Sleeping in Airports blog

photo by Prakash

November highlights on The Budget Traveller’s Guide to Sleeping in Airports.

NOVEMBER STATS
New Airport Reviews: 57
New Facebook Fans: 275 [become a fan] Total: 3343
Top Contributors: stranger | tupungato | surejb [become a contributor]
Airport with Most New Reviews: Paris CDG
Most Read Airport Page: Paris CDG

LASTING IMPRESSIONS
If you’ve visited the site in the past, you’re probably familiar with the “Lasting Impressions” section on each airport’s overview page.  This section includes some memorable quotes and tips I’ve picked out of our contributor’s reviews.  Here are a few quotes that have just been added:

• Frankfurt Airport - “The terminal is massive. I got lost and had to find security to get directions to my gate.” (zurichopper)
• Paris CDG Airport - “the guy on the electric floor swiper drove at us several times and drove over the front of the bench where our feet were about 10 or 12 times in the space of 10 mins.” (cdgcov_lad)
• Altenburg Airport - “There are school gyms that are larger than the terminal as a whole and the check-in area is about the size of a large living room.” (t_maia)
• Glasgow Prestwick Airport - “They threaten you with eviction outside if you misbehave.” (Jeff Geoff)
• Sydney Airport - “The person who suggested making a bed by tipping a seat by a wall is genius. I did this and could lie down and stretch my legs.” (Fuchka)
• Shannon Airport - “I couldn’t sleep even a minute ’cause I thought I was gonna die like the people of [the movie] ‘Alive!’.” (stranger)
• Trapani Airport - “there are terrible flies there. They will keep sitting on you all the time. It’s impossible to fall asleep when a fly lands on your face every 10 seconds.” (tupungato)

ADVENTURES AND MISADVENTURES IN AIRPORT SLEEPING

Bergamo Airport, Italy
by stranger
The place is the most similar thing to a hostel that you can find and on top of that, it’s totally free! which is of great appreciation because Milano is a painfully expensive city. You can save 18-20 by sleeping in this airport because it looks like a dorm, seriously! Its equipment is very basic and you’ll have to sleep in hard chairs, but most of the people have their own sleeping bags and sleep comfortably on the floor. There are people loafing around without T-shirt or without shoes as if they were in their homes (I did it!) and no one gives a hoot. But make sure you arrive early because there are LOTS AND LOTS of people sleeping there. The guards let you sleep in peace all night, but at 5 a.m they wake everybody up ’cause the airport become operational.

Sharjah International Airport, UAE
by surejb
Flew thru this place twice, both entailing stays of more than 8 hours. The budget airline Air Arabia has its hub here…
The place is run by a staff who are the most arrogant and racist workforce in the Middle-East. Arabs are renowned for their hospitality especially in Bahrain Oman Al Ain Ras Al Khaimah etc…but the HR guys must have recruited the most racist people to staff the airport.
I actually saw a staff use his feet to awaken (can say kick) an Afghani worker who was napping on the floor. The airport is mainly used by labourers from the Sub-continet, Far-East North Africans etc. So they don’t cater to the western diaspora of UAE, which means they can run the place like a prison.
Everything from check in to boarding is deplorable and appalling. Passengers are treated like animals
The place stinks.
The common use toilets are worse than ones in train stations in Lahore.
The only relief is the pay and use lounge which is atleast staffed by humans and the toilets showers and bathrooms are clean.
Not much food choices, but at least better than having to spend time in the common area. The common area doesn’t have many amenities for spending the night.
you’ll have to stretch out on the unclean floor if you really want to doze. Never travel thru this airport if it involves for more than an hour of transit

Check back next month for more entertaining airport experiences!

December is a big month.  We have some survey and poll results coming out in the next few weeks.

• Did you take our 2009 Budget Travel Survey? [ click here ]
• Did you vote for the Best and Worst Airports? We are just a few vote short of our 2009 goal.  Please vote!

An Arizona couple has been caught with over a thousand pieces of luggage stolen from the carousels of the Phoenix airport.  Kevin King and Stacy Legg-King are accused of walking into the baggage claim area and brazenly taking a random bag before walking straight out to their parked car.  As there are no claim check security measures at the airport, they were able to get away with this over a thousand times.  Some of the stolen items include: cameras, laptops, video equipment, clothing, medical devices, video games, baseball card and stamp collections and passports.  Passports???  The people who packed their passports in their checked luggage deserved to have it stolen.

Apparently, the couple often held yard sales and their neighbours scored some great deals.

Inspired by people who are forced to wait at airports and train stations during their trip, this clever 4-piece suitcase set can be pieced together to build a two-seater couch.

Twenty-two year old Dutch designer Erik de Nijs (the guy who brought us the keyboard pants), revealed his “Suited Case” project at Dutch Design Week 09 last month.  He says “this concept came from a research on nostalgia during travelling. When a familiar object from home is taken with you on a trip you feel much more at ease. And which object is more familiar then your own comfortable couch.”  Brilliant idea with a few practical looking pieces for a nice airport nap.  Shame about the fabrics!

Manila airport - photo by Dave

October highlights on The Budget Traveller’s Guide to Sleeping in Airports.

OCTOBER STATS:

New Airport Reviews: 49
New Facebook Fans: 229 [ become a fan ]
Top Contributor: hmasurg [ become a contributor ]
Airport With Most New Reviews: Kuala Lumpur (3)
Most Read Airport Page: Paris Charles de Gaulle

LASTING IMPRESSIONS:

If you’ve visited the site in the past, you’re probably familiar with the “Lasting Impressions” section on each airport’s overview page.  This section includes some memorable quotes and tips I’ve picked out of our contributor’s reviews.  Here are a few quotes that have just been added:

• Manila - “the worst airport on the planet. It has to be experienced to be believed. Think of a bombed out ruin and you’ll get some idea.” (Brenty)
• Bergamo - “The worst thing was the security man shouting ‘Giovani a piedi! Giovani a piedi!’ (’Young people wake up! Young people wake up!’) at about 4:00 AM waking everybody up and not letting anyone sleep more.” (luciss)
• Singapore - “The roving police (Changi Airport) are scary, they don’t let you sleep in peace. They keep on waking me up and asking me for my passport and boarding pass despite the fact that they recognize me (asked me 4 times in total, same people every time).” (toyotaboy95)
• Dallas - “the noisy frequent announcements (after half year, I still remember what he said ‘the security level is orange’). My night at DTW ended up sleepless.” (zackbupt)
• Bangkok - “I was denied boarding and had to wait in transit at BKK for 24 hrs, then was removed by security because after 24 hrs you are breaking some Thai law.” (flleric)
• Kuala Lumpur - “just as we’d set up we were told the whole terminal building would be closed until 4 because they were spraying for bugs!” (Herodotus)
• Chicago Midway - “I was so panicked and desperate that I actually made a shuttle trip out to O’Hare to see if I could get anything there. Of course, there was nothing so I had to come all the way back.” (steverino)
• Frankfurt - “watch out for the moving golf carts whizzing around. They can change your trip to a journey to the doctor!” (hmasurg)

ADVENTURES & MISADVENTURES

While there are always so many good and helpful reviews to choose from, some are a little more entertaining.  Here are my picks for this month:

Milan Milano Centrale Railway Station, Italy
A scary night by Astwerty
This was a few years ago, but I doubt much has changed since then. I arrived at Bergamo airport around midnight. Since I was taking the first train back to Florence, I decided to just wait the five hours or so at the train station instead of spending the money for a hostel. Big mistake.
By the time I got to the train station, the doors were locked. So, I was stuck standing right outside the train station. There were plenty of other people doing this. Most of them were sketchy middle-aged men. I was a lone 20 year-old female, so I felt very uncomfortable. One of them talked to me for awhile and tried to get me to come into his car. I just kept declining. He eventually went away.
Once the train station opened around 5am, it wasn’t much better. Another weird guy came up to me and tried to give me a massage. So gross.
Anyway, if you are a guy or with a guy, you will probably be left alone. Otherwise, I wouldn’t risk it.

Hannover Langenhagen - Terminal C, Germany
Cold, uncomfortable and bored out of my skull by t_maia
This airport sucks for staying overnight, but in many cases you (and others) are forced to do so. Many flights to holiday destinations leave in the dead of the night or very early in the morning. That combined with the fact that public transport to the airport is not running between 11 pm and 5 am causes many people to spend the night there waiting for their flight - especially families with small children about to go on a package holiday. Being tired the brats run amok all over the place, wailing and kicking up a fuss. Plus the lights are glaring, it is cold and there aren’t enough seats for all the people. There is a general noise level that makes even hardened airport sleepers unable to catch a nap. To top it off all the amenities such as fastfood restaurant and shops close at 11 pm at the latest, there aren’t even vending machines for candy and soda. Bring your own food and drink if you fancy a midnight snack. The internet cafe closes even earlier at 7 pm. There is nothing for you to do but sit and wait.

Finally: for an airport this size you expect the layout to be simple - it is not. There was one case with local fame where a passenger got lost and only found the exit after 5 hours of wandering around. Most people won’t have a problem, but there aren’t too many signs indicating where you are so make sure you are in the right terminal. Note that almost all the amenities are in Terminals AB.

Check back next month for more great stories!

photo uploaded by publik16.

It’s probably no secret to you that the body scanners are coming to an airport near you…..

After trial runs at several airports such as Amsterdam, Moscow, Manchester, New York City and Kelowna, more airports are installing the controversial scanners that can see through your clothes.

The machines, which produce a three-dimensional outline of a person’s naked body, would only be used when a secondary screening in required.  According to Canada’s Privacy Commissioner, the individual viewing the scan would not see the person’s face in the line-up and there are safeguards to delete the image immediately after the person leaves the portal.

But a sense of invasion still exists and to alleviate this concern, people singled out for this extra screening would have the choice of the full-body scan or the pat down.

As someone who has a metal plate and 16 pins in her leg (from a car accident), I ALWAYS get pulled over for the secondary screening.  For me this is not a case of “if” I have to do a secondary screen, it is “when” I have to do the secondary screen. The pat downs are embarrassing, but am I looking forward to being xrayed instead?  No!

Having said that, new things can be scary.  With time and evidence that some pervy security guy is not sitting in a room with his cell phone taking photos of the scans and posting them on his Twitter account, maybe then I will choose the scans over the pat downs.

What about you?  What are your thoughts on the Body Scans vs Pat Downs issue?

A few months back I posted a poll that asked the question “What is the worst thing that happened to you at the airport?” With over 5600 people participating, we had an amazing response!

Surprisingly, 1350 travellers live a “privileged life” in which nothing bad has ever happened to them at the airport.  Must be nice (and kind of boring)!  According to 950 respondents, the top complaint on the poll was lost luggage.  With increased security procedures and a shortage of baggage handlers, its not surprising that millions of bags are delayed each year.  I know my own suitcase has been to more airports than I have.

In other results, I was one of the 371 travellers who reported that being “touched inappropriately by security” was the worst thing to happen to them at the airport. As the full body xray scanner begins more trials in world airports, I don’t think I’ll be feeling any less violated going through the hassles of airport security in the future.

34 parents responded that they had lost or misplaced their children somewhere in the airport.  An interesting follow-up question might have been, “did you do lose them intentionally?”.

On the lighter side of the poll, 143 travellers claim to have been tasered at the airport and another 257 people claim to have discovered they were on a terrorist watch list whilst travelling via the US.  Oh, you jokers!  :-)  The poll was obviously just for fun, but here are the full results:

RESULTS: “What is the worst thing that happened to you at the airport?”

24% -I live a privileged life and nothing bad ever happens to me (1,350)
17% -The airline lost my luggage (950)
15% -I had to stay overnight in an airport (867)
10% -I missed my flight connection (586)
7% -I was touched inappropriately by security (371)
5% -I arrived more than 6 hours EARLY or LATE by accident (281)
5% -I travelled via the US and discovered that I am apparently on a terrorist watch list (257)
4% -I was asked for a bribe by local airport employees (211)
3% -I was not allowed to board a flight because of airline hassles (192)
3% -I was strip searched (168)
3% -I ate something bad at the airport and became sick/needed to use the washroom a lot (161)
3% -I was tasered (143)
1% -I was not allowed to board a flight because of local government hassles (71)
1% -I lost or “misplaced” my kids (34)

Last week we launched our first Budget Travel Survey. In this survey, we asked questions like where do you find the best airfare and accommodation deals, what is the best travel site and guide book and what are the best and worst airlines.  I’ll be running this survey until December and I’ll post the results in mid-December.  Please take a few minutes to send us your feedback.  Click Here to Begin