airport services

2 airports are finalists for America’s Best Restroom

Airport Terminals, , , ,

The listing of the pinnacle 10 finalists for the 2022 America’s Best Restroom contest is out.

And this 12 months restrooms at airports are inside the walking to be crowned because the nice throne inside the united states of america.

Newark Liberty Int’l Airport (EWR)

The Terminal B all-gender restroom at Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) is one of the airport restrooms nominated as an remarkable example of ways corporations expand and maintain revolutionary restroom facilities.

EWR’s new lavatory is in a 1970’s-technology terminal departure lounge. The lavatory’s innovative, gender-neutral design gives “potty parity” and approach that extra customers may be accommodated than with a traditional restroom design.

The restroom includes areas for travelling partners to attend and for passengers to reorganize their property. Local imagery at the glass and tile establishes a sense of place. And sound and fragrance assist create a chilled environment.

Tampa International Airport (TPA)

The nominated restrooms at Tampa International Airport (TPA) are on Airside C.

These bathrooms welcome tourists to a uniquely Florida enjoy with large images. A herbal, deep blue stone with undulating veining is supposed to be paying homage to waves crashing along the shore.

“Once interior, huge format tiles pores and skin the flooring and seamlessly fold up the partitions, bolstering the well-lit environment and furthering a ‘freshly cleaned’ aesthetic,” the restroom nomination explains. “A wood-appearance wall tile adds warmth and softness for a balanced, resort-like feel.”

The vanities in those restrooms also offer TPA’s signature “cockpit” idea, which offers every guest their very own sensor-activating sink and soap, private paper towel dispensers, and a nearby trash receptacle.

The other nominated public lavatories in this Best Restroom list encompass the self-cleansing restrooms at North Hollywood Recreation Center; prohibition-themed restrooms in Stone Mountain, GA; and a Japanese pub in Orlando, FL modeled after the green restroom visible in “The Aviator” movie.

Here’s the picture from the movie:

Here’s a snap from Orlando’s Tori Tori pub.

The public is invited to vote for his or her favorite finalist through August 31 here.

Which is your favorite?

Roller skating is back at JFK’s TWA Hotel

Hotels, Uncategorized, , ,

Fans of curler skating, a laugh at-the-airport sports, and the landmark TWA Hotel at JFK Airport (i.e.: all of us) might be searching forward to the go back of the lodge’s retro-fashion roller skating rink.

The Roll-A-Rama at the Runway Rink opens for the season on April 15.

The checkered rink is positioned with the aid of the motel’s 1958 Lockheed Constellation “Connie” aircraft/cocktail lounge and is made up of two,668 tiles.

The rink will open to the public on weekends best, weather allowing, thru November 22.

Hours for skating will be Fridays from 4 to 8 PM and Saturdays and Sundays from 12 to eight PM.

50-minute skate sessions will value $20 for adults and $sixteen for kids under 12. The rate includes use of a couple of old-fashion four-wheeled “quad skates” (patented in 1863).

If you've got your personal curler skates, you're welcome to bring them along.

If you’re planning to move, word that admission to the rink can handiest be purchased by using credit card and is first-come, first-served; no enhance tickets are to be had.

And due to the fact that’s the way they roll, the TWA Hotel group shared a few brilliant curler skating factoids. Note that you can burn 350 calories in an hour of roller skating, so go beforehand and have a unfashionable cocktail within the Connie.

“The Phoenix” at PHX Airport & What We Learned About Lost Amenities

Art, , , ,

Few airport condo vehicle centers are locations you need to hang out in for longer than you have to.

But the condo automobile middle at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport is an exception.

The massive, vibrant, open lobby has a restaurant within the middle with snug chairs and there’s artwork from the collection of the Phoenix Airport Museum all over the facility, which includes down the hallways that lead to the restrooms.

Here’s a link to a guided tour of the art on show at the PHX rental car center that’s but to be up to date with the most up-to-date and largest set up: a 3-panel mural via Paul Coze titled “The Phoenix” that is 75 feet huge and 16 ft excessive.

The mural become set up in PHX Terminal 2 returned in the early Sixties. But when Terminal 2 turned into demolished, the mural changed into moved here. You can research extra approximately the artist, the snap shots within the mural, and the heroic effort it took to safely take away the mural from Terminal 2 and reinstall it at the condo automobile middle here and in our article for The Points Guy here.

But we want to take a few moments to talk about – and mourn – the facilities that have been as soon as in PHX Terminal 2.

What Once Was at PHX Terminal 2

When Terminal 2 opened at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport in the Sixties it became one of the maximum present day airport terminals in the united states of america.

PHX shared a list of the services at the new, cutting-edge, terminal.

In addition to an extended concourse with 10 gates and an indoor (indoor!) baggage carousel, the terminal had a lodge reservation kiosk with character telephones connected directly to every hotel’s reservation desk.

Other amenities included a sport room with pinball machines, a rooftop remark deck, shops, a financial institution, a barbershop, a flower cart, a cocktail living room, a restaurant with a glass-enclosed terrace, and, up above, The Phoenix mural by Paul Coze.

All the ones terminal capabilities had been honestly swanky for the time. But what honestly stuck our attention turned into the nursery wherein passengers and airport traffic should leave their kids whilst they enjoyed all of the amenities inside the terminal.

Over the years, many (OK, maximum) of those facilities were set apart.

And over time the terminal become revamped in any such way that “The Phoenix” mural become now not easy to look or absolutely recognize.

According to Gary Martelli, Phoenix Airport Museum supervisor & curator, all through the primary redecorate, within the Nineteen Eighties, components of the mural became obscured when the terminal ceiling was lowered, and the columns were rounded. In the Nineties, a new restaurant became constructed with a vent hood in the front of the mural. Then, in the early 2000s, safety upgrades created a long wall bisecting the Terminal 2 foyer and similarly obscuring views of the mural.

Now, in its new home in the southwest nook of the primary escalator foyer within the PHX Rental Car Center, “The Phoenix” is simple to look and not possible to overlook. Nearby are showcase instances with statistics about Terminal 2 and artist Paul Coze, along with images from the preliminary installation of the mural. As a pleasing contact, there are also viewing telescopes (at heights) to allow traffic to take a closer observe the details and gildings inside the mural.

FWA: 5 Things We Love About Fort Wayne Int’l Airport

Airport courses, Uncategorized, , , ,

5 Things We Love About Fort Wayne International Airport (FWA)

We’re again with another episode in our “five Things We Love About…” collection highlighting functions and facilities at airports about the u . s . and the world.

Today we land at Fort Wayne International Airport (FWA) in Indiana.

1. Free cookies at FWA

Without a doubt, Fort Wayne International Airport has one of the nice airport amenities we’ve encountered: loose cookies for all arriving passengers.

On our first go to to FWA, a seatmate instructed us that we’d get a cookie on arrival. We concept they were making a funny story. But it became out they have been no longer kidding at all.

The cookies are baked at Ellison Bakery, simply throughout the road from the airport. And FWA has been handing out those delightful welcome snacks for extra than two decades.

The cookies are honestly successful: in June 2020 the airport handed out its “three Millionth Cookie” and debuted a new fashion of cookie. Now, in preference to one cookie, each arriving passenger at Fort Wayne International Airport is welcomed with a bundle that’s filled with numerous miniature cookies. The flavors encompass Birthday Cake and Chocolate Chip and numerous different sorts are turned around in.

2. Local manufacturers at FWA

FWA places an emphasis on neighborhood brands in the airport. Chapman’s Brewing Company out of Angola, Indiana serves a hint of Northeast Indiana with locally brewed beer on tap. And Conjure Coffee brings a sampling of Fort Wayne’s local coffee scene to FWA.

3. Customer carrier at FWA

We informed you approximately the cookies that the Hospitality Hosts hand out to passengers at FWA. In any airport, that could check the container for customer service.

But FWA doesn’t stop there. The airport’s Customer Service Agents (CSAs) also provide complimentary curbside bags provider, wheelchair assistance, a parking lot go back and forth, and different services.

4. Hospitality PAWS

Hospitality PAWS is FWA’s licensed therapy canine software.

All the puppies are tremendously skilled and authorized via the Alliance of Therapy Dogs and show up with their trainers at select instances all through the week.

5. More to come back at FWA

Project Gateway is FWA’s growth and development project. On the agenda: the Parking Lot Rehabilitation Project, East and West Terminal Apron Improvement Project, and the FWA West Terminal Building Expansion. That remaining piece will upload additional gates, a brand new Mother’s Room, an upgraded Children’s Play Area, and increased ticketing region, a modernized outside façade, and more.   

Did we miss your favourite feature of Fort Wayne International Airport? Let us recognise inside the remarks section underneath. And experience unfastened to nominate the subsequent airport to be featured within the “5 Things We Love About…” series.

A second with Minute Suites

Health, ,

Many airport services and facilities aren't lower back at full power yet. And some may additionally in no way be. And we had been questioning what’s up with Minute Suites, the employer that rents out non-public rooms in some airports wherein travelers can sleep, relaxation, or get some paintings executed during layovers.

The suites include a daybed couch that will become a bed, sound covering, a thermostat, a computing device, Wi-Fi, Netflix, and DIRECTV. Travelers can ebook a collection at the app or in person. And tour essentials are bought at the front desk.

The organization did close down briefly in the course of spring/early summer time 2020. But it has now reopened in all its previous airport locations, including Atlanta, Charlotte Douglas, Dallas-Fort Worth, LaGuardia, and Philadelphia. Since October 2020, the organization has even brought new locations in the Baltimore and Nashville airports. And they have got additionally signed ten greater rentals for added airport locations.

“We were lucky that American Airlines selected to consolidate tons in their traffic thru DFW and Charlotte and we re-opened our facilities there for the duration of the summer time,” stated Minute Suites co-founder and director of development Daniel Solomon. “Travelers valued our carrier for herbal social distancing and as a secure vicinity to loosen up and unmask.”

Are the suites santized?

Cleaning the rooms between guests become important before the pandemic, of path, however now the sanitation protocols are, of path, even more important. “[We] have hired a clinical-grade cleaning protocol after each visitor for over a decade,” says Solomon, “It capabilities a disinfectant agent that is EPA-licensed to kill COVID-19.” (More approximately the cleansing systems right here.)

Now that extra people are traveling, Minute Suites is reporting wholesome recovery numbers in part due to the fact passengers are understanding that within the suites is one of the few places inside the airport in which they are able to competently take off their mask, consume a take-out meal, paintings, rest, or nap.

What is the value?

Minute Suites hire for $forty five for the primary hour (the minimal). After that, prices are charged in 15-minute increments. Right now, although, you are probable to be provided a 25% cut price. As a pleasing gesture, Minute Suites has constantly supplied nursing and pumping mothers a 30-minute free live.

Travelers who have Priority Pass memberships (or credit playing cards with that beneift) get the first hour at Minute Suites websites free and a discounted per hour price after that. A Minute Suites spokesperson says they are seeing a number of Priority Pass usage proper now.