mareeS55

Unintended consequence of how awful airports are now.-

We take a sleeping kit in our carry-on: for us as a couple, sarong as a groundsheet, two of my light pashminas as covers, tuck ourselves away in a corner of the boarding lounge and sleep between flights.

We would have horrified ourselves by doing that once upon a time, but airports are such shitful places now, with long delays and people sleeping all over the place, we just decided to get with the wisdom, grab some sleep next to a power socket if there's more than 3hrs between connections.

Have we become airport ferals, or are we the new normal?

needmorevacation

Do you *have* to sleep in the airport? I'm confused, it's not like you're talking about being stuck somewhere during a storm, but rather planning on sleeping on the floor if you have a planned 3hour layover.
Buy a pass to a lounge? Bring an iPad and watch a movie?
I guess I'd be confused seeing people sleeping on the floor of an airport in the middle of the day, just because they have a layover... Am I missing something?

mareeS55

When you fly in some time zones you get in at 2am and your flight goes out at 7am, and you have another connection at 10am,, sure, just buy a pass to a lounge on the company credit card (which happens to be mine).

sure, we could stay awake doing stuff on our iPads and Macs, working 24hrs, but sometimes sleep is nice when you are flying England to
Australia in 34hours with 5hrs and 3 hrs of transit time.

You certainly are missing something if you think people only have airport time in the middle of the day. I'm trying not to make assumptions that you only fly east Coast USA and trans-Atlantic.

needmorevacation

I've landed at all hours of the day, all over the world, but have yet to see hoardes of people sleeping on floors of airports unless there's some sort of big snowstorm/monsoon etc. So I'm just wondering where this is happening?

I recently had a 3hr layover in Doha, and even though I was exhausted, I didn't think of sleeping on the floor, nor did I see anyone doing so. Same with Dubai, landed at 11pm, next flight at 3am- got some food, walked around, watched a movie. Between the two airports I could count on one hand how many people I saw sleeping...none on the floor.
Why sleep when you have the ability to walk around/move- I'd rather save that for the flight!

Kathie

I assume you know about this website: www.sleepinginairports.net

If I know I'll be in an airport when I want/need to sleep, I'll do what I can to get a hotel or sleeping room in the airport. My upcoming Asian trip, I'm supposed to land in BKK about 1:30 am, then fly to Mandalay at noon. I'm rather pleased with the schedule, as we should be able to get some good sleep in that amount of time. It's much better than the usual into BKK at midnight, out again at 7 am., but even for that time I will get a room at the airport hotel if I can.

crellston

I have spent a lot of time in airports all over the world and just haven't experienced what you describe marees55. In fact quite the opposite.. I was thinking only othe other day.,how airport efficiency and comfort has improved markedly in recent years. Last wee we flew Melbourne, Sydney, KL, Hanoi and was very impressed with all the airports which dealt with the increasing throughput passengers wit remarkable efficiency.

I really don't see too many people sleeping in airports these days but when I do, I have to say it does ittitate me to see one person taking up 3-4 seats and will ask the to move if no more seats are abpvIlable.

Anyway shouldn't this be posted on the air travel forum?

filmwill

"...but airports are such shitful places now"

Nice language.

Be careful your plane doesn't crash. They fall out of the sky in Burma, as you well know.

Bring your switchblade just in case someone tries to steal your purse.

scdreamer

I saw an entire family of four "camping" at LAX a couple years ago. They were in a domestic terminal, and had a pop-up tent and sleeping sacks. As far as I know there were no untoward delays, certainly nothing weather related.

If I know I'm going to have a really long layover, I will spring for a lounge pass. Otherwise, I sometimes find myself dozing in a seat at the gate, but I wouldn't take up more than one seat. I agree ... those people who spread out over two or three seats to nap are annoying.

mareeS55

For further info: sleepinginairports.net