Sleeping in Airports blog

Since Wednesday thousands of people have been stranded at airports in Europe and abroad.  With no place to go until flights resume and no word on when that will be, passengers face a lengthy wait.

Unfortunately, the airlines are not required to do much, if anything, for stranded passengers during an “Act of God” such as this.  The United States Department of Transportation does not require airlines to provide any compensation, food or lodging.

In Europe, the rules are a little more civilized.  The airlines are not required to provide financial compensation, but they are required to provide such things as food and lodging “as appropriate”.

The definition of “as appropriate” has been interpreted differently by different airlines.  American Airlines in European airports has been providing stranded passengers snacks (because we all know the nutritional value a handful of pretzels).  Meanwhile, British Airlines has been handing out meal vouchers to stranded passengers in U.S. and European airports.

Cots have been brought in to Amsterdam Schiphol, Frankfurt, Brussels Zaventem, and New York JFK making the terminals look like refugee camps.

Understandably, spirits are lows and people are anxious to get home.  With no official news about when the flights will resume, here are a few tips to help stranded travellers wait out the delay:

• If you are travelling in a group, send one person out to buy air mattresses.  You can find these at camping, hardware or pool supply stores.
• If food options at the airport are non-existent, just order in!  Do you feel like having some pizza or Chinese food?  Call a nearby restaurant with “home delivery” and have them deliver your current home….at the airport.  Coordinate a drop off zone as they may have difficulty finding your set-up without a Door/Concourse/Level/Check-in counter reference.
• After a day or two, you might smell a bit rank.  If your airport does not have shower facilities, find the nearest handicapped washroom, fill the sink and wash away.  Alternatively, ask the airport’s fire department to give you the Mark on Air Tran style shower (see video below).

If you are stuck in Orlando, Sea World and Busch Gardens is offering free admission.  Stranded travellers must present a valid return airline ticket from April 14 through April 21, or until normal flight schedules resume, at the parks’ front gate Guest Services window.  Assuming you have no luggage to take care of, this can keep you entertained for a few hours.

Finally, if you are not flying, you can still help by driving a stranded traveller to the local mall to pick up supplies such as mattresses, food, clothes, and toiletries.  Please help put a smile on some poor air traveller’s face during their time of need.

Has the volcanic ash affected your travel plans?  Are you stuck in the airport?  How are you coping?

Earlier this week, we heard the bizarre story of a mother and daughter who were arrested at Liverpool’s John Lennon airport after they tried to take a corpse onto a plane.

The 91-year-old deceased man was pushed in a wheelchair through the airport wearing sunglasses before check-in staff became suspicious and he was prevented from boarding the plane.

The women were arrested on suspicion of failing to give notification of a death and were released on bail.  They are accused of trying to smuggle his body back to Germany, thus saving on the costly repatriation fees.  It’s a risky and unusual money saving strategy, that is for sure!

The deceased man’s wife, Gitta Jarant, claims that her husband had died at the airport.  She says “My Willi only died at the airport. He suddenly looked so lifeless, like a wax figure. His fingernails turned blue all of a sudden. At home he was still warm — I swear!”

She says that she hopes to get the remains of her husband from Britain as soon as possible and have him cremated — and then return to Berlin.

The BBC have an interview with the accused corpse smugglers.

Where is the strangest place you woke up after a night of drinking?

We’re sure it doesn’t rank in stupidity as the young man who was recently discovered napping behind the engine of an Indian Airlines Airbus A-320 at the New Delhi Indira Gandhi Airport.  Fortunately, he was found during an inspection two hours before the plane’s departure to Raipur and Nagpur.  The inspection crew noticed his leg dangling from the rear of the engine.  After being roughed up by security, the man was still too inebriated to pull together some logical thoughts.  He simply told airline security that he reached the airport in a truck, wandered to the operational area and was sleepy so he chose the engine as his bed for the night. His statement warrants questions like How?  Why? and WTF?!?!

Incidentally, there does seem to be a trend among the drunk men of Delhi who seek refuge at the airport after a bender.  Back in February, another drunk man was discovered sleeping at Indira Gandhi airport - this time on the runway.  The Air Traffic Control radar detected the man catching a few zzzzzs on the runway just as an aircraft was about to land. The ATC had to ask the pilot to abort touching down

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!

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?

Airport homeless, originally uploaded by TempletonElliott.

….and no, it wasn’t me!

Thanks to Charles for passing along this story!

A woman who police believe was homeless was asked to leave Toronto’s Pearson International Airport after living there for a month.

The unidentified woman who had been hauling around a pink suitcase in Terminal 1 since mid-April did not appear to have any mental issues. Since she “met the threshold for trespassing”, police gave her bus fare and she left without a struggle.

Trish Krale, a spokeswoman for the Greater Toronto Airports Authority told CTV News “It’s not unheard of to get reports of people sleeping in the airport for extended periods of time”.

“It’s a rare occurrence but it does happen from time to time,” she said.

And because the airport never closes, it’s not unusual for people to be seen walking around — or catching a quick nap — overnight.

The number of cases in which the homeless around the world are seeking shelter in airports seems to be on the rise. Last summer, the Daily Mail wrote an article about people living in the Heathrow Airport. There have also been publicized cases of people seeking refuge in the Palma and Mexico City airports. Paris Charles de Gaulle is well known for the number of homeless people wandering around at all hours including one man who famously lived there for 12 years and was the inspiration for the movie “Terminal” starring Tom Hanks.  CDG’s relaxed policy on dealing with the homeless seems to have only helped it become a miserable airport for travellers.

So what do you think of this trend?  Should sleeping in airports be limited to cheap or stranded travellers or the homeless if they behave themselves and don’t stink up the place? At what point should airport officials say “GET OUT!!!” to all of us?