In Airports recently

advI sat in a very crowded, people compressed central waiting area in terminal three at Heathrow airport London. I had been waiting my flight for hours I was tired and sitting in an uncomfortable seat surrounded by a vast sea of travellers.

    

 

Everyone is herded together surrounded by expensive shops.

 

It's all about extracting money from the weary travellers you can pay almost two pounds for water. The impression I got was that as far as the airport is concerned the passengers, held captive are their target to get cash from

 At the busiest periods if you don't have great eyesight and leave your seat to see the progress of your flight embarkation details you probable won't find it vacant again. Of course the screens that carry all the advertisements beaming at you are all very clear and easy to read from almost every position: whilst the crucial information is shown as small lettering on long listings over several digital display screens.

 

Now if you're like me, being in an airport can be stressful and the certainty of accurate information regarding your flight is essential at least this airport does inform flight details and departure gate announcements over the loud speaker public address system.

 

After leaving my seat several times and losing it to others, I eventually found a seat within my visible range, enough to also see the progress of my flight as it moved up the timeline schedule listings. However my prized location was surrounded on seats and the floor by a group of young American tourists. Their chatter eventually began to frustrate and even anger me, I sat there thinking why was I so distressed. It dawned upon me that the frustration of the place itself; the advertising screens, the cramped conditions the artificial lighting and the general fraught atmosphere was the cause. I thought that at the very least this place needed some plants, everything was artificial, plants and flowing water are known to have calming properties.

 

My American neighbours were chatting and every other word included them saying 'like' sometimes three times in any sentence, it began to drive me crazy and soon all I was 'like' hearing and expecting with anticipation was 'like' next 'like' word. I was so unhinged that I had to give up my position and go and get a drink.

 

Then I saw an advertising column that had what I thought was a good idea being promoted upon it.

 

I tried to access the service and soon realised that good ideas are immediately frustrated by barriers conditions that expect fees and personnel information before you can get at the anticipated service, and only on the IPHONE currently. They want your name, date of birth, mobile phone number and your email address before letting potential users access the down-loadable application, for 1:79 annually! Which is crazy unless you're a very frequent flyer. But then it gets worse, as to connect to the WiFi service you have to go through yet another logging on procedure and pay an outrageously expensive fee of 7.

I was told by the person I enquired regarding the service that the fee allowed me to use it all day, as though that was a justification, when obviously I had no plans to be there all day and wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. I was also told that for 3 pounds I could use the internet on computers on desks that were situated nearby.

Now I think it would be a great idea for personal mobiles to be able to connect to the airport display screens and track individual flight information and gate opening times etc it would go a long way in solving the issues I outlined at the beginning of this post.

Sadly Heathrow and most airports want to get fees for supplying what should be a common passenger service; especially as my story shows that their current screen based operation is far from satisfactory.

  

Whilst I was there many people enquired about the service and about obtaining a WiFi connection but once they found out the cost; nobody that I observed bought into it.

After my experiences at Heathrow I eventually arrived at Madrid. On first sight a much improved environment, all open space and huge glass roof that lifted the depression of the enclosed facilities at Heathrow Terminal 3 from my mind.

But first impressions can often deceive. Here is an airport that proudly announces frequently that there are no flight information announcements and that all details are posted onto the digital display screens. These are the same as the ones at Heathrow but with far more space around them, but certainly not enough of them; as this place is huge and confusing. The signage is somewhat baffling with letters for the gate areas posted onto colour combinations that folks with certain mild degrees of colour blindness would never see! And the place is a long huge single building in many cases taking upto twenty minutes to get to your designated gate once it is posted onto the display screens. You can easily locate yourself a long way from your eventual gate without any information regarding it. It can also be far worse as there is an identical terminal for at least half of all flights which requires an underground train journey to reach. It's very easy to sit awaiting your flight information gate number and location only to find that you have a short time to reach the gate and then finding out that you can be in the wrong terminal and off you rush to get the train I know this happened to me whilst I was sitting near the WiFi zone to see if anybody was willing to pay for it; which, no surprises: they weren't.

Wouldn't it be great if you could have all the information you needed on your mobile phone through a free WiFi system in airports? With accurate gate information and times, certainly this could be achieved through a computer link to the boarding pass computer system. And wouldn't it relax the passenger, maybe to such an extent that the advertising and the shopping offers might be more utilized. And moving on with such a service: what about providing nested data about the services and facilities at your destination. Now there's a thought, it might compensate the airport and airlines for providing such beneficial services, with a return from content embedded advertisers, a bit of lateral thinking!

Another barmy thing at Madrid is that the public address system that they don't use for flight information is used to frequently inform passengers that it is forbidden to smoke in the airport and that designated smoking areas are provided. The amazing feature about these glass enclosures is the fact that they have no roof on them and no extractor fans so the smoke goes throughout the airport, and none smokers speed up when passing these locations to avoid a deep lungful of group produced passive smoke!

I arrived at my departure gate (I was going to Jerez de la Frontera) where I met a fellow traveler I knew and I related to him my airport experiences including the like punctuated sentencing of the Americans at Heathrow. He was an American and proceeded to point out to me that all the English folks he knew including my good self were also full of this verbal repetitive garbage. I was shocked and he was quite correct, we say you know, I have to say and other nonsense like 'err' and and very frequently within our conversation. The worst of all he pointed out was that the English say to be perfectly honest very often and he said this indicated to him that the rest of what we were possibly saying was not an honest statement of truth!

I was flabbergasted and the lesson I learned from my airport experience was to become more watchful of my own unconscious verbal chatterings.

Back to the WiFi need in airports:

At least one international airport is realising that trying to get the public to pay to finance a probably necessary public service is counter productive and have given up on attempting to obtain revenues from WiFi access fees. It sets a precedent and hopefully a trend that all airports and indeed many other public locations will hopefully follow.

 

Quote:
Mayor Gavin Newsom Announces Free Public Wi-Fi Service At San Francisco International Airport

Free wi-fi takes-off today and allows travelers to now surf the internet for free at SFO

8/13/2010- Mayor Gavin Newsom announced free wi-fi service beginning today throughout all public spaces at San Francisco International Airport for travelers passing through SFO. The service was originally scheduled to begin September 1, 2010, but through the combined efforts of Airport staff and the service provider, the free wi-fi service is available more than two weeks ahead of schedule.

SFO is a critical engine for economic growth and jobs in our region today and for the future, said Mayor Newsom. The San Francisco Bay Area is the world's high-tech center, and now anyone traveling through SFO can access their e-mail, shop, and conduct business on the Airports Wi-Fi service free of charge.

For the past several years, SFO has provided wireless internet through a fee-based service. When the contract with that vendor expired earlier this year, the Airport, which has always been committed to providing travelers with the best in customer service, used the opportunity to switch to free Wi-Fi service in order to meet the needs and expectations of today's SFO passengers.

The airline and airport industry is a dynamic business and to remain successful we must continue to adapt to an ever-changing environment, said Airport Director John L. Martin. For the past few years our internal surveys have shown that our customers wanted free wi-fi and we're now offering that because SFO is committed to providing first class customer service to everyone who passes through our gates.