24 Hours in Airworld: Mall or Airport?
Travel Blog • Rob Verger • 06.09.09 | 11:21 PM ET
Photo by Rob VergerThe beat goes on here at T5. Last I checked—at around 10:20 pm—JetBlue still had about 15 more flights to get out tonight (delays were frequent today with the bad weather), and then the first flight out tomorrow morning is the 5:45 to Puerto Rico.
While delays may be bad for the traveler, they’re good for the restaurants in the terminal, including Deep Blue, where I ate a quick dinner of tasty but too-spicy Pad Thai followed by a big cup of green tea. (Anything to warm me up in this hostile, freezing environment.) I enjoyed sitting in the white and blue bar space there, looking out at the rest of the terminal as things began to wind down. From the shopping area here, as I mentioned before, it’s hard to tell you’re in an airport. (Although the people walking by pulling suitcases are something of a giveaway.)
Over at Ask the Pilot, Patrick Smith was somewhat critical of JetBlue’s new space, writing: “The central ticketing lobby—described in a press release as ‘lofty’ and ‘light-filled’—is an attractive, crescent-shaped edifice, but too low-slung for any real grandeur. The rest of the interior looks, feels, sounds and smells like a shopping mall. For years the distinction between airport and mall has been steadily blurring, and now JetBlue has pretty much closed the gap.”
He has a point about the shopping-mall vibe, but I have to say that I don’t care. Earlier today I camped out for a while on a comfortable leather chair at the far end of the eastern concourse, in front of floor-to-ceiling windows looking out at the airfield. At one point, a British Airways 747 lumbered by. A young boy played nearby, jumping on the couches, occasionally commenting on the planes. We were far from the shopping mall feeling then and there, as the boy skipped around, playing as he waited, while most of the adults nearby tried to rest, hoping to get where they were going soon.
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Rob Verger is a frequent contributor to World Hum and the site's former air travel blogger. His articles and photographs have appeared in the Boston Globe and other publications, and he's a former undergraduate writing instructor at Columbia University. If you like, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or follow him on Twitter.
tharanga 06.10.09 | 12:48 AM ET
Mr. Smith has seen far more airports than I ever will, but I didn’t think T5 was extraordinarily mall-like. I think that trend started at Pittsburgh, but now it’s pretty much to be expected. Deep Blue was in the previous Terminal 6, as well. Pretty tasty.
Did you get a chance to try the laptop charging stations with the food-ordering screens? I hadn’t seen anybody order any food the couple times I’ve passed through, and am curious to know how they work.
Rob Verger 06.10.09 | 7:10 AM ET
Hi tharanga,
I’m sitting at one of those food-ordering stations right now, typing away on my laptop as it charges, but can’t say I’ve tried ordering food this way. I actually find these screens kind of annoying, because this is a nice place to type, but the screens are constantly flashing some pretty distracting adds. But other than that, it’s a nice place to work.