Maria of Crooked Timber asks a question:
Here are the things most people would happily pay for at an international transit airport: – a shower – clean underwear (for those of us who habitually forget to pack it) – daylight – an exercise facility to help with the jetlag and minimise DVT – nutritious but not too heavy food – a nap, lying flat, somewhere quiet.And here’s what is generally available: – Gucci – Chanel – l’Occitane – Bodyshop – Lacoste – Nike – a few plastic seats – McDonalds, dougnuts, and the local variety of fried, sugary dross to add a sugar hangover to your jetlag.
. . .
So why the complete mismatch of trapped and exhausted consumers to luxury goods? Surely the airports have woken up to the fact that travelling is mass market. Or are travellers such a captive market that airports can completely ignore what they actually want…?
My answer: in an airport, foot traffic is very high, and space is at a premium. So you should expect to see things that go at a very high volume (McDonalds) or things that are very expensive per-inch-of-display-space, such as Gucci. Showers and napping capsules do not meet either criteria.
I don't know if I agree. Shower stalls wouldn't take that much space, and you would pay by the minute (or in 5 minute blocks or whatever.) That would keep things moving along and increase volume.
Now here's what they really have to come up with: instead of a store where you by CDs (or in addition to), iTunes or similar stores where you can dock your iPod or other MP3 player and purchase an album. It'd do gangbusters.
The thing that I've never particularly understood is how almost every little airport drugstore seems to have lots of those neck pillows, but sleep masks seem to be nearly impossible to find. (And not all airplanes have them.)
Airports are classic over-optimized economic spaces, like the aircraft that they host. One can be blindfolded in almost any modern airport, then transported to a random airport of similar vintage, and after the blindfold is removed, you will have no idea of where you are. All of Terminalstan is environmentally contiguous. This destruction of place is a supreme achievement of economics and "efficiency" untethered from culture and geography.
The market reduces everything it can to numbers, and ignores what cannot be so reduced. This leads to countless violations of spiritual comfort. It is the tragic blindness of modern economics that it will not consider anything of value that it cannot measure.
While a dozen people might prefer healthy food to donuts and McDonalds, they probably want a dozen different kinds of healthy food. If 4 of them will settle for McDonalds or donuts, you please those 4.
Doesn't the behind-the-gates section of a international airport usually have duty-free shops? I'm guessing that would be a pretty strong incentive for retail shops that sell relatively expensive goods.
As for the food, I generally find that there is some lighter stuff around, normally salads and veggie wraps and such, but not as much as there is heavier fast food. I'm guessing it's largely driven by prep time concerns; it's hard to make something healthy, light, and tasty that can be whipped up in a few seconds or keeps well in the fridge all day.
Showers and napping capsules do not meet either criteria.
Also, while one might happily pay to be home taking a shower in one's own bathroom, the reality of a JFK or HKG public shower probably would be less appealing than just waiting another few hours to get home or to your hotel. Or even a sponge bath in the airplane bathroom.
HH We get what we deserve...?
Some rich shop at Gucci and lounge in the VIP area but are not necessarily happier than the kid who has saved months to fly to Hawaii or spring break and who sits at McDonald's (while causing more environmental damage than the rich)...
Some just have coffee or they have brought their own food.. Me - personally am eternally grateful to the banana and that it can be found anywhere (and some alcohol, in moderation and although it does not help the jet-lag) Airplane food is a mystery to anybody anyway..
But look at it this way - even the economy class has flat screens and on demand programs.. something most do not find at home..?
What is you solution again HH?
Personally, I wouldn't use an airport sleeping or showering facility. I only use the bathrooms when I have to and try not to think about the seats when I use them. Food is going to be biased towards franchises as they will be familiar. While it would be neat to have local restaurants in every airport, the fact is that most people prefer the familiar.
The stores I've seen tend towards selling small expensive things or travel-related things. That makes sense to me.
EI
HH,
Are you familiar with the idea of utility? It's this concept that economists created for representing the intangible aspects of well-being. It cannot be directly measured, but inferences about it can be made by people's stated and revealed (by their actions) preferences.
Also, you seem to blur the distinction between actual economic activity and the study of economics.
As for reducing things to numbers, it is a necessary requisite of any empirical discipline. All sciences (including economics and the other social sciences) need objectively observable quantitative data in order to empirically confirm hypotheses.
As for the food, I generally find that there is some lighter stuff around, normally salads and veggie wraps and such, but not as much as there is heavier fast food.
Another wrinkle: the independent cafe can't resist marking prices way, way up while the junk food chain has to show some restraint because a) customers have clearer expectations of what a Whopper or donut should cost and b) they'll transfer their resentments to all the other stores in that chain.
So you get Whoppers that cost 20% over the usual price and $9 tuna sandwiches with no lettuce.
Airport bathrooms are bad enough. Open up airport showers and we'll never get a quorom in the Senate.
Uh, no, HH, the market considers anything that people express a preference for with their behavior. Thus, if there are enough people who share your view about what conveys spiritual comfort, and share your view about the importance of spiritual comfort, and then act on those views, then you will quite likely be provided with what your prefer.
It sounds like your beef is with the fact that there really all that many people who truly share your preferences. Happens to me all the time. Life's a bitch sometimes that way, ain't it? Damned people! Why won't they just comform to my preferences!
Pretty good, Njorl.....
Changi Airport in Singapore has a hotel that rents pleasant, though windowless, rooms in short increments -- I can't remember the shortest but it's 5 hours or less. On a Hanoi-Singapore-Amsterdam flight with 2 young kids, the opportunity to lie down in a hotel bed with the kids, read them a story, and take a nap for a few hours is easily worth 40 or 50 bucks. (It's a lot cheaper than upgrading your flight class.)
You can take a shower at the airport hotel in a lot of airports, for less than 10 dollars. I know this is available in Amsterdam and Singapore, and I think it's also available in Hong Kong and the new Bangkok airport.
That new Bangkok airport has a number of sleeper lounges with big puffy couches, for free.
One solution to the airport retail item supply/demand mismatch would be to have deregulated bazaar space awarded by rotating lottery drawings to local merchants in airport waiting areas, with only non-chain businesses allowed in the bazaar. At least this would give travelers some notion of where in the world they are.
Another solution would be to survey the airport travelers for most desired unavailable items at the retailers, then require that the most frequently missed items be carried in some of the shops as a condition of obtaining the retail space.
Both of these measures would operate against the "efficiency" arguments of airport retailers trying to squeeze as many bucks as possible out of every square foot of retail space.
This is an important equation for Libertarians to understand:
(Maximum business profitability) NOT = (Maximum human welfare)
"really aren't all that many people....", of course. Sheesh, I'm a crappy typist.
Generally if you are traveling within the U.S., you don't have enough time between flights to use a shower or bed. There are times, though, when the bed would have been nice. The shower, however, is generally only needed if your flight has been cancelled and you have to camp out at the airport until you can catch a different flight. So I suspect that the demand is just not there.
International travel is a whole 'nother issue.
HH, I suspect that you and I might share some of the same prefrences, but I must tell you, I think you entirely overestimate the degree to which our prefences are common. Many, many, many people actually prefer the generic experiences you decry.
All of Terminalstan is environmentally contiguous. This destruction of place is a supreme achievement of economics and "efficiency" untethered from culture and geography.
What's this got to do with the original complaint/question? Is a "Terminalstan" with shower stalls and exercise bikes somehow less "environmentally contiguous" than one with Gucci and McDonalds franchises?
How much local culture do you expect to soak up in an international airport??
Many of these things *are* in fact available at the "President's Club" or "Admiral's Club", and we do pay through the nose for them. This price ($300 a year for President's Club) presumably includes the cost of keeping the bathrooms and showers clean.
Either the WSJ or the Sun had an article on this today.
HH: Has it ever occurred to you that maybe people WANT generic food and other consumer items?
Human welfare is not 'decreased' because local businesses don't operate and local cultures aren't emphasized at the airport (which isn't even necessarily true, many airports have stores or restaurants that try to tie-in to a local feature, and many airports are basically gigantic advertisements for places in the city outside).
In any case, people are more likely to get what they want if they eat at places that serve food they're familiar with. Yes, McDonalds may not be the best food for human welfare when compared with some local farm, but there's only a guaranteed improvement in human welfare if you assume local food is healthier than airport food (Also a false assumption. Airports have non-fast-food restaurants, and local food cuisine could also be famous for deep-frying).
International (and even national) airports have to accommodate people from all over the world. Choosing 'generic' chains that everybody is familiar with is a good option for catering to the preferences of the largest number of people. All people have to do to experience more local culture than the airport provides is, you know, leave the airport.
Talking about airport showers right after the Senator Craig scandal...
"Many, many, many people actually prefer the generic experiences you decry."
Will: For the most part, I would agree with you. Perhaps the problem is that people would prefer a slightly different/better generic experience that would include not fried, fresher vegetables, etc. For example, I don't believe that In-And-Out is available in LAX. IMO, that'd get a lot more business than McD's. Panera/Au Bon Pain equivalents do brisk business in most airports that I've seen. If there's Au Bon Pain on the Ohio Turnpike, it should be available anywhere. (Dunno if ABP counts as healthy for Maria.)
How about surveying travelers to find out what they want and then just publishing the results. Stores might just use the list to select their inventory.
If items on the list just aren't cost effective to provide, then forcing vendors to carry them (either at extra high prices or at forced loss-generating low prices) would result in higher prices for other goods (or MORE price controls and even lower profits).
EI
Uh, no, HH, the market considers anything that people express a preference for with their behavior.
Well, there's not really an efficient market in airports themselves. Charlotte/Douglas, for example, suffers from the generic Business! ambiance he complains about, and which I also find lacking compared to a more local atmosphere. But what am I going to do, fly to Raleigh-Durham instead? Tell my boss we need to find a partner located near a nicer airport? Quit my job?
True, we can at least conclude that this isn't sufficiently important to enough people that they're willing to overcome those barriers. (It may not be important at all to anyone but me and HH, for all I know, and frankly it's not all that important to me.)
John Perry Barlow called it "Generica," a nation of franchises swarming over all known geography, spreading dubious products into every available market.
Consider Krispy Kreme, a donut so deadly that a single exposure could induce heart failure in an adult. Who knew, before the wizards of Wall Street valued this phenomenal chain, that the world had a vast, unsatisfied craving for the least healthy food imaginable? But the genius of the marketplace makes Krispy Kremes available globally.
You see, it is very profitable to encourage people to eat huge quantities of sugar and fat, and to make them feel happy about doing it. This is just GOOD BUSINESS! The more Krispy Kremes people eat, the more money the business makes. Therefore, the company will actively encourage the public to eat as many of these donuts as possible. That's just GOOD BUSINESS!
>>
it is the Australian Krispy Kreme at Sydnewy Airport that has caused plane delays as people queue to deliver doughnuts around the country after work, or as a gift of goodwill from or to a holiday destination.
http://www.feelinfoodie.com/archives/2006/06/krispy_kreme_sydney_airport.html
"with only non-chain businesses allowed in the bazaar"
As somebody who travels for a living, and has since before the advent of chain restaurants in aiports, I have to say this proposal is insane. The standardization and pricing of fast-food chains in airports has been a Godsend compared to the obscenely expensive low quality crap we had before that. Also, when you're traveling, dealing with a known quantity has considerably more value than when you're at home and have the time and opportunity to recover from a bad meal.
That said, I don't understand the lack of "regular" food in airports. I suspect in any major connecting hub, a Boston Market outlet could charge 20 bucks or more for it's basic combo and would still have the longest line in the building.
As I suspected HH, you're just mad that people are eating stuff that they want to, instead of what you want them to.
JSinger, I don't like it either, and I respond by hardly ever buying stuff at airports. Unfortunately, the vast majority of folks don't share my extreme distaste, and thus the status quo prevails. Them's the breaks.
I'll say that for myself, a McDonald's is precisely what I want when I'm taking a long plane trip. I have the exactly opposite problem most of the time: I can find lots of healthy places selling sandwiches and wraps and stuff, but nowhere where I can get a quick, large pile of fatty calories to keep me full for the rest of the flight. (I'm unusual in that a sandwich won't keep me full; I go to McDonald's because it's disgustingly fatty and unhealthy and thus will actually keep me sated for the entire plane flight). But I've been known to wander around a terminal, saying to myself, "Sandwiches, subway, sit-down restaurant, sandwiches...isn't there a fast-food chain somewhere in here?"
I travelled non-Cattle Class for the first time recently. We got to use the Business Class lounge - bliss. The biggest single advantage over cattle class was - no bloody pop music blaring at us.
So nobody is thrilled with my iPod-loading store idea?
"I go to McDonald's because it's disgustingly fatty and unhealthy and thus will actually keep me sated for the entire plane flight)."
-- Jadagul
"We are producing an increasing number of useful goods and services for increasingly useless people." -- Ivan Illich
Let us rally around the valiant banner of consumer freedom! People want less healthy food, and evil socialists are conspiring to keep it away from them. Only the brave engineers of Generica can save the fat-deprived and sugar-starved citizens of the world from the treacherous creeping assault of bean sprouts and tofu.
Obviously, the world craves more and more unhealthy food. This universal desire for bad nutrition can no longer be shackled by nanny states. In the brave new world of Globalization, where all politicians can be rented or leased, corporations are free to serve the most habit forming concoctions of sugar and fat that science can devise. THE PEOPLE DEMAND IT!
Ask not if your food can be more healthy; ask if it can be more profitable for the vendor!
Freddie: Actually, that is an amazing idea. I always hate it when I go to buy CDs and then just sit on the train/subway reading the liner notes in anticipation until I get home and upload it.
You really hate it that people just won't do what you tell them to, don't you HH?
I took a shower at Tegel in Berlin (early 90's). It was cheap and much appreciated after an all night train and lugging about 100 pounds of luggage through a couple of S-Bahn stations (escalators turned off of course).
What Mindles Dreck said. Also, beds are quite readily available at the Airport Radisson or whatever. They're not free, but they're much cheaper than the beds at the Four Seasons in town. I think, however, that Maria wants all this stuff for free. Also, she'd be the first to object if there were beds and (i) she wanted to use them for sexual hijinks and was prohibited or (ii) she wanted to sleep and the people next to her were engaged in sexual hijinks.
Truck stops frequently have showers for rent. They tend to be open, group showers, no privacy. But lots of hot water and lockers. Years ago, major train stations had showers. This sounds like a great idea.
Should we tell HH that Krispy Kreme is losing money hand over fist?
I guess that's to be expected if you make a product that will kill an adult with a single dose. Those must be tasty donuts!
Why, I've got a Krispy Kreme right here. It won't kill me, it's so tas;;ldsfka jdsafohd sah
It's not very common in the US, but the Star Alliance lounges at most large European airports have both showers and places to sleep. The Air Canada lounge in Heathrow has showers, and will even press your clothing for you while you shower, which is perfect if you've just stepped off the red-eye from Vancouver.
In Frankfurt there are these incredibly cool showers which basically disinfect themselves behind you, much like those toilet seats that clean themselves.
Other 'alliance' lounges probably do as well, but my Air Canada status doesn't work with them... I think you can pay to get in anyway.
I could use some good shower head at Boysie International.
The major international airport that HAS all of the things that you think an airport should have is Changi airport in (directioniste) Singapore. Probably the best transfer airport in the world -- it has mini parks (with sunlight and synthetic birdsong) in the terminals. Showers, gyms, and hotel rooms inside security (unfortunately, the hotels are usually full). Movie theaters, play areas for kids.
Of course, since they can change planes someplace pleasant, more people fly Singapore, which therefore benefits all of the businesses in the airport.
Another testimony to the power of enlightened planning to improve everybody's quality of life compared to pure laissez faire.
What do you think happens if you try to proposition someone in the shower at Changi Airport? Maria and Megan would both have conniptions. In liberated countries, unfortunately, it's impossible to have public showers for that very reason. People like Maria and Megan have, alas, destroyed the village in order to save it.
If you tried to proposition someone in the shower at Changi Airport, you would find yourself hauled out of the bathroom in no short order by Singaporean rangers carrying subautomatic weapons. In fact, it sometimes seems to me that you might get hauled out by security forces for using too many paper towels in the bathrooms at Changi Airport. Singapore has probably the most aggressive attitudes towards official enforcement of public comportment of anyplace I've ever been, and it's not exactly gay-friendly, recent concessions by the Minister-Mentor notwithstanding.
That said, it's also a really nice city. And clean!
Also, Chris: the things you say about Changi are mostly true (though, having been built before recent high-ceilinged large-window trends in airport design, it's also rather stuffy and mall-ish). But over the last 3+ years of flying through there, I've noticed that the space devoted to playground areas for kids has shrunk. I fear this may be an absolutely classic tragedy-of-the-commons issue: while parents see the playgrounds as the number one attraction of that airport, and other passengers benefit as well (fewer screaming kids, and concentration of same into one avoidable area), there is no revenue stream produced and perhaps no organized interest on the ground in that location fighting to defend that resource against commercial use of the same space.
On the other hand, Singapore has a very strong sense of the public good in governance and design, and I think that may counterbalance these problems. Also, like many Asian societies, they're very child-friendly.
Consider Krispy Kreme, a donut so deadly that a single exposure could induce heart failure in an adult. Who knew, before the wizards of Wall Street valued this phenomenal chain, that the world had a vast, unsatisfied craving for the least healthy food imaginable? But the genius of the marketplace makes Krispy Kremes available globally.
Probably anyone who studied cookery books?
"Lets add fat" is the second-most basic idea in cooking (the first being "if we heat it lots it gets a lot easier to chew"). Bread and butter (and of course bread is roughly grain+water+fat in the first place), potatoes mashed with butter or milk, curries using coconut cream, roasted vegetables (in fat), gravy (let's use the fat that ran off the meat while heating it), salad dressings, frying in batter.
Sugar was historically more difficult to obtain, with the main source being honey, so it's not such a basic idea in cooking, but it's pretty darn common. Cream-filled donuts with sugar dusting were around long before Krispy Kremes. The French were making extravagent desserts out of fat and sugar while the Americans were busy having goldrushes. And of course cakes are a combination of grains, water, sugar and fat.
I don't know if you knew all this before the discovery of Krispy Kreme, but it certainly isn't secret knowledge.
Consider Heroin, a drug so deadly that a single overdose can kill within seconds. Who knew, before the independent businessmen of the drug trade developed this potent drug, that there was a vast, unsatisfied craving for the most devastatingly addictive drug of all time? But the genius of the marketplace provides Heroin to all who demand it. It's just GOOD BUSINESS.
You see how easy it is to represent businessmen as loyal servants of customer demand? Try it with any pernicous product - it works just the same.
Try it with any pernicous product
I think that you might be surprised by how few people would agree with you that donuts are "pernicious"
Also, I think you might need to chill out a little bit if you are seriously comparing donuts to heroin.
HH, so what do you recommend? Putting someone in charge of deciding what the market place is allowed to provide? Fat is unhealthy, so let's ban it? Sugar is unhealthy, so let's ban it? How about having the UN form a UN Office of Healthy Food that goes around and makes sure that everyone is eating healthy food...
I'm okay with that as long as I'm the person who gets to decide what's okay to provide and what's not. I don't want anyone else deciding for me.
The government already does that to some extent (drugs) but with your Krispy Kreme comment you are recommending a ban on basic food staples. Isn't that a bit silly?
EI
HH, I actually agree with a lot of what you consider to be the problem. The realy issue, as with most policy makers, is not in their assessment of the problem but the conclusions that they get completely wrong.
Rather than require all of mankind to line up and do what you say, in the vast majority of cases I'd prefer to educate mankind, allow them to excerise their free will and choose for themselves.
Learning to control your passions and habits is crucial if you want to be a success at life (and I don't mean financial success, although that could be part of it)
"Who knew, before the independent businessmen of the drug trade developed this potent drug,..". Oh bollocks: it was developed as a pain-killer by Bayer.
All of Terminalstan is environmentally contiguous.
Which is what you should expect to see if terminal design has reached a local optimum and cannot easily be improved.
Who are you complaining about?
The theme the Libertarians are desperate to avoid in this discussion is predation. The marketers at Krispy Kreme know just as well as the heroin pushers that excessive consumption of their product is harmful to society. Yet they persist in maximizing revenue. That is what the market god demands.
Thought experiment: a junior staffer at a Krispy Kreme product strategy meeting proposes that the company print and post large-type nutritional content advisories at all of its retail outlets. Are you laughing yet?
Guns, tobacco, alcohol, heroin, donuts: it's all the same. Not the same kind and quantity of harm, but the very same logic of predation - the conscious decision to harm others so as to improve the profitability of a business.
This is the gaping hole in the Libertarian ideology. A predator society is an uncivilized society.
If heroin is not much more dangerous than donuts I propose to have it legalised now.
Try re-reading the following sentence describing the predatory character of profiting from perniciously oversold products:
Guns, tobacco, alcohol, heroin, donuts: it's all the same; NOT THE SAME KIND AND QUALITY OF HARM, but the very same LOGIC OF PREDATION - the CONSCIOUS DECISION TO HARM OTHERS so as to improve the profitability of a business.
Airport bathrooms are bad enough. Open up airport showers and we'll never get a quorom in the Senate.
Posted by Njorl
You say that like it's a bad thing.
I realize I'm late the the party, but I have to say, Krispy Kreme is the closest thing to perfect pastry goodness. To besmirch its good name is just wrong.
I say this as a lifelong customer of the company. I go, I have a donut and a glass of milk and savor every bite. I have yet to have any Krispy Kreme employee harass me into stuffing myself with a dozen donuts in one sitting, or harass me with ceaseless advertising.
I am sad that the fAtkins craze + over-expansion has dampened the company's success.
HH, I think you need to relax and go have a hot Krispy Kreme, really.