Airport Annoyances

After a great start in an airport this morning I landed in Detroit later in the day. In many ways this is a nice airport. A single long terminal but there is a nice shuttle and lots of moving walkways. Also more and better food options than some places. But I had to pay for wi-fi and then there is the power situation.

I am sitting at my gate and there are as far as I can tell one pair of power sockets. Someone is laying in front of them while using both of them. She’s got one of those “leave me alone” faces on too. But I have a spare battery so I’m getting some work done anyway. I do wish I was plugged in though.

Airports should have more power outlets. MHT has added some recently BTW. And people who use limited sockets should really either limit themselves to one or use a power strip. I travel with a power strip BTW. If I want to plug in more than one thing in a public place I use it. It seems like the only reasonable thing to so.

Surprisingly few people seem to travel with power strips. They are always surprised when I pull mine out or suggest it as something to do. I would have thought it was an obvious thing to do these days. No?

3 Responses to “Airport Annoyances”

  1. Greg says:

    As a full time traveler for work, I can promise you, NOBODY has power outlets. When an airport DOES have an outlet, it’s such a scarse commodity that they’re highly coveted, with many people swatting around it.

    Entertaining tangent; While flying to Sweden, there was a mother/son with an iPod plugged into the wall socket… they left to get food or something, I unplugged their iPod, plugged in my laptop, and plugged their iPod into my laptop. She had a confused look on her face that was priceless the first second she came back, but then smiled and laughed.

    Power strips are too bulky to regularly bring with you though. They’re awesomely valuable, but too cumbersome. Not adequate return on the cost of lugging it around.

    I’d perfer to see a single power outlet on a plane though… that would be awesome.

  2. andrew says:

    One of the Chicago airports had an entire lounge section full of black leather(ish?) chairs that _each_ had their own set of outlets. It was awesome. I don’t know why more airports don’t follow that example.

  3. Matt says:

    This sounds like a perfect place for a power squid. Actually, one of those Y-splitters that splits a plug into three outlets would be good, too.

    Though you shouldn’t be the one bringing a power strip — why can’t airports provide them? It’s just electricity — branch a 20A circuit into a bunch of individual outlets.

    While flying to Sweden, there was a mother/son with an iPod plugged into the wall socket… they left to get food or something, I unplugged their iPod, plugged in my laptop, and plugged their iPod into my laptop. She had a confused look on her face that was priceless the first second she came back, but then smiled and laughed.

    The confused look was probably, “Why hasn’t our iPod been stolen after we left it unattended in an airport?,” not, “Why has that strange man plugged it into his laptop?”

    “One of the Chicago airports had an entire lounge section full of black leather(ish?) chairs that _each_ had their own set of outlets.”

    And would it be any different if the chairs were white? Err, nevermind. Maybe there is such a thing as being too PC. 😉

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