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SOUND ASLEEP
IN TRANSIT
Airports are providing nap time for the
weary in designer pods
with the latest being Finland
KARI
LUNDGREN & RICHARD WEISS Faced with a cross-continent
voyage
from their home in eastern Finland to a Turkish holiday resort,
Hanna
Nuutinen and husband Tuomo Hakkarainen were confronted
with
a common parenting quandary: how to fit in a nap. “Our daughter
will
soon turn three and we were thinking how do we handle this,“
Nuutinen,
a 32-year-old career adviser, said in an interview.
The
solution came in the form of Helsinki Airport's latest passenger
feature,
the designer sleeping pod the size of a large bath tub, complete
with
a blind to conceal the occupant, a charging point for phones and a
luggage
compartment under the cocoon's reclining seat.
With
more people transiting between flights on intercontinental trips,
their
bodyclocks often wildly out of sync with local time, a new range
of
air-side sleeping options has sprung up to offer guaranteed shuteye
from
as little as $10.
Helsinki,
where millions change plane each year en route between
Western
Europe and cities including Beijing, Seoul and Tokyo, last
month
became the third airport after Abu Dhabi and Dubai to install
GoSleep Pods, six foot by
two foot capsules in which the weary can
snooze
in lightand sound-proof comfort.
For
vacation-bound Nuutinen and Hakkarainen the pods offered the
isolation
needed to help their daughter Nea drop off for a half hour
while
they waited to board their flight.
“This
is part of developing as a hub,“ Heikki Koski, vice president
for
passenger management at Helsinki Airport-owner Finavia Oyj,
said
in an interview. “We have to serve those customers who simply
want
good access to the gates, travellers who want to shop, families
-and
people who need a nap.“
Crossroads
Products
such as the GoSleep Pod have matured beyond mere gimmicks
with
the rise of hubs whose business models revolve around attracting
transit
passengers. More than 80% of people using Dubai International
are
switching between flights after local carrier Emirates built its base
into
a crossroads for travel between Europe and the eastern US and Asia,
Africa,
Australia and other destinations in the Middle East.
In
Helsinki, some 2.5 million passengers used the airport to transit between
flights
in 2014, up 100,000 from a year earlier. Finnair Oyj has sought
to
boost its share of the lucrative long-haul travel market by encouraging
people
to choose its hub to connect with the shortest possible European
flights
to Northeast Asia.
Helsinki
is the world's third-best airport for catching a snooze air-side
of
the security barrier, according to the SleepingInAirports.com website.
Singapore
Changi and South Korea's Incheon International Airport are
ranked
one and two respectively while Vancouver, at fifth, is the only
North
American terminal in the top 10.
Refuge
From Delays
Following
a trial two years ago, Helsinki airport has 19 permanent pods
and
may add more depending on demand, Koski said. The capsules are
a
simpler and less costly alternative to the air-side hotels on offer at
some
other terminals, he said, while declining to comment on the
installation
expenses.
Typical
customers in Helsinki are transfer passengers who use the capsules
for
one to two hours between flights, or people faced with disruptions or
delays.
A handful of pods will come free through the spring to encourage
people
to experiment with them, with the rest costing 9 ($9.70) an hour.
Abu
Dhabi, the first airport to become a GoSleep client in 2014, provides
pod
users with a disposable headrest cover, pillows and a blanket while
eye
shades, earplugs and sleep socks available for an additional charge.
Snooze
Cubes, Napcabs
Other
hubs in Asia, Europe and the US are interested in the product, said
Jussi
Piispanen, its co-inventor, who reckons the company will install
between
500 and 1,000 this year. Before the capsules were available,
people
looking for a safe and secure rest between flights faced a choice
between
“expensive hotels or nothing at all,“ he said in an interview.
In
addition to its GoSleep pods, Dubai also offers 10 so called Snooze
Cubes,
which are larger at almost 8 feet by six feet and pitched as
“micro
hotel rooms.“ The boxes, made in New Zealand, are decorated with
Full
height photos of holiday destinations, with ceilings showing a blue sky
and
clouds.
At
Munich airport, ranked fourth for air-side snoozing by SleepingInAirports,
eight
containerlike “Napcab“ cabins with Wi-Fi and device charging are
available
in Terminal 2. With a swipe of a credit card users get two hours
of
rest for 30, with prices dropping between 10pm and 6am.
`Dead
Tired'
“Our
typical guest is just dead tired and not in a position to go anywhere
else,“
Napcabs spokesman Joerg Pohl said. Usage generally spans two or
three
hours during the day and five or six hours at night. Sixty percent of
clients
are travelling on business and most are transit passengers, though
the
cabins are popular during delays.
While
the comforts of bed have an obvious appeal to the travel-weary ,
airports
have competing priorities, with a sleeping passenger ultimately
of
less financial benefit to airport companies than a wide-awake one able
to
eat and shop. Even for a passenger, it's a benefit that may not outweigh
other
considerations, like the draw of a discounted ticket.
“It's
easier to travel with a child if there are proper places to have a nap,“
Nuutinen
said. “But these beds wouldn't determine our choice of airport.“
Bloomberg
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ET25APR15
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