Airport Terminals

Long Beach Airport (LGB) gets the love too

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Yesterday, we told you about all the love Portland International Airport (PDX) has been getting. And in listing some of its charms, we neglected to mention the cool, recent rap video about the new main terminal roof.

Today, let’s give some to Long Beach Airport (LGB), which came in 2nd, behind PDX, on the list of the 50 Best Airports in America put together by The Washington Post.

The 2nd place award ranking notes LGB’s ease of navigation and its outdoor courtyard, which are just two of the many features the airport, which has trademarked itself as ‘america’s coolest airport’, is proud of.

LGB also boasts a newly renovated 1941 historic terminal, a $17.8 million project which was recently recognized at the 37th Annual Long Beach Heritage Preservation Awards.

The renovation included the restoration of Works Progress Administration (WPA)-era mosaics by Grace Clements that were (re)discovered when the maintenance team took up the carpet.

Made in 1941, the mosaics pay tribute to Long Beach’s origins in aviation, oil and communications with images of a large map, birds, a ship, an oil well and a hand dialing a telephone.

BWI Airport turns 75. Let’s look at baby pictures.

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Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI) will turn 75 years old on June 24th and is planning celebrations throughout the airport on that date.

The airport was originally named Friendship International Airport, as a nod to the local Friendship Methodist Church and surrounding community, but officially changed its name to Baltimore/Washington International Airport in 1973. The airport added “Thurgood Marshall” to its name in 2005 to honor the Baltimore native and the first African American Supreme Court Justice.

To get in the groove for a year of 75th-anniversary celebrations, this month the airport and local organizations are hosting live music performances on the upper level of the airport, near the B security checkpoint. If you’re headed to BWI this month, check the concert lineup before you go.

BWI is also sharing images from its photo archives. Here are a few of the airport’s baby pictures, including a snap of the outdoor observation deck and a game room with pinball machines – two amenities we’d love to see come back.


And look at this: Dulles International Airport wasn’t the only airport to have mobile lounges. In Baltimore, though, they were called “Planemates.”

And we can’t resist one more. This is a snap of the airport interior from the early 1990s, complete with built-in ashtrays in what looks to be hot pink and bright red couches.

All images courtesy BWI Airport

Visit Salt Lake City Int’l Airport without a plane ticket

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Thanks so $5.1 billion worth of renovations, “The New SLC,” as Salt Lake City Internatonal Airport bills itself, is a pretty impressive place.

In addition to new large-scale public art installations, the return of a massive terrazzo World Map, a dinosaur and a cool and convenient underground tunnel connecting Concourses A and B, the airport has many new shops, restaurants and other amenities.

To show it all off, SLC airport is hosting a public open house from 5 pm to 9 pm on June 28, 2025 and allowing 200 visitors to visit the terminal without an airline ticket.

Registration opens June 13 at 8 a.m. MDT and closes June 23. Tickets are limited to four per registrant.

(Image at top: artwork by Gordon Huether, courtesy Salt Lake City International Airport)

Amelia Earhart + pizza-inspired art + a snazzy new checkpoint

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Summer reading: The Aviator and the Showman

If you have a subscription to The New Yorker or can somehow click your way through to access it, be sure to read this revealing and heartstopping story titled: Amelia Earhart’s Reckless Final Flights, by Lauri Gwen Shapiro.

It’s taken from Shapiro’s soon-to-be-published book The Aviator and the Showman: Amelia Earhart, George Putnam, and the Marriage that Made an American Icon, which we just pre-ordered.

(Image above courtesy Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum)

Fresh art at Connecticut’s Tweed New Haven Airport

Connecticut, long known as ‘The Nutmeg State,’ also boasts about being home to the nation’s ‘best pizza.’

There’s a 20-stop Pizza Trail for pizza fans to test out the claim. And a sassy billboard campaign underway now in New York city cheekily trolling the Big Apple’s claim to having the best pizza.

Now there’s a pizza-inspired artwork at Tweed New Haven Airport (HVN).

Titled, The Pizza State,” the nine-foot by six-foot art piece is made of Connecticut highway signs (which we’re sure were secured legally) and celebrates New Haven-style pizza. The artist is Michael Pollack of the creative entity known as the New Haven Pizza Club (NHVPC).

SEA’s Checkpoint 1 welcomes travelers

During really busy travel times, the security checkpoint lines at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA) seem to snake on for miles.

But this Friday’s opening of the new Checkpoint 1 should address some of that congestion by adding five additonal general screening lanes.

Look for SEA’s new Checkpoint 1 on the bag claim level of the airport (that’s unusual!) at the far south end of the terminal.  

In addition to a new batch of art being installed along the checkpoint, we spotted some of TSA’s newest body scanning equipment ready to go into operation.

These machines, which we tested out at Portland International Airport’s (PDX) new terminal last year, are more accessible, with wider portals and no neeed for passengers to raise their arms.

This rap video is a love song to the PDX wooden roof

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We already know the ZGF-designed expansion of the main terminal at Portland International Airport (PDX) made a very cool airport even cooler.

Now the amenities and features in the new terminal space, most notably the 9-acre mass timber roof, have inspired a fun rap video.

“‘PDX (Wooden Roof),” described in a press release as “the first and only rap video about the Portland International Airport’s mass timber roof,” debuted in April at a state travel conference held in Portland and is an original collaboration between DJ Avelanche, The Mayoress, Mike Likes Science, and Karma Rivera.

The video is joyous and fun. It shows off so many of the great new PDX Airport features, including the beloved PDX Carpet. And it is, hands down, the best love song to an airport and an airport roof ever.

Stuck at the Airport declares this The Airport Amenity of the Week.