With nasty weather once again enveloping the Northeastern United States and winter showing no signs of ending anytime soon, thousands of travelers find themselves killing a lot of time at airports. Flight delays are a fact of life and there’s not a whole lot you can do about it unless you want to pay the fees necessary to change your flights. That leaves us all spending much of our holiday or business trip twiddling our thumbs in crowded, boring airport terminals.
Hide the women and children, those full body scanners that have been causing all of the ruckus in the EU and Canada are on their way to the United States. Starting in early March, the technology that some claim gives a “voyeuristic” view of air travelers to the TSA will be installed in two of the nation’s busiest airports: Chicago’s O’Hare and Boston’s Logan.
Throughout the rest of the summer 150 more scanners will appear around the country.
Why the consternation? Critics claim that the new scanners violate privacy, while some even worry that the TSA can see specific body parts.
For their part, the Department of Homeland Security wants to use the tools for enhanced security screening; such technology, for example, could have potentially caught last year’s underwear bomber. Regardless, it looks like the scanners are here to stay, so be prepared to go through one at some point in your travels.
Missing your connecting flight can be frustrating. Having an overnight layover can be annoying. But we all have two choices when airlines throw us a curveball: Mope or make the best of it. Ashley Klinger chose the latter when she was stuck in Pittsburgh International Airport overnight recently. With the help of a video camera, solitude and an epic amount of imagination, she turned an abandoned airport into her own personal playhouse.
Kudos to Ashley for channeling her creativity rather than anger during an extended layover. While we don’t recommend that you kill your airport delays this way, we do suggest that you try to stay as positive as Ashley did. You’re going to be waiting no matter what you do, so you might as well be in a good mood while you do it.
Today’s daily dose of airline industry fear mongering comes from the arrivals hall of Washington DC’s Dulles (IAD) airport.
Late this past week, a mother and daughter arriving at the airport to pick up an arriving passenger had an unfortunate run in with one of the training K-9 customs dogs. The Belgian Malinois, a normally friendly dog, apparently advanced on the scared child and bit her in the midsection, requiring a trip to the emergency room and 20 stitches.
Airports are unusual places. Every city of decent size has one, but they are rarely all that interesting. Each day, thousands of people move through these places, on their way too and from all manner of destinations, spending time browsing crappy little bookstores and consuming lousy food that would cost half as much elsewhere.
But sometimes, airports can be unusual for different reasons. Perhaps they’re located in odd places, or maybe they have some unusual feature or monument that makes them stand out. Popular Mechanics has compiled a list of the 18 strangest airports in the world, each of which meet those criteria and more.
The list includes airports large and small from all over the world and in a wide variety of settings. Some of the very unique airports that make the cut include Kansai International in Osaka Japan, which is famous for having been built on a man-made island and Congonhas Airport in Sao Paulo, Brazil, which sits just five miles from the very heart of that large and busy city. Other unusual places to take off and land include a runway made of ice in Antarctica and several that have you actually landing on a beach, proving that if we are determined to reach a destination, we’ll find a way to get there.
With 18 airports on the list, Popular Mechanics has done a fine job of highlighting some of the most unusual airports in the world. But did they miss any? What is the most unusual airport that you’ve ever been? As for myself, I’m looking forward to experiencing the airport in Lukla, Nepal in April. That airport is famous for it’s location, high in the Himalaya, with the landing strip running up the side of a mountain. Arriving and departing there is said to be scary and exhilarating all at the same time.
Be sure to check out the gallery below for some of the coolest airports in the world…
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…or watch the videos that demonstrate why these airports are soooo strange.
Courchevel International Airport
Courchevel, France
Princess Juliana International Airport
Simpson Bay, Saint Maarten
Juancho E. Yrausquin Airport
Saba, Netherlands Antilles
