Photo courtesy US National Archives, via Flickr Commons
Last year it was a circus. This year: a dance troupe.
San Diego International Airport will introduce its newest performing artists-in-residence today with a dance procession through the airport and a performance at Bag Claim Carousel 3.
Launched in 2016, SAN’s Performing Arts Residency program invites one local performing arts group to hang out in the airport for a year with the goal of developing and performing new work inspired by the airport environment.
Fiesta San Antonio runs from April 20 to 30 and the San Antonio International Airport is kicking off the festival by giving passengers a taste of the festivities taking place in town.
Through April 21, the airport will be hosting mariachi musicians, folklorico dancers, balloonists and caricature artists and handing out a limited number of 2017 San Antonio International Airport Fiesta medals distributed to random travelers as they deplane.
Starting today, the airport brings backs its Thursday afternoon Performing Arts Series, which will feature local musicians and “artists of all genres,” for shows in the Baggage Claim and in other areas of the airport terminal.
The series began in 2016 with a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and last year featured about 35 artists – pianists, harpists, guitarists, duos, trios, and soloists.
The performance schedule for 2017 is posted here, but the 2017 line-up looks like this so far:
While you’re at PIT airport, don’t forget to look for the art , which includes work by Andy Warhol from Pittsburgh’s Andy Warhol Museum, a giant robotic figure (Arch) by Jackie Ferrara, Toby Fraley’s Robot Repair installation, Alexander Calder’s Pittsburgh mobile and more.
Modern-day airports no longer concentrate solely on being gateways to help passengers get from here to there.
That’s still their key role, of course. But today the focus is also on making the airport experience efficient and enjoyable for travelers – and profitable for the airports – through an ever-improving mix of dining and shopping options and an evolving mix of amenities.
“Whether engaging with passengers through an animal therapy program to instill a sense of calm in a busy terminal or providing ample electrical charging stations for mobile devices, airports are committed to not only meeting passengers’ expectations but exceeding them.” said Kevin Burke, president and CEO of Airports Council International – North America.
A recent survey by the airport membership organization identified the top 10 airport amenities in North America, the top amenities airports are adding and several amenities many airports say they will likely be eliminating in the next few years.
According to ACI-NA’s Passenger Amenities Survey, the top 10 most commonly offered airport amenities and services are:
ATM Services
Gift Shops / News Stands
Airport Websites
Electrical Charging Stations
Restaurants and Bars
Lost and Found
Parking / Taxi and Limousine Services
Free Wi-Fi
Pre-Security Pet Relief Facilities
Food and Beverage Vending Machines
No surprises there, but among the amenities on the rise are some designed to make traveling with kids – and pets – a bit easier:
Nursing mothers’ rooms and pods
Post-security pet relief facilities
Children’s play areas
Airfield observation areas
Adult changing and washroom facilities.
In part to make way for these new amenities, airports say that over the next three to five years they’ll be phasing out and, in some cases, eliminating a few other amenities.
So get ready to say goodbye to smoking rooms, payphones and bank branches at airports.
ATMs are plentiful at many airports, but staffed bank branches are already quite rare.
One holdout is Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, where there is a branch of Wings Financial.
“The local bank has a built-in customer base, as they began as a credit union for airline and airport employees,” said airport spokeswoman Melissa Scovronski, “So we don’t expect to eliminate that service.”
Smoking lounges still exist at just a handful of major U.S. airports, including Washington Dulles International Airport and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, but in 2016, Salt Lake City International Airport closed all its smoking rooms and by the end 2018 the last remaining smoking lounge at Denver International Airport will end its contract.
And those once ubiquitous banks of pay phones at airports are being replaced with charging stations or making way for other services.
Seattle-Tacoma International Airport removed the last of its payphones in 2016.
With the rise of cell phones, “Folks simply don’t use pay phones,” said SEA spokesman Brian DeRoy, “And there are hardly any companies now that want to have the financial burden of taking on a pay phone contract for a very limited number of users.”
Austin-Bergstrom International Airport has also ditched all its payphones, but provides a courtesy phone for free local calls next to the information desk on the baggage claim level.
“Our information desk staff can also make calls for passengers when needed, such as when cell phones batteries are dead,” said AUS spokesman Derick Hackett.
The number of payphones is being steadily reduced, but not yet eliminated, at airports in Dallas/Fort Worth, Minneapolis and Chicago, where there are now 503 payphones at O’Hare International (down from 650 five years ago) and 174 payphones at Midway International (down from 180).
“The payphones taken off line were removed because of low usage, requests from the airlines due to construction in their gate areas and repurposing of space for revenue producing ventures,” said Gregg Cunningham of the Chicago Department of Aviation, but some will remain “because they are still a necessary means of communication for some customers.”
At Reno-Tahoe International Airport, free local or toll free calls can be made from any courtesy phone in the airport.
“In 2008, AT&T ended their payphone contract at the airport, at same time they pulled out of shopping malls and other public buildings due to decreases in revenue,” said RNO airport spokeswoman Heidi Jared, “But the airport authority knew an option was needed to fill that void since not all travelers have a cell phone.”
And, totally bucking the no-payphone trend, thanks to a deal dating back to 2012, Denver International Airport still has about 200 payphones in the terminal and on the concourses that provide unlimited free national domestic calls and international calls that are free for the first 10 minutes.
(A slightly different of this story about airport amenities appeared on CNBC)
A branch of the city’s historic Hollywood Theatre movie palace, the new Hollywood Theatre at PDX has a bright, 1920s-inspired neon marquee, seating for 17 (but capacity for 49) and a $200,000 state-of-the-art projection and sound system isolated from the roar of the planes and the shaking of the airport building.
The cinema replaces a rarely used post-security service center. Now, instead of sitting at work tables with power outlets, passengers can use this space to watch an hour-long reel of G-rated short films by Oregon filmmakers that will run around the clock and be refreshed quarterly.
The opening program reel includes the premier of an animated film, a music video, a documentary, mini-shorts about Portland by local film students and more than a half-dozen other features.
More airport cinemas
Portland International isn’t the only airport to offer movies to passengers who have a bit of extra time to spend at the airport.
At the end of 2014, Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport opened its “See 18” Screening Room near gate C18 to show short films, documentaries, music videos and art programming by Minnesota filmmakers and shot predominantly in Minnesota.
Elsewhere, Lithuania’s Vilnius Airport promotes its free ‘cinema hall’ showing work by Lithuanian filmmakers and there’s a Cinema Time screening room showing a wide variety of free films at the Vaclav Havel Prague Airport.
Terminal 3 – Transit – Movie Theatre – Interior
Singapore’s Changi Airport has two 24-hour movies theatres (in Terminals 2 and 3) offering free screenings of full-length movies for passengers, with a line-up that currently includes ‘Star Trek Beyond,’ ‘Keeping Up with the Joneses,’ and ‘Kubo and the Two Strings.’ And there are movie theaters selling tickets to recent films in the public areas of Hong Kong International Airport, South Korea’s Incheon Airport and a few others.
Special screenings
Airports without dedicated film-screening spaces have dabbled with movies events as well.
While the Toronto International Film Festival was underway in 2010, passengers at Toronto Pearson International Airport could watch movie trailers from the festival in a pair of 10×10-foot pop-up screening rooms. Free popcorn was provided each night.
For the past three summers, Germany’s Dusseldorf Airport has hosted an outdoor cinema to show blockbusters on a giant screen set up on a concourse rooftop, with wireless headphones for each moviegoer. The series returns in July with ten screenings.
During 2016, Denver International Airport showed free outdoor movies on the outdoor plaza between the main terminal and the Westin Denver International Airport as part of a “Film on the Fly” series.
No program is set yet for 2017, but the 2016 line-up included “Top Gun”, “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” and “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.”
And, at San Francisco International Airport, in Interim Boarding Area B, a selection from Laurie O’Brien’s Peephole Cinema features silent film shorts inspired by travel and the writings of Danish author Hans Christian Andersen.
Back to the Future
While an airport movie theater may seem like a fresh new amenity, the idea is far from brand new.
From the early 1950s into the mid-1970s, there was a ‘regular’ movie theater – the Skyport Cinema – showing first-run films at Pittsburgh International Airport.
And when the new Dallas/Fort Worth International airport opened in January 1974, “all the major airlines moved their operations there from Love,” said Bruce Bleakley, director of the Frontiers of Flight Museum in Dallas, “That left a big empty terminal with only Southwest flying its 8-10 flights a day.”
In November 1975, a developer turned the terminal lobby into an entertainment center with three movie theaters, skating rinks, and other activities and called it the Llove Entertainment Center, said Bleakley, but the complex was closed by May 1978.
