Each booth has a desk and seating, Wi-Fi, USB charging, flight-tracking tools and terminal maps.
There’s also a built-in photobooth app – for entertainment, we assume.
You may see these Jabbrrbox booths elsewhere. Booths are also installed at Laguardia Airport’s Terminal B, in JFK Terminal 4, in Terminal B at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport (CVG) in Concourse B and in Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT) in Concourses B and C.
The private work (or napping) spaces rent in 30-minute increments. Cost is $15 per 30 minutes. A Wi-Fi password and a door code are provided at the time of reservation.
My column for CNBC this week is a round-up of options for finding a place outside airport lounges to sleep, have a quiet conversation or just have a little quiet time to yourself.
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Business travelers once looked to airline club rooms as calm
oases offering quiet areas to relax, work, conduct important phone calls or,
perhaps, catch a nap.
But now it’s not unusual for airline-operated and
independent lounges to be as crowded and noisy as the congested airport
terminals and gate hold areas many frequent travelers are willing to pay a fee to
avoid.
Alternatives exist. Sort of.
Outside the United States, travelers seeking alone time
might check into one of the Napcabs equipped with beds,
worktables, touch screens, WiFi and baggage storage inside Germany’s Munich or
Berlin-Tegel Airports.
Elsewhere, Yotel offers cozy, cabin-like hotel
rooms equipped with futon-like beds, WIFI, flat screen TVS and bathrooms inside
airport terminals in Amsterdam, London (Heathrow and Gatwick), Paris CDG and,
soon, Istanbul and Singapore.
In the United States, travelers seeking sleep, a place to
work or a quiet place to have a phone conversation have an increasing range of
options.
Downtime at Dulles?
Boston-based Sleepbox plans to cut the ribbon on a post-security
micro-hotel on Concourse A at Dulles International Airport next week.
The 16 stand-alone modules have no bathrooms, but are soundproof
spaces with mood lighting, WIFI, Bluetooth capability, fold-down work tables, space
for storing luggage and beds with memory foam mattresses. Bookings are made via
the same smart phone app that allows guests to unlock their room and control
features such as the temperature and mood lighting in their unit
Pricing: Average hourly rate for compact rooms (about 30 square feet) is $25 per hour. Standard rooms (45 square feet): $35 per hour. After the first hour, additional 15-minute increments are $5 for the compact room, $7.50 for the standard-room. Rates top out at $120 for a 12-hour stay in a compact room and $140 for 12-hours in a standard room.
Room to relax
Minute Suites is a short-stay hotel chain with six post-security
locations in four airports: two
in Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport (Concourses B&T); two
in Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport (Terminals A&D), one in the
Charlotte Douglas International Airport atrium and one in the A/B Connector at
Philadelphia International Airport.
The basic
56-square-foot suites have sofa daybeds with a
pull-out trundle beds, sound-masking systems, HDTVs (with DirectTV and Netflix)
that can also be used as computers, WIFI, and desks. A few suites in the DFW
location are larger.
The company is adding four additional locations in ATL airport,
a second location in Charlotte and has just announced Baltimore/Washington
International Airport (BWI) as its next city. Plans to open branches in four additional
airports are being finalized now.
An uptick in the number of millennial travelers is helping drive
Minute Suites’ expansion.
A recent Hipmunk
travel survey found that more than half of all millennials (54.4 percent)
would like airports to offer nap
rooms
“The
second most requested amenity was board games,” said Minute Suites co-founder
and CEO Daniel Solomon, “And we have now added board games and other desired
services such as exercise cycles and yoga mats to our locations.”
Rates for Minutes
Suites start at $42 per hour and drop to $32 per hour after two hours. The overnight
rate (8 hours) is a flat $155. Showers (available in DFW Terminal D) and
Charlotte Douglas International Airport are $20, with suite rental; $30 without.
Want to be
alone? Step into a Jabbrrbox
Phone-booth sized workspaces from Jabbrrbox, offering
travelers private, quiet places to work and make phone calls, are available at
New York’s LaGuardia Airport Terminal B, Pittsburgh International Airport
(Concourse B and C) and on Concourse B at Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky
International Airport (CVG).
Two new booths were installed in New York’s
John F. Kennedy International Airport Terminal 4 this week.
Users
make reservations using touchscreens on the exterior of each unit and, once
inside, will find WIFI, a desk, chair, power panel and another, larger,
touchscreen that is used to control the color and brightness of the booth lights,
track flight status and take photos.
Jabbrrbox pricing is $10 for 15
minutes, $15 for 30 minutes, $30 for an hour and $60 for two hours.
Work, stand, stretch
Business travelers who need to work but who also want to stretch
their legs before or between flights can do both at the complimentary Varidesk
co-working space at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.
Opened in December and located in Terminal C, the staffed
workspace has about two dozen height-adjustable standing desks, 75 charging
ports and a conference room with moveable walls.
Varidesk chief marketing officer, Sean Scogin, says the company plans to open co-working spaces at other airports soon and may add its new state-of-the-art phone booth to the mix.
Have you found a good way to get out of the fray when you’re stuck at the airport? Share a tip below.
For a while back in the late 1990s, when free Wi-Fi at airports didn’t exist and everyone didn’t have their own laptops, a company called Laptop Lane installed banks of small, rentable work spaces at airports with computers, printers, Internet access and, best of all, an enclosed space that offered privacy.
That company is long gone, but people at airports still seek quiet spaces to get things done.
So rentable work pods are back.
A startup called Jabbrrbox just installed eight workpods in Terminal B at New York’s LaGuardia Airport where travelers can buy increments of time (i.e. $15 for 30 minutes) and get access to an acoutically-sound work space with a desk, free and reliable Wi-Fi and a photobooth app. Additional tools for users include a camera for video conference callas and in-booth speakers.
Of course, you don’t need to use the booths for working. You can just as easily pop in for a nap.