Paris Airports Help Passengers Groove

by Josh Lew on

A service at Paris area airports will have people dancing in the terminals. Literally.

As a special summer promotion provided by Aeroports de Paris, dance classes will be offered to passengers before they hop, or samba, onto their flight. Call it France‘s version of the reality hit So You Think You Can Dance. Styles include tango, salsa, modern jazz, and mambo. There is even instruction in hip hop and rock and roll.

You are imagining a teacher wearing a leotard and leg-warmers prancing around Charles De Gaulle critiquing each step that students take, aren’t you? It’s not quite like that. Passengers are given a set of headphones on which instructions and music are played. They are pretty much on their own after that. The classes run for about 15 minutes and are only offered during weekend daytime hours.

According to airport authorities, over 4,000 people have used the service since it began at the end of June. No word yet on whether these ground-breakers participated willingly or not.

Are in-terminal dance classes the wave of the future? Or is it simply a ploy to get people talking about something besides how high oil prices are making air travel so damned expensive?

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Are Airport Terminals Actually Becoming Somewhat Enjoyable?!?!?

by Neil Woodburn on

As the amount of time spent by passengers waiting in airports increases–up to 108 minutes on average–airports are starting to do something about it. No, they aren’t working harder to decrease the wait time, but they are trying to make it more tolerable. In fact, some are actually making it enjoyable.

Making money off of bored, restless passengers was once the sole domain of duty frees and expensive eateries. But now, an increasing number of attractive alternatives are popping up in airports across the globe. In fact, some retailers and concessionaires are fighting over each other for what is increasingly becoming prime real estate according to journalist Peter Pae’s LA Times piece, Flight delayed again — that feels good.

Plan things right, and your three hour layover could include wine tasting, pedicures, massages, haircuts, manicures, surfing the web, renting DVD players and a movie, and even sleeping in mini pod hotels. Or, of course, you can just wander through duty free shopping for things you don’t really need.

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