director at LAX, who was kind enough to lead me through the airport for this project. We figured out that it is a 1.2 mile trek from the southern-most gate at the Tom Bradley International Terminal (TBIT) to United Airline’s Gate 88 in Terminal 8.

With Nancy Castles at LAX