Game of Thrones: The world’s best airport bathrooms
As a measure of passenger experience, the airport toilet makes a pretty compelling metric. While not necessarily intentional works of modern art, like Haneda’s Gallery TOTO for example, these airport restrooms prove that relieving is believing.
An airport can be partly measured by its restrooms, which can be designed to encompass comfort, service, ambience and even entertainment. Those restrooms, in turn, can be measured by many different things, depending on what’s more important (or urgent) for the traveler.
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Airports add local restaurants for fliers seeking unique fare
More and more, airports are focused on bringing local eateries into their terminals. Once almost the exclusive province of restaurant chains, airports are reflecting the culture and flavor of their localities.
“The airport is really the doorstep of the community,” says Rick Blatstein, CEO of OTG, which develops, owns and operates restaurants in 11 airports. “And we think it’s important to connect with the local tastes, flavors … really the whole local vibe.”
Michael Lomonaco, of Manhattan’s Porter House restaurant, is the consulting chef at the Prime Tavern steakhouse in LaGuardia Airport’s Terminal D. Passengers passing through Atlanta’s Hartsfield Jackson International Airport can get a taste of southern barbecue at Mustard Seed, which opened in February and smokes its own meat inside its airport location.
Fliers can have breakfast all day long at Boise Airport’s Big City Coffee, an outpost of a popular local restaurant, or regional fare and local craft beers at Bardenay, another Idaho eatery with an airport outlet.
And Los Angeles’ famous Farmers Market has opened a second location in LAX’s Terminal 5, incorporating local ingredients into airport bites.
Understanding the DOJ’s Airlines Antitrust Investigation
This article takes a lawyer’s look at the current investigations by the Department of Justice (DOJ) against the airlines for collusion. The big question will be whether one airline will admit liability and bring the entire industry down. Or, will the investigation be expanded to more illegal alignment within the industry. In any case, it will be costly.
The four carriers currently control approximately 80 percent of the domestic airline market. While nobody has pointed to any actual evidence of collusion among the airlines, consumer advocacy groups and lawmakers like Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Connecticut, have sounded the antitrust alarm. They point to this consolidation of market power combined with recent record profits as a sign that something must be amiss. Their suspicions are magnified because it seems like the plunge in jet fuel prices this year should have resulted in a corresponding drop in ticket prices, but exactly the opposite has occurred.
DOJ has requested that the airlines produce documents and communications between carriers (and to stockholders and research analysts) about their plans for flight capacity. Specifically, the department requested documents demonstrating “the need for, or the desirability of, capacity reductions or growth limitations by the company or any other airline.”
The agency also has requested regional reports of the airlines’ monthly capacities dating back to 2010. Though the four airlines are currently at the center of the probe, the investigation could have larger ramifications for the rest of the industry as more information is revealed. Indeed, Schumer’s request that DOJ also look into some airlines’ practice of not allowing third-party websites to sell their tickets may indicate that a more expansive investigation is on the horizon.
Charlie Leocha is the President of Travelers United. He has been working in Washington, DC, for the past 14 years with Congress, the Department of Transportation, and industry stakeholders on travel issues. He was the first consumer representative to the Advisory Committee for Aviation Consumer Protections appointed by the Secretary of Transportation from 2012 through 2018.