I’m a big fan of the Yotel chain, having stayed in their affordable, cruise cabin-inspired hotel rooms at London’s Heathrow Airport, at the Paris CDG Airport and in New York City.
Room are on the “cozy” side (“Premium” cabins at CDG start at 97 square feet) but have everything you need : free Wi-Fi, a flat screen TV, a cool retractable bed that turns into a sofa at the touch of a button, private shower and bathroom, work space, lots of power sources and cool lighting.
My most recent Yotel stay was at the brand new Yotel Boston.
Located in the super trendy Boston Seaport neighborhood, the Yotel Boston is on one of the first few stops of the (free!) Silver Line bus that goes into the city from the airport and is right next door to the station.
Rooms look much like other Yotel rooms, but have a few fresh twists. Layouts start at 152 square feet and include an updated bathroom layout with monsoon shower head and some creative storage and roll-out work surfaces.
The public spaces are charming as well.
Guests can have a drink or a meal at the lobby bar or duck into one of the work spaces for a quick meeting. There’s a well-equipped fitness room and an already very popular rooftop bar.
The Yotel chain started out as an in-airport amenity, and now offers short-stay cabins at London’s Heathrow and Gatwick Airports, in Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport and at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport. In addition to the Boston Yotel, there is an in-city Yotel in New York and branches set to open in San Francisco and Singapore.
Airports around the country are joining in the observation of the 12th anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy.
One airport where the event is remembered year-round is at Boston Logan Airport, where a 9/11 memorial – The Place of Remembrance – honors the passengers and crews of American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175, which were the two flights that left Logan Airport the morning of September 11, 2001 for Los Angeles.
The memorial,designed by Boston-based Moskow Linn Architects, sits on 2.5 acres adjacent to the Hilton Boston Logan Airport Hotel and includes a large glass sculpture that has two glass panels etched with the names of the passengers and crew of each flight.
Just in time for the Academy Awards… Boston Logan International Airport has installed a new art exhibit with 30 movie posters celebrating many of the major Hollywood studio films shot in Massachusetts over the last 45 years.
The exhibit is hung chronologically by year, starting with a poster from “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” which was shot in Northampton and released in 1966. The posters continue through to “The Town,” which was shot in Boston, Cambridge, Melrose and Somerville and released in 2010.
Plaques next to each poster contain the year of the film’s release and many of the Massachusetts locations used in the film.
When additional films are shot in the state, they will be added to the exhibit.
Look for the Massachusetts movie posters in the walkway between Terminal C and Terminal B.
Traveling on a fuel-gobbling airplane on Earth Day?
Don’t worry – you can still be green on the ground at many airports.
Boston Logan International Airport is reminding travelers that is has added GobiCab, a fuel-saving, taxi cab ride-sharing app (for iPhones) to the eco-friendly transportation options listed on its website.
If you tweet to @flySFO between 8 a.m. PDT and 8 p.m. PDT with ideas on how to reduce your environmental foot print when traveling, you may win one of the recycled SFO banner luggage tags they’re giving away.
And Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport kicks off its First Annual Garden Show on Friday, with displays from four area organizations: Openlands, Trees That Feed Foundation, The Conservation Foundation and the Chicago Botanic Garden. Look for the green beyond the security checkpoints in Terminal 3, between concourses H/K and L through May 13.
(Flower photos courtesy Robin Carlson, Chicago Botanic Garden)
An artist, a baker and a bagpiper walk into an airport.
Is that the first line of a bad joke?
It could be. But it’s also a sampling of the hidden talents pursued by people who work at some of the nation’s airports. In some cases, only their colleagues reap the benefits, but from impromptu concerts to employee art shows, fliers across the country may encounter some fun and diversion in the midst of a stressful travel day.
Here’s the story I wrote about these talented airport workers for my At the Airport column in USATODAY.com.
When he’s not training for swim meets, Daniel Meek (above), the TSA administrative officer at Milwaukee’s General Mitchell Airport, plays the bagpipes (yes, in a traditional Scottish kilt) at events ranging from funerals to local, regional and national law enforcement ceremonies. “A group of TSOs [Transportation Security Officers] are going to ride motorcycles to the 9/11 ten-year anniversary ceremonies in Washington DC, and I’m going to join them with my bagpipes,” said Meek.
Special events at Los Angeles International Airport now often include a few tunes by a chorus of surprisingly sweet-voiced TSA employees. “Our goal is to put the human face of the TSA in the public. Not just the ‘Take off your shoes’ image,” LAX Terminal Screening Manager Raul Matute told me back in December as the group readied for holiday performances in several terminals.
LAX TSA CHOIR
At Denver International Airport, the contract manager can sing opera, the CFO plays trumpet, a member of the custodial staff leads an in-demand mariachi band and one of the customer service volunteers is a magician. “Maybe we should start a band or hold a variety show in the terminals each Friday,” said airport spokesperson Jenny Schiavone.
No joking around. Well, sometimes.
Don Steinmetz is a veteran Phoenix police sergeant assigned to Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, where he supervises explosive-detection dogs and their police partners. “At the airport, our job is to deter, detect and keep people safe,” says Steinmetz. Outside the airport, Steinmetz performs on the stand-up comedy circuit, where his job is to make people laugh. “At the airport there are thousands of people and so many diverse situations. So there are plenty of hilarious things I can talk about from a police officer’s point of view.”
Kelly McCarron, a JetBlue employee at San Francisco International Airport, also moonlights as a stand-up comic. She interacts with the public at ticket-counters and gates all day but, unlike Steinmetz, doesn’t put many work stories into her act. “People in the audience have usually been on the other side of the airport interaction and I’m usually in the role of the bad guy. So it’s hard to get them on my side.”
On the serious side, Debbie Ramirez, spends her days marketing and promoting Phoenix Sky Harbor. But in her spare time, she and her horses are on-call for the posse that helps with search and rescue efforts for the Maricopa County sheriff’s office. “People go out hiking in the mountains and get lost or in trouble,” says Ramirez. “We’ve rescued a lot of people, but sometimes we can only help families find closure.”
Aerobatics and other art
When he’s not on the job, Mark Leutwiler, the Security Operations Manager at Portland International Airport (PDX) can be found up in the air practicing aerobatic art. “When I was young I went flying with someone and we went upside down. That’s when I realized that’s what I want to do. Now I fly loops and rolls and spins as much as possible.”
One of Leutwiler’s co-workers, Pauline Nelson, oversees security access for much of the terminal building and de-stresses by cooking, baking and building decorated cakes. She’s taken first prize at the Oregon State Fair numerous times, but it may be her co-workers who reap the rewards. “Basically, there aren’t enough people in my household to eat all the things I cook,” said Nelson, “So I bring things to work all the time.”
Reno-Tahoe International Airport hosts an annual Employee Art Show and this year the exhibit featured about 100 paintings, works on paper, photos, sculptures, crafts and mixed media entries by 59 airport employees and their family members. Similar art shows, supported by the National Arts Program are held regularly at airports in Orlando, Minneapolis-St. Paul and Dallas-Fort Worth.
And while Boston Logan International Airport has an official photographer, airport spokesman Richard Walsh calls landside operations manager Rudy Chiarello “the airport’s official, unofficial photographer.” Chiarello has been a Massport employee for 35 years and has amassed thousands of photos, many of them of airplanes taken from out on the airfield. “I was one of those people who thought my pictures sucked,” said Chiarello, “But after 9/11, I wanted to promote aviation so I started uploading my pictures to airliners.net and got great responses. I never knew people would be so crazy about airline pictures.”
Then there’s Art Cozart, who has worked as a baggage handler for US Airways at Charlotte Douglas International Airport for the past 29 years. “About ten years ago I had coffee in the break room and drew a picture on the Styrofoam cup with a pen,” said Cozart, whose art training consists of a ‘filler’ class he took during his senior year of high school. Cozart kept doodling and now estimates he’s covered about 1000 Styrofoam cups with his artwork.
In October 2010, a selection of Cozart’s cups were displayed during the grand opening of Charlotte’s Mint Museum UPTOWN and now there’s a website featuring his creations. Mostly, though, Cozart says he just draws cups for friends and family and gives them away. “I’ve done animals, boats, airports, landscapes and people, including Marilyn Monroe, The Munsters, Dale Earnhardt, and Laurel and Hardy.” As for his choice of medium? Cozart explains, “I can draw on paper if I have to, but this helps keep cups out of the landfill.”
