Stockholm Arlanda Airport

Stockholm Airport’s Climate Portal

Weather, , ,

arlanda

Stockholm’s Arlanda Airport has created a “Climate Portal” to give passengers a preview of the weather at their destination – or at a destination they might want to book for a future trip.

The portal has three rooms – titled HOT, COLD and BIG – that use sound and image technology plus wind and temperature simulations to somehow transform online weather data into the physical experiences of being in various cities.

Here’s a short video the Arlanda Airport put together to explain:

Why create a weather portal at the airport when passengers are about to board planes which are already portals to new places?

It’s fun, of course, but as airport representatives point out, a weather preview is also a good reminder that you may need to do a bit of last minute shopping for sunscreen for that warm weather destination.

Look for Arlanda’s Climate Portal in Terminal 5, near Gate F26,  through August 31.

Stockholm Arlanda Airport celebrates Swedish Midsummer

Festivals, Holidays, ,

Swedish

Filing this under “Best Airport Amenity of the Week:”

Stockholm Arlanda Airport is celebrating Swedish Midsummer this week by inviting travelers to dance around a maypole and sample Swedish foods.

At a long table set up in Terminal 5, passengers will be able to sample herring, salmon, fish roe, Västerbotten cheese and elderflower juice.

A variety of Swedish products, including a book of Swedish drinking songs, will be for sale and there will be Swedish music.

Billed as a “crash course in Swedish Midsummer Traditions, the five “subjects” will be:

Dancing around the maypole – which is likely fun, but also insures good luck in marriage and childbirth;

Wearing a Midsummer wreath with flowers on one’s head;

Singing Swedish drinking songs;

Dreaming: Seven kinds of flowers placed under one’s pillow insure a dream of one’s true love;

and Eating – that’s where the herring, new potatoes, salmon, Västerbotten cheese and strawberries and cream come in.

Pick giant blueberries at Stockholm Arlanda Airport

Airports, Entertainment, Exhibits, family travel, Fun Stuff, Kids, , ,

A play area based on the stories and illustrations of noted Swedish children’s books author Elsa Beskow has opened at Stockholm Arlanda Airport.

A collaboration between a local children’s museum (Junibacken) and the airport, the play area invites kids to ride on a field mouse, pick giant blueberries, slide down a giant mushroom and interact with a wide variety of characters and scenes from the books. There’s also a corner for watching movies, reading and playing games.

Don’t worry if you’re not familiar with Beskow’s stories. You can get an idea of her magic by just skimming the titles, which include Hat Cottage (1930), Children of the Forest (1910), Peter in Blueberry Land (1901), Olle’s Ski Trip (1907) and The Sun Egg (1932), or sitting down and reading one of her books, which will be stocked at the play area in a variety of languages.

Here’s more on Elsa:

Elsa Beskow was a master at depicting Swedish nature, which comprises a key element in all her work. Her books are widely published in other languages, and she is considered the author who introduced Swedish children’s books to the rest of the world. Peter in Blueberry Land was the first book to be translated, into German in 1903, into Danish in 1912, and into English in 1931. Today Elsa Beskow’s books have been translated into 19 languages.

SAS hosts first same-sex,in-flight wedding

Air Travel, Events, Weddings, , , , , ,

On Monday, December 6th, weddings for one gay couple from Germany – Aleksandar Mijatovic and Shantu Bhattacherjee – and one lesbian couple from Poland, – Ewa Tomaszewicz and Gosia Rawińska – took place on SAS Airlines flight SK903 traveling from Stockholm to New York.

The couples were winners in a wedding and honeymoon-package contest hosted by SAS and a variety of partners in the travel industry.   I was honored to be on the history-making wedding flight on assignment to write an article about the event that will appear on msnbc.com. In the meantime, here are some photos from the day.

SAS Love is in the Air photo

SAS same-sex in-flight wedding

SAS crew performs wedding rap for couples wed on plane

SAS crew performs wedding rap for in-flight, same-sex wedding couples

SAS same-sex, in-flight wedding couples received models of their wedding airplane

Wedding cake for SAS same-sex wedding flight

Wedding cake for SAS same-sex wedding flight December 6, 2010

Congratulations to everyone involved with this very special in-flight wedding.

(All photos by Harriet Baskas)

Love is in the air at Stockholm’s Arlanda Airport

Air Travel, Airports, Aviation history, Events, Fun Stuff, Weddings, , ,

Throughout the year, Stockholm’s Arlanda Airport is a pretty lovey-dovey place.

marriage ceremony at Stockholm Arlanda

Last Thursday morning, I stopped by the airport chapel just as chaplain Anders Berglund was finishing up a short marriage ceremony for Melitza and Frank Kortman (below).  After chit-chat and champagne, the couple set off for their honeymoon in Bali and Berglund explained that this was the second of three weddings he’d be presiding over that day and just a few of the more than 200 weddings that take place at the airport chapel each year.

Wedding at Stockholm Airport

More than 200 Swedish marriages begin with ceremonies at the airport’s VIP lounge as well.

Wedding at Stockholm Airport VIP Lounge

The folks at Guinness World Records may not be keeping tabs, but I’m pretty sure more wedding ceremonies take place at Stockholm’s Arlanda than at any other airport.

That’s all very romantic. But on Monday, Arlanda is going to be the starting point for what is certainly a world first in weddings.

On Monday morning, December 6, 2010, one of the business class cabins on SAS fligh SK903 from Stockholm to New York will be transformed into a wedding chapel in preparation for the world’s first in-flight, same-sex weddings.

One gay couple and one lesbian couple – winners of a spirited, record-breaking, on-line contest that took place over the last few months – will be married when the plane takes off and while it is still in Swedish airspace. Once the legal business is completed, there will be an in-flight reception, complete with wedding dinner, wedding cake, first dances  and other traditional, and no doubt some non-traditional, wedding celebrations.

I’ll be attending the in-flight weddings as a media guest and will share more details once the flight arrives in New York.

In the meantime, you can read more about the contest and winning couples on the SAS website, where there’s also information about the flowers, the wedding bands and the wedding outfits.

Souvenir Sunday at Stockholm’s Arlanda Airport

Air Travel, Airport shops, Airports, Chapels, Design, Food, Hotels, Kids, Restaurants, Souvenir Sunday, Souvenirs, , , , ,

Stockholm’s Arlanda Airport serves more than 16 million passengers a year with 4 terminals and amenities that include a Sky Clinic, a chapel that hosts more than 200 weddings a year and hotels that range from the short stay “Rest and Fly” to the full-service Radisson Blu Sky City Hotel, which looks out over the transportation and marketplace hub between two terminals.

The Jumbo Stay sits on airport property, just off one of the taxi-ways, and is a unique hostel-style hotel built inside a converted 747.

The airport has more than 100 retail and dining venues, and on my recent 24-hour stay at the airport, I found plenty of items to feature on Souvenir Sunday, the day StuckatTheAirport.com highlights inexpensive, offbeat and “of” the city items you can buy at airports.

The choices included Swedish Herring gift packs and lots of other traditional food items;

and a wide variety of reindeer-inspired items and Lapland souvenirs.

But my choice for this week’s Souvenir Sunday favorites are the inexpensive, brightly-colored sporks and collapsible cups for sale at Terminal 5’s branch of Design Torget .

collapsible cups

If you find a great, inexpensive, “of” the city souvenir next time you’re Stuck at the Airport, please snap a photo and send it along. If your souvenir is featured on Souvenir Sunday, you’ll receive a fun air travel souvenir.

Snooze at Stockholm Airport

Sleeping, , , ,

Stockholm-Arlanda Airport not only has a fancy new duty-free store with the world’s largest “snusidor,” there’s also a hotel in the middle of the airport, the Radisson SAS Sky City Hotel between Terminals 4 and 5.

arlanda-snusidor1

Starting around January 15th, travelers will also be able to spend a night at the nearby Jumbo Hostel, a hotel INSIDE a retired Boeing 747 airplane.

jumbohostelplane

Check out the photos and comments about the Jumbo Hostel over at Wired’s Autopia. With Valentine’s Day coming up, keep in mind that Arlanda Airport offers a wide range of wedding and registered partnership ceremonies.

So you can get married and have your honeymoon right at the airport: the hostel’s honeymoon suite is in the airplane’s cockpit and has its own bathroom and a great view of  the airport.

arlandawdding

Shop the snusidor at Stockholm-Arlanda Airport

Deals, Food, Shopping, , , ,

There’s a big, new tax and duty free shopping area in Terminal 5 at Stockholm-Arlanda Airport that looks pretty snazzy.

arlanda-shop

Larger than six tennis courts, the shop carries all the standard upscale offerings, plus a few new items.  Arlanda is the first airport to offer two Swedish-based brands: Make-Up Store and Mackmyra Whiskey, the first Swedish malt whiskey.  Set up as a collection of “worlds,” including the World of Cosmetics, the World of Perfume, and the World of Chocolate, complete with chocolate-making demonstrations, the store also boasts the world’s first “snusidor.”

arlanda-snusidor

At first I thought this might be one of those much sought-after napping-nooks. But then they would have named it a “snoozidor.”   No, the “snusidor” is actually a walk-in, refrigerated display area for snus – a traditional Swedish smokeless tobacco that accounts for about 50% of all the tobacco sales at Arlanda airport.

(Photos by Jonas Borg, courtesy Stockholm-Arlanda Airport)

Airport sleepover: 747 plane to become Jumbo Hostel

Hotels, Lodging, ,

Move over Yotel. According to this Wired Autopia report by Dave Demerjian, Stockholm’s Arlanda Airport will soon welcome the Jumbo Hostel – a 25-room hotel located inside a decommissioned 747 and parked just outside airport property.

If it’s true, I’m making my reservation now.

(Courtesy: Jumbo Hostel)

According to the Jumbo Hostel Web site, travelers will be able to choose between “sparkling three-bed rooms with shared shower and toilet in the corridor or the luxury suite in the converted cockpit with its panoramic view of the airport.”

(Graphic: Bjerking Arkitekter Ingenjörer)

Folks who don’t want to stay overnight can stop by for an “excursion” on the walkway out on the left wing of the plane. There, they can “explore the vertiginous feeling of standing on top of a jumbo jet’s wing.”