3M wants to feed you and give you a nice shoulder rub

by Scott Carmichael on

Travelers passing through Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson airport on November 25th and 26th will be able to get some soothing pampering, courtesy of 3M (yeah, the Post-It people).

As part of a promotion for their laptop privacy screens, 3M has created a site dedicated to revealing airport secrets.

Airporthavens.com has some fantastic tips, including where to find some free desktop workstations at Miami International, or a hidden lounge at LAX. Visitors can even submit their own hidden airport tips.

The 3M Airport Haven lounge will be open from 8am to 5pm, and you’ll be able to locate it on the 3rd floor of the Atrium at the Atlanta Airport Executive Conference Center. The lounge will feature free Wi-Fi, snacks, beverages and of course, free massages.

I can’t think of a better way to start the crazy travel season than a nice soothing massage and a cold beverage. Can you?

Guns Still Not Allowed in Atlanta Airport

by Josh Lew on

A gun-rights organization called GeorgiaCarry has lost their suit against Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Airport. A recently passed state law allows licensed gun owners to carry their weapons on public transportation. The group went into court claiming that airports are “public transportation” areas as defined in the law.

GeorgiaCarry did not want the right to carry guns on airplanes. They simply wanted to be able to carry in non-secure parts of the airport like parking lots, baggage claim areas, and any other space that can be accessed without passing through airport security checkpoints.

Georgia Republican Governor Sonny Perdue claimed that his wife might want to pack heat as she walked from the parking lot to the terminal. (It was not clear why she would need to walk from the parking lot instead of being dropped off curbside in the governor’s limo).

Fortunately, there is no need to don your Kevlar vest if you are flying into or out of Hartsfield-Jackson. A district judge shot down GeorgiaCarry’s case, saying that allowing firearms inside airport grounds would be a significant risk to public safety.

Some state politicians and gun-rights groups vow to continue to press forward.

Atlanta airport nation’s busiest

by Justin Glow on

The results are in: for the third year in a row, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport is the busiest (in terms of flights) in the United States. How many flights do you need to log to become the busiest in the nation? Lots.

“The Atlanta airport logged 994,466 flights in 2007, up 1.8 percent from 976,447 flights in 2006,” according to the Federal Aviation Administration. “Its rival, Chicago O’Hare International Airport, was listed second busiest, with 935,000 flights in 2007.”

Atlanta’s airport was also the busiest in terms of passengers (as of 2006, the most recent year with available data) with 41.35 million travelers bouncing around its terminals.

The heavy load can be blamed on a mixture of two things, a spokesman for AirTran said. “… you have the world’s largest hub in Delta‘s Atlanta hub. AirTran operates the world’s largest low-cost carrier hub.”