Pretty much everyone who flies to or from Pittsburgh, PA is looking forward to the opening of the new landside terminal at Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT).
This $1.5 billion project is about 80% complete and will wrap up later this year with an opening date set for fall.
The Stuck at the Airport team stopped by for a hard hat tour to see how things were going.
Here’s a tiny tour of Pittsburgh International Airport’s new landside terminal, in progress.
The Stuck at the Airport team is spending a few days in Pittsburgh, Pennyslvania exploring the airport, of course, but also the museums, restaurants, shops and assorted attractions.
A couple of highlights so far:
We joined these adorable kids, their parents and a gaggle of other enthusiastic explorers on a tasting tour of Pittsburgh’s historic market neighborhood – the Strip District – led by Richard, one of the extremely knowledgable and engaging guides from ‘Burgh Bits & Bites Food Tours, which offers tours of half a dozen Pittsburgh neighborhoods and can create custom tours as well.
Yes, the Heinz History Center tells the more-interesting-than-you’d imagine story of the H. J. Heinz company. But that’s just one of thousands of the Western Pennsylania stories told in six floors of artifact-filled exhibits that include everything from props and set pieces from from the “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” TV set to memorabilia and dozens of interactive activities in the sports museum spread out over two floors of the center and covering everything from football and hockey to car racing, golf, boxing and more.
This month, my “At the Airport” column in USATODAY.com is all about airport Wi-Fi.
And all about why more and more airports, including those in Denver, Pittsburgh, Orlando and, just recently, Seattle and Boston, offer this welcome amenity for free – and why some don’t.
Here’s an edited version of that column:
Free Wi-Fi was on Sea-Tac’s to do list for years, but the airport had to wait until its contract with AT&T ran out before making the service free. “It’s almost become a required amenity,” says Sea-Tac airport spokesperson Perry Cooper, “Passengers expect it now. Especially in places like Seattle where folks are very tech-savvy. In fact, it’s been our number one customer service request for years.”
Silicon Valley’s Mineta San José International Airport started offering the service back in May 2008, says airport spokesperson David Vossbrink, because “we serve a high proportion of business travelers and road warriors who have laptops and mobile devices surgically implanted and [they] expect to be able to always be connected.”
It’s pretty much the same story across the country. Everyone wants to stay connected and everyone wants the Wi-Fi at the airport to be free. But how can airports afford to make it free?
Advertising and sponsorship may be the way to go.
At Denver International Airport, which began offering free Wi-Fi in November 2007, between 6,000 and 8,000 travelers now sign on to the system each day and revenue from advertisers help offset the cost of the service. Sea-Tac Airport has asked Clear Channel, which already sells advertising space throughout the airport, to find additional ads to support the new, free Wi-Fi service as well. And at San Francisco International Airport, advertising is being considered as negotiations get underway to figure out how to support a free Wi-Fi program as well. If they can figure out how to fund it, representatives from Nashville International and many other airports say they’d offer travelers free Wi-Fi as well.
Like LAX and the airports in the New York and Washington, D.C. areas, the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport still charges passengers for Wi-Fi access. “We know many travelers would love to see free Wi-Fi,” says airport spokesperson Patrick Hogan, “The bottom line is that airports like MSP must generate the funds to cover all airport operating costs…There is no such thing as free airport Wi-Fi. It’s really just a question of who pays to cover the cost of providing the service.”
For the full posted version of this column, read Free airport Wi-Fi takes off in USATODAY.com. And if you’re want to know which airports currently offer free Wi-Fi, the folks at Jaunted.com have been keeping a good tally on their free airport Wi-Fi map.
And if you do use a free Wi-Fi service at an airport, a hotel, a coffee shop or somewhere else, the Wi-Fi Alliance encourages you to use a personal firewall, make sure you have anti-virus software, and keep these other safety tips in mind:
Got that?