Category Archives for Airports.
The TSA has relaxed its liquid ban to allow up passengers to bring up to 12 ounces of hand sanitizer through security checkpoints, rather than the 3.4 ounces they typically permit.
Of course the larger limit for hand sanitizer calls into question why other liquids remain limited.
Last fall LAX banned taxis and ridesharing services from picking up passengers curbside. Passengers were bused to an off airport lot where they’d meet their ride. (The lot is actually an easy walk from the Southwest terminal 1.)
Initially after banning curbside pickups chaos ensued but after enlarging the lot and getting better signage the process wound up being merely inconvenient.
The TSA responded to one of my tweets, divulging personal information about me, and it’s a reminder of how much freedom we’ve given up in the name of a false sense of security.
In 1989 David Hasselhof stood atop the Berlin Wall belting out “Looking for Freedom.” Less than a year later East Germans were finally free.
Thirty one years after David Hasselhof stood between East and West Berlin the East’s old airport may finally be freed as the new Berlin Brandenburg airport, replacing Berlin Tegel. It’s a costly reminder of East German-style planning.
It turns out that the quarantine system that’s set up for arriving passengers from China has a loophole: not starting the air portion of the trip on the mainland and transiting an airport with U.S. immigration pre-clearance.
Los Angeles is is considering letting people who take public transit to the airport have priority security. This isn’t PreCheck or CLEAR, just priority line access for the regular security queue, and follows a program at Boston Logan for people who take a shuttle bus or ferry to the airport.
Priority security isn’t actually free, in other words it isn’t costless. “When everybody’s priority, nobody is.” Grant everyone priority and they’re behind everyone else who is also priority that got there first.
Students at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York all chipped in to buy an airline ticket they didn’t intend to use, just so one member of the group could get past security at the Albany airport. The group decided they all wanted Chick-fil-A but outside of the airport location the nearest one was an hour and a half’s drive away.
Instead of making a three hour roundtrip, 18 members of the school’s cross country and track and field teams chipped in $5.50 apiece for a $98 one-way from Albany to Fort Lauderdale, the cheapest fare they could find at the last minute. They sent team captain Vincent Putrino to the airport.
Wouldn’t it be great to pick up pre-ordered food nearby the lounge you’re headed to and get a discount on the meal?
Bringing more airport vendors on the platform means better customer data – with a broader view and greater understanding of each customer, in order to better tailor offers that move the needle on sales – and cross-marketing to existing customers.
Milwaukee airport’s security manager has been fired after falling for a scam, buying gift cards and sending them to someone in Saudi Arabia posing as her boss.
She’s the security director and she’s not careful dealing with online scammers. That’s not a good look, and she was let go for “substandard or careless job performance.” However what she ran into is very common and part of a multi-billion dollar scam that I’ve run into many times over the past three years.
Airport food locations aren’t actually run by the restaurant names you know. Restaurants will license the concept, and collaborate on menus, with concessions companies like HMS Host, Delaware North, and OTG.
HMS Host had an exclusive deal to offer Starbucks in U.S. airports since 1991. We learned last week that this exclusive deal is over, though existing Starbucks locations should remain in airports through the duration of the HMS Host-airport contract at least.
Here’s what’s next for Starbucks in airports. Hint: it may involve iPads.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
