September 26, 2018 • 48 mins
Which airport should you hang out at if you want to meet a mini-horse? Why is the art in the Denver Airport so evil? And are TSA agents more likely to search you if you're carrying an Almanac? Will and Mango investigate.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
I guess what, mango, what's that will? So I know
you and I both fly a lot, and if there's
one thing I definitely know about you, it's that you
love flying, right because I just have the best travel
luck in the world, right, you know. I don't know
if this is something we've mentioned on the show, but
it's actually pretty baffling to me, like how bad your
travel luck has been over the years. Like there are
(00:23):
times you'll be flying out of Chicago or something and
then I'll check in with you just to see if
you've made it home, and you'll say something like I'm
in Milwaukee. It's a long story, and I don't know
anybody that can pull that off in the way that
you do. Or there was even the time we were
flying out of Cleveland at the same time. Both of
us were there, we were on different sides of the airport. Now,
(00:43):
somehow my flight took off and on the other side
of the airport they told you're plane that the airport
was closing down because of the wind, I think, which
is a true story, like that really happened. In fact,
sometimes when you are righting me to see where I am,
I don't even want to respond. Yes, as long as
it's entertaining for others. Oh, it definitely is entertaining. But
(01:04):
you know, I was thinking about the fact that you
and I are most often traveling solo and for work purposes.
And you know, it's funny how when you do something
so frequently, it's pretty easy just to go through the
motions not really think about what's going on around you.
And you know, part of that maybe because half the time,
I know, I'm flying at such a crazy early hour,
and I'm I'm kind of half asleep when I'm there.
(01:25):
But as you know, last week, Georgia and I flew
up to Toronto so that I could officiate a wedding
because apparently that's what I do now, and it's been
nice to hear from some listeners. I guess you made
the offer that I could officiate other weddings, and so
I'm trying to decide whether I want to sign on
to do this or not. But you know, we had
a bit more time than usual in the Atlanta airport,
(01:47):
so we spent a little time walking around, and when
you're not rushing to your next flight, spending time in
the country's busiest airport actually makes for some pretty fantastic
people watching, and so know, we spend time looking out
the window as those luggage cars rushed around in between
the terminals. We watched people run off the trains to
their next flights, and then a couple of times we
(02:09):
just set down and watched people flying by and try
to make guesses on why certain passengers were going to
different locations. Yeah, I mean it's a fun game to play.
You know, when I'm walking through airport terminals, I'll often
see like an airport employee come walking out of one
of those personnel only sections, and I always want to
go behind that door just to see what's back there.
(02:31):
Oh me too. I mean would probably be disappointing if
you actually got to go there. But yes, so many
times you see that happen, You're like, what, what is it?
What's happening is such a mystery. But you know, we
started talking about just how many people work at the
nation's biggest airports and how many people you interact with
before you even get on a plane. You've got the
people behind the check in desk to t s A.
The people working at the restaurants, to gate agents, customs.
(02:54):
I mean, so many people and then all the people
behind the scenes, controlling the schedules, handling bags and just
generally keeping the place running efficiently. And we're talking thousands
of people in places like the Atlanta Airport, and that's
what God is thinking. You know, what are some of
the secrets behind how an airport operates? And what do
we not know? And of course what are some of
(03:17):
the strangest things t s A has pulled out of
passenger bags in security. So let's dive in. Y Hey,
(03:43):
their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will
Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend
man Guesho Ticketer and on the other side of the
soundproof glass doing his best impersonation. Now, you guys may
not know this about Tristan, but he does incredible repers,
so good. Well, today's is a really special one. It's
of the carpet from the Portland International Airport. That's our
(04:05):
friend and producer Tristan McNeil. Now I do need to
clarify here. Tristan is not lying on the floor with
a rug over him. He does that sometimes, but not today.
He's not just doing that to pretend to be a carpet.
He actually is decked out head to toe and clothing
based on that old carpet design from the Portland's Airport.
Really creative idea to which honestly doesn't sound that much
(04:28):
less weird, right, No it doesn't. But that's this is
just the kind of stuff that Tristan does. He's that committed.
But actually he was telling me earlier what this is
all about. So basically, the Portland Airport, or PDX as
you might call it, they added this new carpet to
its terminals back in now because this was in the eighties.
The carpet had this kind of funky and geometric design
(04:51):
with this teel background and all these blue and purple
and red shapes repeating all over in a very loud carpet. Anyway,
the carpet stuck around until I think two thousand six,
and that's when PDX decided it was finally time to remodel. Now,
they started ripping up the carpet and people went ballistic,
(05:12):
and that is not an overstatement. I mean they were
grieving the loss of this carpet. They decided to take
to social media and just as a way to pay
tribute to the airport carpet, and they were calling for
it to be preserved. There was a Facebook page for
people to post pictures and stories of all the great
times that had standing on that carpet, and somebody made
(05:33):
a Twitter account and began posting from the carpet's point
of view. These are all things that actually happened. And
you know, some folks even memorialized the carpet by having
its design tattooed on their arms. And of course, it
wasn't long after that that the beloved carpet design started
appearing on all sorts of merchandise. And you know, just
looking at Tristan, you can see that they made pd
(05:55):
X carpet t shirts, sweatpants, socks, shoes, even a headband. Yeah,
I know. And Tristan was telling me about all this,
and it got me curious about what other bizarre airport
stories and secrets are out there. And so that's what
today's show is all about. You know, we'll we'll take
a look at how airports function, and along the way,
(06:15):
we'll also check out some of the odd ball amenities
that different airports offer, as well as some of the
weirdest stuff that people have tried to slip past security.
So let's get started. But where do you want to begin, Mango, So, actually,
I don't want to get off the airport carpet facts
just yet, because one of the things I didn't notice
until Gate pointed out to me is that most airports
have linoleum or tile in the check in areas and
(06:37):
all through security, but then when you get to the
flight gates, the floor suddenly switches the carpet. And there's
actually a reason behind this. So airport designers use this
trick as a way to make holding areas feel more relaxing.
So not only does the soft carpet help bring the
feel of a living room into the airport, it also
helps muffled the noise from people's roller bags and footsteps.
But the biggest reason is that all this works together
(06:59):
to make past and just feel less stressed out. Yeah
it makes sense, but I mean, carpets aren't the only
thing designers are thinking about when they design these airports spaces.
I mean, another handy tool they used to make us
feel comfortable is called wayfinding, or that process designers used
to make the airports easier to navigate or as easy
as possible. And one big part of this, of course,
(07:21):
is the signage and there's so much careful planning that
goes into that, not just where to place the signs,
but how they're designed, how they're laid out, and for instance,
the font on the signs needs to be legible from
a distance and easy for non native language speakers to decipher. Now, amazingly,
sev of all airports in the world use just one
(07:43):
of three different typefaces, all of which are sands sarah,
meaning they don't have the little tails on the letters.
And because I know you're curious, those three in demand
fonts are Fruitiger, which was designed specifically for airports, clear View,
which is the same one used on highway signs or
on the US, and of course Helvetica. By the way,
as a side note here, I learned just this week
(08:05):
that there actually is an airline called Helvetic Airlines, which
is a small airline out of Switzerland where Helvetica typeface originated,
and in a truly weird turn of events, the airline
does not use Helvetica for its logo. That's super weird.
So what do they use? I don't know what it's
called exactly, and it's kind of this squat and italic
(08:25):
font for some reason that almost feels scandalous to not
use there. But in another way of wayfinding that I
hadn't thought about are all the works of art that
are placed around the airport for you. And these can
be murals or sculptures or sometimes even interactive exhibits. But
whatever form it takes, airport art is never there just
to look pretty or to help passengers relax. That's because
(08:48):
designers are actually thinking of them as landmarks, like a
quick way to establish a point of reference for passengers
as they make their way through what are otherwise these
monotonous terminals. So if you're ever doing some exploring at
the airport and need to find your way back to
your gate, just look for the big bronze bear or
whatever to help point the way. Well, since you bring
up airport art, I do want to tell you about
(09:08):
maybe the strangest and creepiest examples I came across. And
by the way, if you want to see these, it's
pretty convenient because you just go to one airport. It's
the Denver International Airport. So that actually doesn't surprise me,
because what's weird is that there are all these conspiracy
theories about that specific airport, like, uh, the runways are
all pin wheel shaped, and some people claim they're meant
(09:29):
to look like Swastika's. Uh. Some people think there's a
secret underground city and the tunnels beneath the terminals. You know,
it is super weird, But uh, I don't think I've
heard about the artwork. Can you run me through that? Well,
you're in for a treat with this because some of
this stuff is just off the wall. So to start
on the road that leads to the terminal, there's this
(09:50):
enormous thirty two foot tall sculpture of a blue mustang
rearing up in anger. But it's not just the size
or the stance that makes this thing so scary. And
that's because at night, the horse's eyes actually glow bright red.
How strange is this? But if that isn't enough to
convince you the horse is pure evil, just listen to this.
Back in two thousand six, when the statue was still
(10:12):
being sculpted, a nine thousand pound piece of stone broke
free and tragically fell on the sculpture as he was working.
And you know, sadly he died from this not too
long after. So not only is this giant blue mustang
terrifying to behold, it also killed its creator, and that's
why the locals call him Bluecifer. Wow. So I'm actually
(10:33):
a little of her to ask, But I think you
said the horse was just one example. Well, the art
inside the airport gets even weirder than Bluesifer. So, for instance,
at baggage claim, there are these two stone gargles keeping
watch over the luggage carousels, and together the pair forms
of sculpture known as Notre Denver, which is pretty CUTEI
name for a couple of winged demons that are pretty
(10:55):
weird looking. But probably the most unsettling piece of art
in the whole place is is mural. It's right there
inside the airport, and it's called Children of the World
Dream of Peace. Now this title sounds hardwarming, and you think, oh,
this must be a really nice thing, but just listen
to this description that I found from Atlas Obscure. It
says in the mural, a gargantuan figure and flowing olive
(11:17):
green military garb and a gas mask, wields an assault
rifle in his left hand while stabbing a dove with
the cutlass in his right. A line of shrouded, despairing
figures cowers in his wake. It's just what you want
to see before boarding an international like, what is going
on at this airport? I do think somebody might have
missed the memo about how airport artists supposed to be soothing,
(11:40):
because that's definitely not suiting. So here's something even scarier
than demons and killer horses. So you know, the plastic
bins we used to unload all our stuff on the
way through security. Definitely. Yeah. So, according to a recent
study out of Finland, those bins actually contain a whole
host of respiratory viruses, including germs known to cause both
the common cold and flew and in fact, researchers found
(12:03):
that the bins contain more germ samples than any other
tested part of the airport, which includes elevator buttons, flight
checking machines, even twilet handles. And while these findings were
specific to the Helsinki Airport, other studies have turned up
similar results in a lot of different airports. And unfortunately,
those bins just don't get cleaned that often. You know.
(12:23):
It's one of those things that most of the time,
my wife Georgia is very clean about the things she does,
but sometimes when we travel she takes a pillow and
she puts it into one of those bins when we're traveling,
and it is the grossest thing that anyone has ever done.
I just can't handle it. But it's you know, I
actually love these facts that confirm my suspicion that everything
(12:44):
I come into contact with is filthy. And so those
are just great stats. I mean, it's like when we
talked about how the trade tables on airplanes are also
super gross, I mean grosser than anything. But I vaguely
remember this. Can you notdge my memory a little? Of course,
I have the fact right here. I keep them with
me at all times, just in case anybody needs to
be reminded. But this was from a two thousand fifteen
(13:06):
study from travel Math, and it showed that trade tables
on the back of cabin ce typically contain over two
thousand colony forming units per square inch. Now these are
also known as cf us. Now, to put that in perspective,
the average household toilet, average household toilet has only around
a hundred and seventies cf us. Even the flush buttons
(13:27):
for airport toilets only have about two hundred and sixty CFU.
So that's two thousand on these trade tables compared to
two hundred and sixty on a flush button on an
airport toilet. It is so weird that trade tables are
that filthy. So I actually remember this great scene in
Roll dolls book Going Solo. It's his biography, where he's
on his boat and he's watching this woman eat an
(13:51):
orange with a knife and fork, and he's just kind
of amazed by how nimble she is with it, and
he asked her why she's using a knife and fork,
and she goes on this big about how dirty our
hands are and how she would never use her hands.
And I think that's why whenever I touched a trade
table from now on, it's going to be with a
knife and fork. That's a smart way to approach it.
(14:12):
All right, Well, I feel like we rushed onto the
plane too quickly and need to come back to the airport.
So what do you say we take a minute to
talk about some of the deeply weird things that people
stuff in those dirty bins you were talking about. I mean,
there are all kinds of strange stories there about people
smuggling everything from human remains to ninja throwing stars and
all of this in their carry on bags. But the
(14:34):
most interesting examples to me are all the weird things
that scientists though. I mean, it's so funny to read
some of these. I actually just listen to some of
the stuff that T. S A Has turned up in
recent years. All right, a cooler full of turtle embryos,
several bottles of monkey pee, the shin bone of a
giant ground sloth, fifty vials of freeze dried milk from
(14:56):
an Antarctic fur seal, and of course a three D
printed model of a dolphin vaginant. I mean, you can't
make this stuff up. That's so weird. But I'm guessing
the scientists must have like legit reasons for carrying this
stuff through, right, Like does security just give him a pass? Yeah?
I mean most of the time they do, And and
most of these things don't really break the rules. They're
(15:16):
just odd and usually require some sort of explanation. For
for instance, when the Antarctic researcher with all the seal
milk was stopped, he just had to explain what all
these vials of white powder really were. Yeah, I mean,
if you're taking a lot of white powder on a plane,
you're kind of asking to get stopped. But well, you know,
once he had clued them in there, there really wasn't
(15:37):
that much of a problem. And in fact, as the
guy later explained, quote, some of the officers just wanted
to wave me on, but others wanted me to stay
and answer their questions like how do you milk a
first seal? And so he pointed out, that's a nice
way to engage in a discussion about science. But he
also almost missed his flight. So I actually love these
types of interactions, Like I was reading about this one
(15:58):
time a few years ago when this as a physicist
flew to Fargo, North Dakota, and he had his Nobel
Physics Prize with him. So his name is Brian Schmidt
apparently won the prize back in two thousand eleven for
co discovering dark energy. But anyway, he was going to
Fargo to visit his grandmom and she asked him to
bring along his Nobel and just in case other listeners
don't know, a Nobel prize kind of looks like an
(16:18):
Olympic medal, like it's made of gold, ways about half
a pound. It's pretty big. So Schmidt has this giant
metal in his bag and because it's made of golden
actually absorbs all the X rays and it just looked
like a big black mystery object to the manityrs. So
security asked him, like, what's in it? And he tells
them it's a gold medal. And then they opened the
bag and inspect it and they're like, who gave this
(16:40):
to you? To which Schmidt says, and he gives an
honest answer, the King of Sweden. Of course, the King
of Sweden, as you as you do, you know, so,
so did the agent just let him through or what? No,
they were totally suspicious. So then the officers had all
these follow ups, like they asked, like why the king
give this to you? And so it's continued and tell
the truths. He says, uh, because I helped discover that
(17:02):
the expansion rate of the universe was accelerating. And as
he's saying this, you know, the officers are looking more
and more angry. You could sense that they were losing
their patients. So he finally explained the whole thing in detail,
like the science, how he won this award, that the
king presented it to him, all that, and even then
they had one more question for him, which was why
were you in Fargo. I mean, I guess that's a
(17:24):
pretty fair question under the circumstances. But all right, well,
now that we've made our way through security, what do
you say we stretch our legs a little bit and
check out a few of the more surprising amenities the
airport seems to offer these days. But before we get
to that, let's take a quick break. You're listening to
(17:53):
part Time Genius and we're talking about airports, all right, Mango.
So you and I fly fairly often, as we said before,
and I know one thing we've both noticed is that
airports offer a much wider array of amenities than they
used to. You know, you see things like massage chairs,
which honestly is so weird to me to be walking
through a terminal and look over and see somebody with
their eyes clothes and a massage. I just don't feel
(18:15):
like that's a place I could relax. But you definitely
see lots of those. You see sleeping pods and day
spas made to order sushi like This is a huge
list of luxuries that are involved in some of these airports,
and it seems to get longer every year. And so
I've assembled my own little list here, but I actually
want to hear from you first. So what are some
(18:35):
of the most unexpected services you've come across during your travels?
So one of the things I really like is that
you see more and more playgrounds for kids and airports,
and it's been really nice to be able to like
let the kids run around on these little jungle gyms
and let them be loud and crazy for a bit
before you have to, like, you know, reel it all
in when you get on a plane. But as a
(18:56):
solo traveler, probably my favorite trend that's been gaining steam
states side is airport movie theaters. And this is something
I think started back in two thousand fourteen, which is
when the airport in Minneapolis St. Paul opened this free
around the clock screening room near Gate C eighteen. I've
been there, but I actually haven't noticed that before, so
so catching a movie it sounds like a fun way
(19:17):
to kill a pine before a flight, but you probably
have to get there pretty early to be able to
watch the whole thing, right, so it's not actually a
problem in this case. Uh. The Minnesota screening room only
shows short films and documentaries by filmmakers from the Upper Midwest,
So in addition to providing some free entertainment, they're really
way to showcase this local talent. And this approach isn't
unique to the Minneapolis airport either, So last spring, the
(19:39):
airport in Portland opened its first microcinema, and concourse, it's similar.
Where ticketed passengers have made it through security, they're free
to grab a spot in this seventeen seat theater and
catch short films by filmmakers from Portland. But maybe the
most unique airport theater is the one that opened last
August at Miami International. And unlike the others I mentioned,
(19:59):
this one doesn't show recent films shop by local artists. Instead,
the airport actually uses this bank of old flight monitors
to show all kinds of vintage footage they found in
and around the airport. So you might see like a
Miami Families Home movies from the nine twenties on one reel,
or a reel of different celebrities who've arrived at the
airport between the fifties and eighties. Plus there are all
(20:20):
these quirky vintage promotional films for Florida sprinkled in. It
is pretty great and it just seems like a really
cool project and a fun way to see all the
changes the airport in the surrounding community have gone through
over the years. That does sound pretty neat. I feel
like I need to check that out the next time
I'm in Miami. But all right, Well, for my turn,
I want to talk about something I know you'll love,
(20:41):
and that's the menagerie of therapy animals that some airports
now keep on hand as you really a way to
help calm frazzled passengers. So let's get the boring ones
out of the way. I guess I know I should
mention that there are more than thirty airports around the
US that now have therapy dogs, as well as a
few that also have cats and even rabbits. What's the
(21:02):
therapy rabbit. Well, it's a therapeutic rabbit. Actually, I have
no idea. I guess it's just calmer than your typical
rabbit and less skittish. But way back to the idea
of these other animals. So there are plenty of common
therapy animals scattered in airports across the country, but there's
only one airport here with its own pot bellied pig,
and that's in San Francisco. Now, I've flown to San
(21:24):
Francisco many times. I know you have to. I have
never seen that, have you know? I have not seen
a populi pig there. Yeah. The pig's name is Lulu,
and back in two thousand and sixteen, she joined the
airport's wag Brigade, which, as you could probably guess, as
a group of specially trained therapy animals that the airport
keeps on staff. But Lulu doesn't just sit there like
a lump while you pet her, like say a therapy
(21:46):
rabbit might do. Lulu is actually a highly skilled performer.
So get this. She has not one, not to but
ten different tricks in her repertoire, and including one where
she plays a miniature piano. But you know, like any
pig diva, she also brings a complete wardrobe with her,
and so her vast costume collection includes, among other outfits,
(22:08):
a sparkly pink too too, and of course a pilot
uniform with a hat, which sounds adorable. But you know,
if gigs aren't your thing, you might actually have better
luck at the airport in hebron Kentucky. So folks that
are originally planned to use dogs when they launched the
therapy animal program in two thousand and sixteen, but in
the end they went with something much more unique and
(22:29):
also more local. So the airport got in touch with
a nearby nonprofit that happened to run a miniature horse
therapy program, and after a few visits, the airport decided
to ditch the dogs and just bring many horses to
the airport twice a month instead. And as you can imagine,
you know, the prospect of hurting multiple horses through the
security lines was pretty daunting, so the horses are usually
(22:50):
kept in the ticketing area during the visits, and even
if you aren't flying anywhere, you can still swing by
and pet some therapy horses. It's like a stable full
of little Sebastian like a fun airport to go to.
But it's funny that stuff happens in the US, because
I typically only hear about these kinds of programs at
foreign airports, like, for instance, I read that the Shipple
Airport in Amsterdam has all kinds of jealousy inducing amenities.
(23:14):
They've got a fully stocked airport library, a museum showcasing
art from the Dutch Masters, and probably coolest of all,
a team of concierge robots, and don't even get me
started on the airport in Singapore. So I've actually been
to the Singapore airport. It was in the nineties, and
even back then it was unreal, like if you had
(23:35):
a layover, Singapore would actually give you like honestly, it
was like a forty five minute or an hour long
tour of the country and then bring you back to
the airport and whisk you through security. It also had
like amazing public showers and these super clean stalls, and
and there was this garden with birds in it. Yeah,
except that it's actually gardens plural, like the first one
was built in the nineteen eighties, I think. But now
(23:57):
there are whopping ten gardens that are spread across the
airports for different terminals, and altogether they contain over half
a million plants from nearly three hundred different species. It's
pretty absurd, Like they have this dedicated cactus garden, one
with just sunflowers, another that's full of orchids. But I
think my favorite has to be this two story, open air,
(24:19):
thirty hundred square foot butterfly garden in Terminal three. And
apparently there are more than a thousand tropical butterflies that
call this garden home at any given time. And if
you're not into butterflies, the garden is still worth a
visit because it also contains a twenty foot tall waterfall. Wow.
I mean that was definitely not there when I was there.
But uh, you know, we had a significant layover when
(24:42):
I was at the Singapore Airport, and I have never
been to another airport where I wouldn't have minded waiting
for like a flight delay. You know, the food was great,
the place was great, it was well lit, it was
it was really gorgeous. I'd love to visit there sometime.
And apparently you're not the only one who feels this way.
It's actually according to the World air Port Awards, which
is apparently a thing. In two thousand eighteen, the Singapore
(25:04):
Airport was voted the world's best airport for the sixth
year in a row. And there's a pretty steep competition
out there. So at this point, I'm not sure what
it would take to beat Singapore. So I do think
that they have one feature that could knock them out
of the top spot, and that is rocking chairs. I
think you missed the part where I said Singapore Airport
(25:25):
has a twenty foot indoor waterfall. I'm pretty sure that
tops rocking chairs. Well. I think some cities prefer their
manti is a little less show you, thank you very much,
or at least that was my takeaway after learning that
over fifty airports around the US now have a fleet
of rockers set up in their terminals. You know, not
that you mentioned that, It's something I've noticed a lot lately,
(25:45):
especially when I'm passing through airports here in the South.
I mean, it feels like Charlotte has had them forever,
But maybe that's part of what's going on there. Like
Southern folks just like the airport to feel a little
more like their front porch. Maybe. Yeah, I mean, I
think you're probably half right, because it's not just Southerners
who like the rockers. You can actually find them in
airports as far west as Seattle and San Diego. But
(26:06):
you know, that front porch field you mentioned is definitely
a big part of the appeal. In fact, the whole
trend seems to have started thanks to a temporary art
exhibit called Porch Sitting, and you're absolutely right. It was
featured at the airport in Charlotte, North Carolina. And this
was way back in and so the way it worked
was they had all these giant photographs of different front
porches with rocking chairs on them, and then in front
(26:28):
of the photos they put actual rocking chairs, kind of
like props to make the exhibit a little more interactive.
But when the exhibit finished its run and the chairs
were taken away, people got super upset. You know. It
was just like with that carpet in Portland, Like passengers
had grown so fond of these airport rockers, and once
the public outcry started, the amenities manager not only brought
(26:48):
the chairs back, he also added even more of them.
I mean, it's fascinating to see what kinds of things
people get attached to, and at airports of all places.
But I'm curious, though, because what you just outline is
a pretty specific chain of events. Like I doubt all
these other airports had their own rocking chair exhibits or whatever,
but how did they wind up with them? Right? So,
(27:09):
for the most part, it seems like people who worked
at one airport started noticing the chairs at other airports
while they were traveling, and then they just decided to
copy the idea. But here's the best part. All those
rockers spread across fifty some airports like, they all come
from the same company. It's called Troutman Chairs and it's
co owned by a husband and wife who have basically
become the go to supplier for airport rocking chairs. Wait, seriously, like,
(27:33):
what a bizarre market to domin also had they pull
this off? Well, the company is based in North Carolina,
which is where the trend got started, so they were
the ones who built the chairs for that exhibit in
ninety seven, and then over the years, whenever one airport
manager asked about the rockers at a different airport, they're
always pointed right back to Troutman Chairs. But the other
cool thing I read is the theory on why these
(27:53):
chairs were a hit with passengers in the first place.
And this is the explanation that the amenities manager in
North Carolina eve quote. Airports tend to be such a
fast paced environment it could be overwhelming for people who
aren't seasoned travelers. The rocker is a yen to that yang.
You're controlling the rocker, where a lot of the time
in an airport you're not controlling your environment. It's a
(28:15):
nice pause button in a hectic environment. It definitely isn't.
You can see that when you travel through Charlotte and
you see all the people sitting there. In fact, I
can remember when we were traveling so much in our
Mental Floss days, and our old designer Winslow, and I
would travel through that airport all the time. We got
so used to knowing what was in every spot in
that airport that we could use code for the different terminals.
(28:38):
And there was this barbecue restaurant where we ate one time,
and it was not the best dish of barbecue, and
it was very wet for some reason. So whenever I
would check in with Winslow when he was traveling, sometimes
he would just text back wet barbecue, and I knew
that meant he was in Terminal E in the Charlotte Airport.
But but back to the idea of these rocking chairs.
(28:59):
I mean, you know, he's asolutely right about airports being hectic,
and that's actually something I do think we should talk
about and a little bit more detail. But before we
get to that, let's take one more quick break. If
(29:23):
you're listening to Part Time Genius, and we're talking about
the special kind of anxiety that people feel at airports, okay, Well,
so one thing I noticed while looking through our research
is that society actually used to have a much more
romantic view of airports than we do today. Like, if
you look back at the mid twentieth century, when commercial
air travel was just you know, taking off, thank you Tristan,
(29:43):
people had a very rosy, optimistic view of flying. A
trip to the airport didn't fill you with dread because
airports were still seen as dynamic, forward looking places. But
that's definitely not what most of us see them as today.
So I'm curious, why do you think that happened? Well,
you know, I would think a big part of this
is the massive uptick and security that we've seen since
(30:04):
the nineties seventies, And I think we covered this a
bit in our Golden Age of Hijacking episode. But airports
first added metal detectors in the seventies, and this was
of course as a way to thwart hijackers. And ever
since then, we've watched the security process at airports gradually
grow more strict and more complicated. And while tighter regulations
are needed in some cases, I think part of the
(30:25):
fallout from them is that a lot of people feel
really stressed at the airport. And that's even before you
factor in other changes that have negatively impacted the airport experience.
Like you know how much dingier airlines are compared to
just twenty years or so ago. And there used to
be free meals on short flights for all classes, and
then it was restricted to long flights, and now it's
(30:47):
really only international if you're flying coach. You've also got
the baggage fees that have gone up, and set fees
keep going up, and people are getting bumped from flights
left and right, and so this kind of stuff. You know,
people are now associated eating with flying and and you
can tell to like last year, Americans gave airlines lower
marks on customer satisfaction surveys than the US Postal Service.
(31:09):
And not only that, airlines were in the bottom six
for the least liked industries in America, and they were
right there with stuff like health insurance and TV and
internet providers. I mean, that's not great company, definitely not.
But I do think you're right that tighter security and
hidden costs are kind of what robbed airports of their luster.
I was reading this article in Slate about the current
(31:31):
state of the aviation industry and they said, you can
basically divide the perception of airports into three phases. The
first was when the airports were this icon of progress,
which is the period I mentioned earlier, probably from like
the fifties through the sixties. And the second phase would
maybe be the seventies through the mid nineties, and that's
when the airports felt what Slate put like another stale
(31:53):
waiting room of modern life. I mean, that's probably about
how I feel about them. So I'm guess maybe I'm
stuck in phase two right now. Yeah, and I'm guessing
you're not alone. But for everyone else where now in
the third phase, where the airport has become quote the
marble floored home of our national fear fueled psychosis. Wow, Wow,
it is not pretty when you spell it out like that.
(32:15):
I guess that's not too far off from how a
lot of people feel about it. And what's interesting is
how airports have responded to the rising anxiety levels among
their passengers, Like that's got to be what's prompting all
the over the top new amenities and the herds of
therapy animals to art galleries, the rocking chairs that we
talked about. I mean, it's all meant to help calm
us down and sort of forget that we're in a
(32:37):
place where most of us would rather not be. Yeah,
that sounds right to me, And I think the fact
that airport retail is booming right now kind of backs
that up. So a lot of people use shopping as
a way to curb their anxiety or just brighten their
mood in general. You know, we call it retail therapy.
And in two thousands sixteen, airport retail actually rose a
full four percent worldwide, and for the U S. Canada,
(33:00):
airport retailing is set to rise from aground four billion
dollars in two thousand fifteen to just under ten billion
dollars by that's ap going to micro Market Monitor, which
is a publication for the trade. But you know, that's
some seriously impressive sales growth, and I bet a lot
of it will be thanks to stressed out shopping. You know.
Those figures actually, I guess don't surprise me when you
(33:23):
think about because no matter how bad brick and mortar
stores start hurting, airport retailers really seem like they're going
to be just fine, because if you think about it,
there are more people flying now each year than at
any time in history. So your local mall might not
be getting that much traffic, but airport retailers have this
steady stream at just about any hour of the day. Yeah,
(33:44):
it's a good point. And I was reading about this
one bit of airport managure lingo called dwell time. It's
basically the time between when a passenger makes it through
security and when they board their plane, so you know,
all the time during which you could be spending money,
and apparently the first six minutes of dwell time are
the most lucrative. It's actually called the golden hour because
(34:04):
it's supposedly when passengers are feeling their most self indulgent.
I mean that makes sense. You've just gone through security,
suffered the indignity of the pat downs. You're just looking
for any way to make yourself feel a little bit better.
I guess. Yeah. Actually it reminds me. I was in
the quick X ray thing that they do where you
walk into that space and turn and raise your arms
and then walk through it, and this guy, I don't
(34:27):
know whether he was on a power trip or what,
but he started telling me while I was in there
to pull up my pants and it is not like
I wear low riding pants, like, but I had taken
off my belt as you do to go through the
security thing, and and uh, my pants were resting on
my hips and he was like, I said, pull up
your pants, and he kept getting louder and louder about it.
In this situation where you're supposed to keep your hands
(34:49):
up in the air and there's this queue forming behind me,
and it was so anxiety inducing. And it's also one
of these situations where you can't talk back, right because
you know if you do, it's only going to escalate
the problem. So I hiked my pants up as high
as I could bottled out of this place, And of
course what I do next. I bought some candy and magazines,
(35:11):
you know, just to get out of that headspace. But
I mean, like, I guess it's one of those things
where he knows that we're getting older, and he just
thought by this point, you're almost to that age where
your pants should be up to your belly button, right,
or maybe he's on the take from these stores just
like getting up sales. But you know, there are plenty
of other reasons to buy things too. People forget to
(35:33):
pack things for their trip, like headphones or whatever. Maybe
they forget to get someone a gift and the airport
becomes their last chance to save face with a mug
or buy some candy. I have definitely been in that
position a few times. And you know, airport retailers are
lucky to have this captive audience. You know, their customers
are psychologically primed to buy. And it's even more true
(35:53):
when you throw incentives like the whole duty free thing
that's added into the mix here. Yeah, that that reminds me.
I was reading about the airport in Dubai, and not
only is it one of the busiest in the world,
it's also home to the most lucrative duty free shop
of all time. By the way, I've actually been to
the Dubai airport, and speaking of luxuries, if they know
you're flying through with a kid and we were on
(36:14):
our way to India at the time, they actually bring
you a stroller to meet you at the gate, so
that like you can connect to your next plane without
like having to wake up your kid. You can just
put them in the stroller and stroll them along. It
is really sort of very thoughtful and and nothing I've
experienced in the States. But uh, back to the duty
free thing. So their giant shop is just called Dubai
(36:36):
duty Free, which is a little basic, but the sheer
size of the place is actually staggering. The store boasts
four hundred nine thousand square feet of retail space, and
the Pacific Standard says, if you want to picture it,
it's a full one and a half times the size
of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. Yeah, that's helps me
get a great picture of this thing. But that is huge.
(36:58):
But you also said it's the most lucrative though, right, Yeah,
So the stores annual sales typically fall just shy of
two billion U S dollars from one store. I mean,
so what are they selling to generate this kind of money.
It is the typical duty free stables, just at this
greater volume. So they sell tons of perfumean liquor. It's
three million dollars in sales with that. Last year tobacco
(37:20):
sells really well there they sold two million dollars of that. Um.
They also sell other items like gold is a big seller,
and not just jewelry, but a show like bars of
twenty to carrot, bricks of gold. You know, it's it's crazy, um,
there's another big seller that I never would have guessed. Uh, Tang.
What is like the orange powder drink mixed. So it's
(37:44):
just like the astronauts supposedly loved. But we're in a
Pacific standard. The Dubai airport can sell upwards of metric
tons of tang in a single year. Isn't that insane?
Like how much tang? And I was wondering that. Apparently
it's South laborers who like the stock up before going
home after working in the Persian Gulf. But you know,
(38:04):
if you're thirsty for something a little stronger than tang,
you can actually check out the special first class only
floor the store, and that's where you'll find a two
d thousand dollar bottle of whiskey. It's named the Royal
Salute Tribute to Honor. Oh what an? I feel like
I might just stick with the Tang in this case,
and the store can't be selling too many of those
(38:26):
bottles of whiskey though, right, Oh you mean Royal Salute
Tribute to Honor. It sounds like a dictator named but
supposedly like having these high price bottles around creates what's
called a halo effect, and it encourages these wealthy travelers
to spend more of, which is, you know, just so
typical of rich people, classic rich people. But I mean,
(38:48):
you know, airports have plenty of other ways of getting
your money besides retail, and one of them is that
we just straight up give it to them, or at
least that's the end result. So how's that. Well, we
really do this though, by leaving money behind accidentally, So
every year, millions of travelers hastily emptied their pockets into
those plastic bins at the security line, and then we
(39:10):
forget to collect that loose change once we've made it through.
And yeah, that could be just a few pennies here there,
but all those coins actually do add up. I was
looking at this breakdown that CNBC put out, and over
the years, it's interesting to see how much it's been growing.
So back in two thousand eleven, it was just shy
of half a million dollars that was left behind by people,
(39:31):
and then it jumped to six hundred and seventy five
thousand dollars in two thousand and fourteen, kept increasing every year.
In two thousand and sixteen, the t s AS take
was the biggest one reported yet It was a whopping
eight hundred and sixties seven thousand dollars and abandoned coins
and other currency just left behind. So what happens to
that money? Like it just becomes t s A profit? Uh?
(39:54):
Pretty much. There was actually a law passed back in
two thousand five by Congress that states that t s
A is free to keep the unclaimed cash it finds
and put it toward whichever security efforts it wants to.
And personally, my vote is for a dedicated ben cleaner
so that I never have to hear another study about
how dirty they are compared to a toilet. I can
(40:14):
get behind that, all right. Well, Tristan is over there
tapping his PDX carpet wrist watch, which means it's time
for today's fact off, So you're ready to do this?
Mango always h So you know how all these airports
(40:35):
had various codes like PDX is Portland, l A X
is l A, etcetera. Apparently the tiny sand dune where
the Wright brothers made their first flight in Kitty Hawk
has been given a code as well, and they were
sweetly given the name f A, which stands for First
Flight Airport. Oh I like that? Well? For years? If
you were flying through Genoa's Christopher O. Colombo Airport. You
(40:57):
have to leave your pesto as a purity, at least
if it was more than a hundred million leaders of
the stuff. And of course this made tons of tourists unhappy,
so then they decided to amend the rules and now
you can fly with five hundred grams of pesto and
these are bigger jars, but that's as long as you
make a donation to Flying Angels. Now, this is a
(41:18):
charity that helps fund air travel for six children. So
it's a sweet idea and people seem to be happy again.
But there is one catch though. The airport waiver only
applies to pesto that is actually made in Genoa, so
this is an airport related exactly. But do you know
that pilots on flights are served different meals and they
are not allowed to share. Apparently it's done as a
(41:41):
rule because of a fear of food poisoning. Wow, which
makes a lot of sense actually, Well, speaking of planes,
I realized this isn't something will probably ever have to
worry about. But if the oxygen mask drops down, you're
only going to get about fifteen to twenty minutes of oxygen.
There's a limited amount of course on there, but the
idea is that more than enough. The ideas that's more
(42:03):
than enough time to take you to a lower altitude,
which is when you won't really need them. And actually,
one other thing about those oxygen masks. What you're getting
isn't really oxygen. It's actually kind of this cocktail of
chemicals that when they're burned together, they release oxygen because
pure oxygen tanks would just be too heavy and bulky
(42:23):
to take up into the air. That's interesting. So if
you're wondering why certain passengers get pulled aside for a
cavity check, there's actually a system for it. So t
s A agents assign you points for specific suspicious behavior,
and if you have too much of it, you know,
too many points, that's when it happens. But here are
some of the things they're looking for. Exaggerated yawning or
(42:44):
excessive throat clearing, covering your mouth when you're speaking, showing
up in disguise, which makes sense, carrying an almanac, which
makes less sense to me, widely open staring eyes, and whistling. Whistling,
I'm mean, whistling is like the classic thing people do
in movies when they're like, I'm not up to anything.
(43:05):
But is that really whistling? Is it really on the list? Yeah,
it's when the individual approaches the screen process because they're worried.
It's a code or signal. But you know, maybe it's
also to teach annoying people to whistle us. All right, Well,
here's a strange one. In New York. There's an airport
dentist and I just learned about this. He's actually at
(43:26):
one of the airports that I frequent but his name
is Dr Robert Traeger, and much like those airports stores,
he's taking full advantage of this location. So he's got
to practice in Terminal B at LaGuardia apparently, where he
both sees airport employees and frequent flyers along with some
emergency walk ins, and at JFK his office is close
(43:47):
by outside of the main airport, so his wife will
actually show for you to the main terminal, but that's
only if you're part of his Smile High club. And
I'm wondering how often these people are going to the
dentist and in onto the airport to be part of
whatever this club is. But it's pretty amazing. The crazy
thing is that Dr Trigger also does work for the
(44:07):
government while he's there, so the I n S uses
him to look at wisdom, teeth and these other indicators
to determine whether people they're detaining our miners or whether
they may be lying about their age because you can
tell age through inspecting bones and also teeth. It's crazy
that he's got this double life. Well, yeah, here's a
weird one. Do you know the f A has a
(44:28):
theme song, M and I was not aware of that.
And here if you're the lyrics, So we're planning and
building away to make tomorrow even safer than today while
flying grows, so do we And that's what it's all about.
We want to help you get back home in a
jumbo jet or flying alone. We make it safe up
(44:49):
in the sky so you'll relax when you fly. So
it's super cashy. Everyone knows the lyrics, they can sing along.
But it's actually got a great story. Apparently, when morale
was down in the eighties, this guy named John Hanks,
he was the public affairs director at the time. He
decided to give the f A a little boost, and
as he put it, quote, it was designed to bring
(45:10):
the f A employees closer together and the common purpose
we had in our mission of aviation safety. Oddly, it
was a huge success, so employees really bought into it.
They thought it was super fun. The f A administrator
thought it was great, and the f A Corral was
performed at lots of events around the country, including and
this is from Auntlas Obscure at quote, one of Nancy
(45:32):
Reagan's Just Say No anti drug rallies, following the headliner
LaToya Jackson. You know, the eighties were this heady time
where LaToya could be followed by Corral. But you know,
the best part of it is that the song costs
nothing to taxpayers. It was all done by Hanks and
his friends in their free time. You know, that's a
(45:54):
good fact But I think the fact that you slipped
the words LaToya Jackson into a fact off makes you
just automatic winner. There's nothing I can do to beat that.
So congratulation, and we wanted to say thanks to some
of our listeners out there. It's actually been a lot
of fun to hear from you guys in recent months
keeping track of who is winning the fact off battle,
(46:16):
because we actually haven't been keeping track, and it was
pretty funny. We stumbled across a website that somebody had
actually pointed out to us where one of our listeners
is keeping track of who is winning this fact off battle,
and unfortunately, it looks like Mango has been in the lead.
And of course just widen that lead again today. And
I think you've been in the lead all year. You
(46:38):
took a big lead last year, and we've been pretty
even this year. But I think his house Frounce he uh,
he created this whole graph of it. It's pretty amazing,
it's pretty terrific. But we love hearing from you on
this kind of thing and and and always love seeing
those types of things. But if there are any facts
that we forgot to include about airports, about flying, anything
(46:59):
related to the this episode, we always love hearing from
You can reach out to us at part Time Genius
at how stuff Works dot com or hit us up
on Facebook or Twitter, or from Gabe, Tristan, Mango and me.
Thanks so much for listening, Thanks again for listening. Part
(47:26):
Time Genius is a production of How Stuff Works and
wouldn't be possible without several brilliant people who do the
important things. We couldn't even begin to understand. Christa McNeil
does the editing thing. Noel Brown made the theme song
and does the mixy mixy sound thing. Garry Rowland does
the exact producer thing. Gabe Bluesier is our lead researcher,
with support from the research Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan
Brown and Lucas Adams and Eve. Jeff Cook gets the
(47:48):
show to your ears. Good job, Eves. If you like
what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe, And if you
really really like what you've heard, maybe you could leave
a good review for us. Do we do? We forget
Jason Jason who did
I guess what, mango, what's that will? So I know
you and I both fly a lot, and if there's
one thing I definitely know about you, it's that you
love flying, right because I just have the best travel
luck in the world, right, you know. I don't know
if this is something we've mentioned on the show, but
it's actually pretty baffling to me, like how bad your
travel luck has been over the years. Like there are
(00:23):
times you'll be flying out of Chicago or something and
then I'll check in with you just to see if
you've made it home, and you'll say something like I'm
in Milwaukee. It's a long story, and I don't know
anybody that can pull that off in the way that
you do. Or there was even the time we were
flying out of Cleveland at the same time. Both of
us were there, we were on different sides of the airport. Now,
(00:43):
somehow my flight took off and on the other side
of the airport they told you're plane that the airport
was closing down because of the wind, I think, which
is a true story, like that really happened. In fact,
sometimes when you are righting me to see where I am,
I don't even want to respond. Yes, as long as
it's entertaining for others. Oh, it definitely is entertaining. But
(01:04):
you know, I was thinking about the fact that you
and I are most often traveling solo and for work purposes.
And you know, it's funny how when you do something
so frequently, it's pretty easy just to go through the
motions not really think about what's going on around you.
And you know, part of that maybe because half the time,
I know, I'm flying at such a crazy early hour,
and I'm I'm kind of half asleep when I'm there.
(01:25):
But as you know, last week, Georgia and I flew
up to Toronto so that I could officiate a wedding
because apparently that's what I do now, and it's been
nice to hear from some listeners. I guess you made
the offer that I could officiate other weddings, and so
I'm trying to decide whether I want to sign on
to do this or not. But you know, we had
a bit more time than usual in the Atlanta airport,
(01:47):
so we spent a little time walking around, and when
you're not rushing to your next flight, spending time in
the country's busiest airport actually makes for some pretty fantastic
people watching, and so know, we spend time looking out
the window as those luggage cars rushed around in between
the terminals. We watched people run off the trains to
their next flights, and then a couple of times we
(02:09):
just set down and watched people flying by and try
to make guesses on why certain passengers were going to
different locations. Yeah, I mean it's a fun game to play.
You know, when I'm walking through airport terminals, I'll often
see like an airport employee come walking out of one
of those personnel only sections, and I always want to
go behind that door just to see what's back there.
(02:31):
Oh me too. I mean would probably be disappointing if
you actually got to go there. But yes, so many
times you see that happen, You're like, what, what is it?
What's happening is such a mystery. But you know, we
started talking about just how many people work at the
nation's biggest airports and how many people you interact with
before you even get on a plane. You've got the
people behind the check in desk to t s A.
The people working at the restaurants, to gate agents, customs.
(02:54):
I mean, so many people and then all the people
behind the scenes, controlling the schedules, handling bags and just
generally keeping the place running efficiently. And we're talking thousands
of people in places like the Atlanta Airport, and that's
what God is thinking. You know, what are some of
the secrets behind how an airport operates? And what do
we not know? And of course what are some of
(03:17):
the strangest things t s A has pulled out of
passenger bags in security. So let's dive in. Y Hey,
(03:43):
their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will
Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend
man Guesho Ticketer and on the other side of the
soundproof glass doing his best impersonation. Now, you guys may
not know this about Tristan, but he does incredible repers,
so good. Well, today's is a really special one. It's
of the carpet from the Portland International Airport. That's our
(04:05):
friend and producer Tristan McNeil. Now I do need to
clarify here. Tristan is not lying on the floor with
a rug over him. He does that sometimes, but not today.
He's not just doing that to pretend to be a carpet.
He actually is decked out head to toe and clothing
based on that old carpet design from the Portland's Airport.
Really creative idea to which honestly doesn't sound that much
(04:28):
less weird, right, No it doesn't. But that's this is
just the kind of stuff that Tristan does. He's that committed.
But actually he was telling me earlier what this is
all about. So basically, the Portland Airport, or PDX as
you might call it, they added this new carpet to
its terminals back in now because this was in the eighties.
The carpet had this kind of funky and geometric design
(04:51):
with this teel background and all these blue and purple
and red shapes repeating all over in a very loud carpet. Anyway,
the carpet stuck around until I think two thousand six,
and that's when PDX decided it was finally time to remodel. Now,
they started ripping up the carpet and people went ballistic,
(05:12):
and that is not an overstatement. I mean they were
grieving the loss of this carpet. They decided to take
to social media and just as a way to pay
tribute to the airport carpet, and they were calling for
it to be preserved. There was a Facebook page for
people to post pictures and stories of all the great
times that had standing on that carpet, and somebody made
(05:33):
a Twitter account and began posting from the carpet's point
of view. These are all things that actually happened. And
you know, some folks even memorialized the carpet by having
its design tattooed on their arms. And of course, it
wasn't long after that that the beloved carpet design started
appearing on all sorts of merchandise. And you know, just
looking at Tristan, you can see that they made pd
(05:55):
X carpet t shirts, sweatpants, socks, shoes, even a headband. Yeah,
I know. And Tristan was telling me about all this,
and it got me curious about what other bizarre airport
stories and secrets are out there. And so that's what
today's show is all about. You know, we'll we'll take
a look at how airports function, and along the way,
(06:15):
we'll also check out some of the odd ball amenities
that different airports offer, as well as some of the
weirdest stuff that people have tried to slip past security.
So let's get started. But where do you want to begin, Mango, So, actually,
I don't want to get off the airport carpet facts
just yet, because one of the things I didn't notice
until Gate pointed out to me is that most airports
have linoleum or tile in the check in areas and
(06:37):
all through security, but then when you get to the
flight gates, the floor suddenly switches the carpet. And there's
actually a reason behind this. So airport designers use this
trick as a way to make holding areas feel more relaxing.
So not only does the soft carpet help bring the
feel of a living room into the airport, it also
helps muffled the noise from people's roller bags and footsteps.
But the biggest reason is that all this works together
(06:59):
to make past and just feel less stressed out. Yeah
it makes sense, but I mean, carpets aren't the only
thing designers are thinking about when they design these airports spaces.
I mean, another handy tool they used to make us
feel comfortable is called wayfinding, or that process designers used
to make the airports easier to navigate or as easy
as possible. And one big part of this, of course,
(07:21):
is the signage and there's so much careful planning that
goes into that, not just where to place the signs,
but how they're designed, how they're laid out, and for instance,
the font on the signs needs to be legible from
a distance and easy for non native language speakers to decipher. Now, amazingly,
sev of all airports in the world use just one
(07:43):
of three different typefaces, all of which are sands sarah,
meaning they don't have the little tails on the letters.
And because I know you're curious, those three in demand
fonts are Fruitiger, which was designed specifically for airports, clear View,
which is the same one used on highway signs or
on the US, and of course Helvetica. By the way,
as a side note here, I learned just this week
(08:05):
that there actually is an airline called Helvetic Airlines, which
is a small airline out of Switzerland where Helvetica typeface originated,
and in a truly weird turn of events, the airline
does not use Helvetica for its logo. That's super weird.
So what do they use? I don't know what it's
called exactly, and it's kind of this squat and italic
(08:25):
font for some reason that almost feels scandalous to not
use there. But in another way of wayfinding that I
hadn't thought about are all the works of art that
are placed around the airport for you. And these can
be murals or sculptures or sometimes even interactive exhibits. But
whatever form it takes, airport art is never there just
to look pretty or to help passengers relax. That's because
(08:48):
designers are actually thinking of them as landmarks, like a
quick way to establish a point of reference for passengers
as they make their way through what are otherwise these
monotonous terminals. So if you're ever doing some exploring at
the airport and need to find your way back to
your gate, just look for the big bronze bear or
whatever to help point the way. Well, since you bring
up airport art, I do want to tell you about
(09:08):
maybe the strangest and creepiest examples I came across. And
by the way, if you want to see these, it's
pretty convenient because you just go to one airport. It's
the Denver International Airport. So that actually doesn't surprise me,
because what's weird is that there are all these conspiracy
theories about that specific airport, like, uh, the runways are
all pin wheel shaped, and some people claim they're meant
(09:29):
to look like Swastika's. Uh. Some people think there's a
secret underground city and the tunnels beneath the terminals. You know,
it is super weird, But uh, I don't think I've
heard about the artwork. Can you run me through that? Well,
you're in for a treat with this because some of
this stuff is just off the wall. So to start
on the road that leads to the terminal, there's this
(09:50):
enormous thirty two foot tall sculpture of a blue mustang
rearing up in anger. But it's not just the size
or the stance that makes this thing so scary. And
that's because at night, the horse's eyes actually glow bright red.
How strange is this? But if that isn't enough to
convince you the horse is pure evil, just listen to this.
Back in two thousand six, when the statue was still
(10:12):
being sculpted, a nine thousand pound piece of stone broke
free and tragically fell on the sculpture as he was working.
And you know, sadly he died from this not too
long after. So not only is this giant blue mustang
terrifying to behold, it also killed its creator, and that's
why the locals call him Bluecifer. Wow. So I'm actually
(10:33):
a little of her to ask, But I think you
said the horse was just one example. Well, the art
inside the airport gets even weirder than Bluesifer. So, for instance,
at baggage claim, there are these two stone gargles keeping
watch over the luggage carousels, and together the pair forms
of sculpture known as Notre Denver, which is pretty CUTEI
name for a couple of winged demons that are pretty
(10:55):
weird looking. But probably the most unsettling piece of art
in the whole place is is mural. It's right there
inside the airport, and it's called Children of the World
Dream of Peace. Now this title sounds hardwarming, and you think, oh,
this must be a really nice thing, but just listen
to this description that I found from Atlas Obscure. It
says in the mural, a gargantuan figure and flowing olive
(11:17):
green military garb and a gas mask, wields an assault
rifle in his left hand while stabbing a dove with
the cutlass in his right. A line of shrouded, despairing
figures cowers in his wake. It's just what you want
to see before boarding an international like, what is going
on at this airport? I do think somebody might have
missed the memo about how airport artists supposed to be soothing,
(11:40):
because that's definitely not suiting. So here's something even scarier
than demons and killer horses. So you know, the plastic
bins we used to unload all our stuff on the
way through security. Definitely. Yeah. So, according to a recent
study out of Finland, those bins actually contain a whole
host of respiratory viruses, including germs known to cause both
the common cold and flew and in fact, researchers found
(12:03):
that the bins contain more germ samples than any other
tested part of the airport, which includes elevator buttons, flight
checking machines, even twilet handles. And while these findings were
specific to the Helsinki Airport, other studies have turned up
similar results in a lot of different airports. And unfortunately,
those bins just don't get cleaned that often. You know.
(12:23):
It's one of those things that most of the time,
my wife Georgia is very clean about the things she does,
but sometimes when we travel she takes a pillow and
she puts it into one of those bins when we're traveling,
and it is the grossest thing that anyone has ever done.
I just can't handle it. But it's you know, I
actually love these facts that confirm my suspicion that everything
(12:44):
I come into contact with is filthy. And so those
are just great stats. I mean, it's like when we
talked about how the trade tables on airplanes are also
super gross, I mean grosser than anything. But I vaguely
remember this. Can you notdge my memory a little? Of course,
I have the fact right here. I keep them with
me at all times, just in case anybody needs to
be reminded. But this was from a two thousand fifteen
(13:06):
study from travel Math, and it showed that trade tables
on the back of cabin ce typically contain over two
thousand colony forming units per square inch. Now these are
also known as cf us. Now, to put that in perspective,
the average household toilet, average household toilet has only around
a hundred and seventies cf us. Even the flush buttons
(13:27):
for airport toilets only have about two hundred and sixty CFU.
So that's two thousand on these trade tables compared to
two hundred and sixty on a flush button on an
airport toilet. It is so weird that trade tables are
that filthy. So I actually remember this great scene in
Roll dolls book Going Solo. It's his biography, where he's
on his boat and he's watching this woman eat an
(13:51):
orange with a knife and fork, and he's just kind
of amazed by how nimble she is with it, and
he asked her why she's using a knife and fork,
and she goes on this big about how dirty our
hands are and how she would never use her hands.
And I think that's why whenever I touched a trade
table from now on, it's going to be with a
knife and fork. That's a smart way to approach it.
(14:12):
All right, Well, I feel like we rushed onto the
plane too quickly and need to come back to the airport.
So what do you say we take a minute to
talk about some of the deeply weird things that people
stuff in those dirty bins you were talking about. I mean,
there are all kinds of strange stories there about people
smuggling everything from human remains to ninja throwing stars and
all of this in their carry on bags. But the
(14:34):
most interesting examples to me are all the weird things
that scientists though. I mean, it's so funny to read
some of these. I actually just listen to some of
the stuff that T. S A Has turned up in
recent years. All right, a cooler full of turtle embryos,
several bottles of monkey pee, the shin bone of a
giant ground sloth, fifty vials of freeze dried milk from
(14:56):
an Antarctic fur seal, and of course a three D
printed model of a dolphin vaginant. I mean, you can't
make this stuff up. That's so weird. But I'm guessing
the scientists must have like legit reasons for carrying this
stuff through, right, Like does security just give him a pass? Yeah?
I mean most of the time they do, And and
most of these things don't really break the rules. They're
(15:16):
just odd and usually require some sort of explanation. For
for instance, when the Antarctic researcher with all the seal
milk was stopped, he just had to explain what all
these vials of white powder really were. Yeah, I mean,
if you're taking a lot of white powder on a plane,
you're kind of asking to get stopped. But well, you know,
once he had clued them in there, there really wasn't
(15:37):
that much of a problem. And in fact, as the
guy later explained, quote, some of the officers just wanted
to wave me on, but others wanted me to stay
and answer their questions like how do you milk a
first seal? And so he pointed out, that's a nice
way to engage in a discussion about science. But he
also almost missed his flight. So I actually love these
types of interactions, Like I was reading about this one
(15:58):
time a few years ago when this as a physicist
flew to Fargo, North Dakota, and he had his Nobel
Physics Prize with him. So his name is Brian Schmidt
apparently won the prize back in two thousand eleven for
co discovering dark energy. But anyway, he was going to
Fargo to visit his grandmom and she asked him to
bring along his Nobel and just in case other listeners
don't know, a Nobel prize kind of looks like an
(16:18):
Olympic medal, like it's made of gold, ways about half
a pound. It's pretty big. So Schmidt has this giant
metal in his bag and because it's made of golden
actually absorbs all the X rays and it just looked
like a big black mystery object to the manityrs. So
security asked him, like, what's in it? And he tells
them it's a gold medal. And then they opened the
bag and inspect it and they're like, who gave this
(16:40):
to you? To which Schmidt says, and he gives an
honest answer, the King of Sweden. Of course, the King
of Sweden, as you as you do, you know, so,
so did the agent just let him through or what? No,
they were totally suspicious. So then the officers had all
these follow ups, like they asked, like why the king
give this to you? And so it's continued and tell
the truths. He says, uh, because I helped discover that
(17:02):
the expansion rate of the universe was accelerating. And as
he's saying this, you know, the officers are looking more
and more angry. You could sense that they were losing
their patients. So he finally explained the whole thing in detail,
like the science, how he won this award, that the
king presented it to him, all that, and even then
they had one more question for him, which was why
were you in Fargo. I mean, I guess that's a
(17:24):
pretty fair question under the circumstances. But all right, well,
now that we've made our way through security, what do
you say we stretch our legs a little bit and
check out a few of the more surprising amenities the
airport seems to offer these days. But before we get
to that, let's take a quick break. You're listening to
(17:53):
part Time Genius and we're talking about airports, all right, Mango.
So you and I fly fairly often, as we said before,
and I know one thing we've both noticed is that
airports offer a much wider array of amenities than they
used to. You know, you see things like massage chairs,
which honestly is so weird to me to be walking
through a terminal and look over and see somebody with
their eyes clothes and a massage. I just don't feel
(18:15):
like that's a place I could relax. But you definitely
see lots of those. You see sleeping pods and day
spas made to order sushi like This is a huge
list of luxuries that are involved in some of these airports,
and it seems to get longer every year. And so
I've assembled my own little list here, but I actually
want to hear from you first. So what are some
(18:35):
of the most unexpected services you've come across during your travels?
So one of the things I really like is that
you see more and more playgrounds for kids and airports,
and it's been really nice to be able to like
let the kids run around on these little jungle gyms
and let them be loud and crazy for a bit
before you have to, like, you know, reel it all
in when you get on a plane. But as a
(18:56):
solo traveler, probably my favorite trend that's been gaining steam
states side is airport movie theaters. And this is something
I think started back in two thousand fourteen, which is
when the airport in Minneapolis St. Paul opened this free
around the clock screening room near Gate C eighteen. I've
been there, but I actually haven't noticed that before, so
so catching a movie it sounds like a fun way
(19:17):
to kill a pine before a flight, but you probably
have to get there pretty early to be able to
watch the whole thing, right, so it's not actually a
problem in this case. Uh. The Minnesota screening room only
shows short films and documentaries by filmmakers from the Upper Midwest,
So in addition to providing some free entertainment, they're really
way to showcase this local talent. And this approach isn't
unique to the Minneapolis airport either, So last spring, the
(19:39):
airport in Portland opened its first microcinema, and concourse, it's similar.
Where ticketed passengers have made it through security, they're free
to grab a spot in this seventeen seat theater and
catch short films by filmmakers from Portland. But maybe the
most unique airport theater is the one that opened last
August at Miami International. And unlike the others I mentioned,
(19:59):
this one doesn't show recent films shop by local artists. Instead,
the airport actually uses this bank of old flight monitors
to show all kinds of vintage footage they found in
and around the airport. So you might see like a
Miami Families Home movies from the nine twenties on one reel,
or a reel of different celebrities who've arrived at the
airport between the fifties and eighties. Plus there are all
(20:20):
these quirky vintage promotional films for Florida sprinkled in. It
is pretty great and it just seems like a really
cool project and a fun way to see all the
changes the airport in the surrounding community have gone through
over the years. That does sound pretty neat. I feel
like I need to check that out the next time
I'm in Miami. But all right, Well, for my turn,
I want to talk about something I know you'll love,
(20:41):
and that's the menagerie of therapy animals that some airports
now keep on hand as you really a way to
help calm frazzled passengers. So let's get the boring ones
out of the way. I guess I know I should
mention that there are more than thirty airports around the
US that now have therapy dogs, as well as a
few that also have cats and even rabbits. What's the
(21:02):
therapy rabbit. Well, it's a therapeutic rabbit. Actually, I have
no idea. I guess it's just calmer than your typical
rabbit and less skittish. But way back to the idea
of these other animals. So there are plenty of common
therapy animals scattered in airports across the country, but there's
only one airport here with its own pot bellied pig,
and that's in San Francisco. Now, I've flown to San
(21:24):
Francisco many times. I know you have to. I have
never seen that, have you know? I have not seen
a populi pig there. Yeah. The pig's name is Lulu,
and back in two thousand and sixteen, she joined the
airport's wag Brigade, which, as you could probably guess, as
a group of specially trained therapy animals that the airport
keeps on staff. But Lulu doesn't just sit there like
a lump while you pet her, like say a therapy
(21:46):
rabbit might do. Lulu is actually a highly skilled performer.
So get this. She has not one, not to but
ten different tricks in her repertoire, and including one where
she plays a miniature piano. But you know, like any
pig diva, she also brings a complete wardrobe with her,
and so her vast costume collection includes, among other outfits,
(22:08):
a sparkly pink too too, and of course a pilot
uniform with a hat, which sounds adorable. But you know,
if gigs aren't your thing, you might actually have better
luck at the airport in hebron Kentucky. So folks that
are originally planned to use dogs when they launched the
therapy animal program in two thousand and sixteen, but in
the end they went with something much more unique and
(22:29):
also more local. So the airport got in touch with
a nearby nonprofit that happened to run a miniature horse
therapy program, and after a few visits, the airport decided
to ditch the dogs and just bring many horses to
the airport twice a month instead. And as you can imagine,
you know, the prospect of hurting multiple horses through the
security lines was pretty daunting, so the horses are usually
(22:50):
kept in the ticketing area during the visits, and even
if you aren't flying anywhere, you can still swing by
and pet some therapy horses. It's like a stable full
of little Sebastian like a fun airport to go to.
But it's funny that stuff happens in the US, because
I typically only hear about these kinds of programs at
foreign airports, like, for instance, I read that the Shipple
Airport in Amsterdam has all kinds of jealousy inducing amenities.
(23:14):
They've got a fully stocked airport library, a museum showcasing
art from the Dutch Masters, and probably coolest of all,
a team of concierge robots, and don't even get me
started on the airport in Singapore. So I've actually been
to the Singapore airport. It was in the nineties, and
even back then it was unreal, like if you had
(23:35):
a layover, Singapore would actually give you like honestly, it
was like a forty five minute or an hour long
tour of the country and then bring you back to
the airport and whisk you through security. It also had
like amazing public showers and these super clean stalls, and
and there was this garden with birds in it. Yeah,
except that it's actually gardens plural, like the first one
was built in the nineteen eighties, I think. But now
(23:57):
there are whopping ten gardens that are spread across the
airports for different terminals, and altogether they contain over half
a million plants from nearly three hundred different species. It's
pretty absurd, Like they have this dedicated cactus garden, one
with just sunflowers, another that's full of orchids. But I
think my favorite has to be this two story, open air,
(24:19):
thirty hundred square foot butterfly garden in Terminal three. And
apparently there are more than a thousand tropical butterflies that
call this garden home at any given time. And if
you're not into butterflies, the garden is still worth a
visit because it also contains a twenty foot tall waterfall. Wow.
I mean that was definitely not there when I was there.
But uh, you know, we had a significant layover when
(24:42):
I was at the Singapore Airport, and I have never
been to another airport where I wouldn't have minded waiting
for like a flight delay. You know, the food was great,
the place was great, it was well lit, it was
it was really gorgeous. I'd love to visit there sometime.
And apparently you're not the only one who feels this way.
It's actually according to the World air Port Awards, which
is apparently a thing. In two thousand eighteen, the Singapore
(25:04):
Airport was voted the world's best airport for the sixth
year in a row. And there's a pretty steep competition
out there. So at this point, I'm not sure what
it would take to beat Singapore. So I do think
that they have one feature that could knock them out
of the top spot, and that is rocking chairs. I
think you missed the part where I said Singapore Airport
(25:25):
has a twenty foot indoor waterfall. I'm pretty sure that
tops rocking chairs. Well. I think some cities prefer their
manti is a little less show you, thank you very much,
or at least that was my takeaway after learning that
over fifty airports around the US now have a fleet
of rockers set up in their terminals. You know, not
that you mentioned that, It's something I've noticed a lot lately,
(25:45):
especially when I'm passing through airports here in the South.
I mean, it feels like Charlotte has had them forever,
But maybe that's part of what's going on there. Like
Southern folks just like the airport to feel a little
more like their front porch. Maybe. Yeah, I mean, I
think you're probably half right, because it's not just Southerners
who like the rockers. You can actually find them in
airports as far west as Seattle and San Diego. But
(26:06):
you know, that front porch field you mentioned is definitely
a big part of the appeal. In fact, the whole
trend seems to have started thanks to a temporary art
exhibit called Porch Sitting, and you're absolutely right. It was
featured at the airport in Charlotte, North Carolina. And this
was way back in and so the way it worked
was they had all these giant photographs of different front
porches with rocking chairs on them, and then in front
(26:28):
of the photos they put actual rocking chairs, kind of
like props to make the exhibit a little more interactive.
But when the exhibit finished its run and the chairs
were taken away, people got super upset. You know. It
was just like with that carpet in Portland, Like passengers
had grown so fond of these airport rockers, and once
the public outcry started, the amenities manager not only brought
(26:48):
the chairs back, he also added even more of them.
I mean, it's fascinating to see what kinds of things
people get attached to, and at airports of all places.
But I'm curious, though, because what you just outline is
a pretty specific chain of events. Like I doubt all
these other airports had their own rocking chair exhibits or whatever,
but how did they wind up with them? Right? So,
(27:09):
for the most part, it seems like people who worked
at one airport started noticing the chairs at other airports
while they were traveling, and then they just decided to
copy the idea. But here's the best part. All those
rockers spread across fifty some airports like, they all come
from the same company. It's called Troutman Chairs and it's
co owned by a husband and wife who have basically
become the go to supplier for airport rocking chairs. Wait, seriously, like,
(27:33):
what a bizarre market to domin also had they pull
this off? Well, the company is based in North Carolina,
which is where the trend got started, so they were
the ones who built the chairs for that exhibit in
ninety seven, and then over the years, whenever one airport
manager asked about the rockers at a different airport, they're
always pointed right back to Troutman Chairs. But the other
cool thing I read is the theory on why these
(27:53):
chairs were a hit with passengers in the first place.
And this is the explanation that the amenities manager in
North Carolina eve quote. Airports tend to be such a
fast paced environment it could be overwhelming for people who
aren't seasoned travelers. The rocker is a yen to that yang.
You're controlling the rocker, where a lot of the time
in an airport you're not controlling your environment. It's a
(28:15):
nice pause button in a hectic environment. It definitely isn't.
You can see that when you travel through Charlotte and
you see all the people sitting there. In fact, I
can remember when we were traveling so much in our
Mental Floss days, and our old designer Winslow, and I
would travel through that airport all the time. We got
so used to knowing what was in every spot in
that airport that we could use code for the different terminals.
(28:38):
And there was this barbecue restaurant where we ate one time,
and it was not the best dish of barbecue, and
it was very wet for some reason. So whenever I
would check in with Winslow when he was traveling, sometimes
he would just text back wet barbecue, and I knew
that meant he was in Terminal E in the Charlotte Airport.
But but back to the idea of these rocking chairs.
(28:59):
I mean, you know, he's asolutely right about airports being hectic,
and that's actually something I do think we should talk
about and a little bit more detail. But before we
get to that, let's take one more quick break. If
(29:23):
you're listening to Part Time Genius, and we're talking about
the special kind of anxiety that people feel at airports, okay, Well,
so one thing I noticed while looking through our research
is that society actually used to have a much more
romantic view of airports than we do today. Like, if
you look back at the mid twentieth century, when commercial
air travel was just you know, taking off, thank you Tristan,
(29:43):
people had a very rosy, optimistic view of flying. A
trip to the airport didn't fill you with dread because
airports were still seen as dynamic, forward looking places. But
that's definitely not what most of us see them as today.
So I'm curious, why do you think that happened? Well,
you know, I would think a big part of this
is the massive uptick and security that we've seen since
(30:04):
the nineties seventies, And I think we covered this a
bit in our Golden Age of Hijacking episode. But airports
first added metal detectors in the seventies, and this was
of course as a way to thwart hijackers. And ever
since then, we've watched the security process at airports gradually
grow more strict and more complicated. And while tighter regulations
are needed in some cases, I think part of the
(30:25):
fallout from them is that a lot of people feel
really stressed at the airport. And that's even before you
factor in other changes that have negatively impacted the airport experience.
Like you know how much dingier airlines are compared to
just twenty years or so ago. And there used to
be free meals on short flights for all classes, and
then it was restricted to long flights, and now it's
(30:47):
really only international if you're flying coach. You've also got
the baggage fees that have gone up, and set fees
keep going up, and people are getting bumped from flights
left and right, and so this kind of stuff. You know,
people are now associated eating with flying and and you
can tell to like last year, Americans gave airlines lower
marks on customer satisfaction surveys than the US Postal Service.
(31:09):
And not only that, airlines were in the bottom six
for the least liked industries in America, and they were
right there with stuff like health insurance and TV and
internet providers. I mean, that's not great company, definitely not.
But I do think you're right that tighter security and
hidden costs are kind of what robbed airports of their luster.
I was reading this article in Slate about the current
(31:31):
state of the aviation industry and they said, you can
basically divide the perception of airports into three phases. The
first was when the airports were this icon of progress,
which is the period I mentioned earlier, probably from like
the fifties through the sixties. And the second phase would
maybe be the seventies through the mid nineties, and that's
when the airports felt what Slate put like another stale
(31:53):
waiting room of modern life. I mean, that's probably about
how I feel about them. So I'm guess maybe I'm
stuck in phase two right now. Yeah, and I'm guessing
you're not alone. But for everyone else where now in
the third phase, where the airport has become quote the
marble floored home of our national fear fueled psychosis. Wow, Wow,
it is not pretty when you spell it out like that.
(32:15):
I guess that's not too far off from how a
lot of people feel about it. And what's interesting is
how airports have responded to the rising anxiety levels among
their passengers, Like that's got to be what's prompting all
the over the top new amenities and the herds of
therapy animals to art galleries, the rocking chairs that we
talked about. I mean, it's all meant to help calm
us down and sort of forget that we're in a
(32:37):
place where most of us would rather not be. Yeah,
that sounds right to me, And I think the fact
that airport retail is booming right now kind of backs
that up. So a lot of people use shopping as
a way to curb their anxiety or just brighten their
mood in general. You know, we call it retail therapy.
And in two thousands sixteen, airport retail actually rose a
full four percent worldwide, and for the U S. Canada,
(33:00):
airport retailing is set to rise from aground four billion
dollars in two thousand fifteen to just under ten billion
dollars by that's ap going to micro Market Monitor, which
is a publication for the trade. But you know, that's
some seriously impressive sales growth, and I bet a lot
of it will be thanks to stressed out shopping. You know.
Those figures actually, I guess don't surprise me when you
(33:23):
think about because no matter how bad brick and mortar
stores start hurting, airport retailers really seem like they're going
to be just fine, because if you think about it,
there are more people flying now each year than at
any time in history. So your local mall might not
be getting that much traffic, but airport retailers have this
steady stream at just about any hour of the day. Yeah,
(33:44):
it's a good point. And I was reading about this
one bit of airport managure lingo called dwell time. It's
basically the time between when a passenger makes it through
security and when they board their plane, so you know,
all the time during which you could be spending money,
and apparently the first six minutes of dwell time are
the most lucrative. It's actually called the golden hour because
(34:04):
it's supposedly when passengers are feeling their most self indulgent.
I mean that makes sense. You've just gone through security,
suffered the indignity of the pat downs. You're just looking
for any way to make yourself feel a little bit better.
I guess. Yeah. Actually it reminds me. I was in
the quick X ray thing that they do where you
walk into that space and turn and raise your arms
and then walk through it, and this guy, I don't
(34:27):
know whether he was on a power trip or what,
but he started telling me while I was in there
to pull up my pants and it is not like
I wear low riding pants, like, but I had taken
off my belt as you do to go through the
security thing, and and uh, my pants were resting on
my hips and he was like, I said, pull up
your pants, and he kept getting louder and louder about it.
In this situation where you're supposed to keep your hands
(34:49):
up in the air and there's this queue forming behind me,
and it was so anxiety inducing. And it's also one
of these situations where you can't talk back, right because
you know if you do, it's only going to escalate
the problem. So I hiked my pants up as high
as I could bottled out of this place, And of
course what I do next. I bought some candy and magazines,
(35:11):
you know, just to get out of that headspace. But
I mean, like, I guess it's one of those things
where he knows that we're getting older, and he just
thought by this point, you're almost to that age where
your pants should be up to your belly button, right,
or maybe he's on the take from these stores just
like getting up sales. But you know, there are plenty
of other reasons to buy things too. People forget to
(35:33):
pack things for their trip, like headphones or whatever. Maybe
they forget to get someone a gift and the airport
becomes their last chance to save face with a mug
or buy some candy. I have definitely been in that
position a few times. And you know, airport retailers are
lucky to have this captive audience. You know, their customers
are psychologically primed to buy. And it's even more true
(35:53):
when you throw incentives like the whole duty free thing
that's added into the mix here. Yeah, that that reminds me.
I was reading about the airport in Dubai, and not
only is it one of the busiest in the world,
it's also home to the most lucrative duty free shop
of all time. By the way, I've actually been to
the Dubai airport, and speaking of luxuries, if they know
you're flying through with a kid and we were on
(36:14):
our way to India at the time, they actually bring
you a stroller to meet you at the gate, so
that like you can connect to your next plane without
like having to wake up your kid. You can just
put them in the stroller and stroll them along. It
is really sort of very thoughtful and and nothing I've
experienced in the States. But uh, back to the duty
free thing. So their giant shop is just called Dubai
(36:36):
duty Free, which is a little basic, but the sheer
size of the place is actually staggering. The store boasts
four hundred nine thousand square feet of retail space, and
the Pacific Standard says, if you want to picture it,
it's a full one and a half times the size
of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. Yeah, that's helps me
get a great picture of this thing. But that is huge.
(36:58):
But you also said it's the most lucrative though, right, Yeah,
So the stores annual sales typically fall just shy of
two billion U S dollars from one store. I mean,
so what are they selling to generate this kind of money.
It is the typical duty free stables, just at this
greater volume. So they sell tons of perfumean liquor. It's
three million dollars in sales with that. Last year tobacco
(37:20):
sells really well there they sold two million dollars of that. Um.
They also sell other items like gold is a big seller,
and not just jewelry, but a show like bars of
twenty to carrot, bricks of gold. You know, it's it's crazy, um,
there's another big seller that I never would have guessed. Uh, Tang.
What is like the orange powder drink mixed. So it's
(37:44):
just like the astronauts supposedly loved. But we're in a
Pacific standard. The Dubai airport can sell upwards of metric
tons of tang in a single year. Isn't that insane?
Like how much tang? And I was wondering that. Apparently
it's South laborers who like the stock up before going
home after working in the Persian Gulf. But you know,
(38:04):
if you're thirsty for something a little stronger than tang,
you can actually check out the special first class only
floor the store, and that's where you'll find a two
d thousand dollar bottle of whiskey. It's named the Royal
Salute Tribute to Honor. Oh what an? I feel like
I might just stick with the Tang in this case,
and the store can't be selling too many of those
(38:26):
bottles of whiskey though, right, Oh you mean Royal Salute
Tribute to Honor. It sounds like a dictator named but
supposedly like having these high price bottles around creates what's
called a halo effect, and it encourages these wealthy travelers
to spend more of, which is, you know, just so
typical of rich people, classic rich people. But I mean,
(38:48):
you know, airports have plenty of other ways of getting
your money besides retail, and one of them is that
we just straight up give it to them, or at
least that's the end result. So how's that. Well, we
really do this though, by leaving money behind accidentally, So
every year, millions of travelers hastily emptied their pockets into
those plastic bins at the security line, and then we
(39:10):
forget to collect that loose change once we've made it through.
And yeah, that could be just a few pennies here there,
but all those coins actually do add up. I was
looking at this breakdown that CNBC put out, and over
the years, it's interesting to see how much it's been growing.
So back in two thousand eleven, it was just shy
of half a million dollars that was left behind by people,
(39:31):
and then it jumped to six hundred and seventy five
thousand dollars in two thousand and fourteen, kept increasing every year.
In two thousand and sixteen, the t s AS take
was the biggest one reported yet It was a whopping
eight hundred and sixties seven thousand dollars and abandoned coins
and other currency just left behind. So what happens to
that money? Like it just becomes t s A profit? Uh?
(39:54):
Pretty much. There was actually a law passed back in
two thousand five by Congress that states that t s
A is free to keep the unclaimed cash it finds
and put it toward whichever security efforts it wants to.
And personally, my vote is for a dedicated ben cleaner
so that I never have to hear another study about
how dirty they are compared to a toilet. I can
(40:14):
get behind that, all right. Well, Tristan is over there
tapping his PDX carpet wrist watch, which means it's time
for today's fact off, So you're ready to do this?
Mango always h So you know how all these airports
(40:35):
had various codes like PDX is Portland, l A X
is l A, etcetera. Apparently the tiny sand dune where
the Wright brothers made their first flight in Kitty Hawk
has been given a code as well, and they were
sweetly given the name f A, which stands for First
Flight Airport. Oh I like that? Well? For years? If
you were flying through Genoa's Christopher O. Colombo Airport. You
(40:57):
have to leave your pesto as a purity, at least
if it was more than a hundred million leaders of
the stuff. And of course this made tons of tourists unhappy,
so then they decided to amend the rules and now
you can fly with five hundred grams of pesto and
these are bigger jars, but that's as long as you
make a donation to Flying Angels. Now, this is a
(41:18):
charity that helps fund air travel for six children. So
it's a sweet idea and people seem to be happy again.
But there is one catch though. The airport waiver only
applies to pesto that is actually made in Genoa, so
this is an airport related exactly. But do you know
that pilots on flights are served different meals and they
are not allowed to share. Apparently it's done as a
(41:41):
rule because of a fear of food poisoning. Wow, which
makes a lot of sense actually, Well, speaking of planes,
I realized this isn't something will probably ever have to
worry about. But if the oxygen mask drops down, you're
only going to get about fifteen to twenty minutes of oxygen.
There's a limited amount of course on there, but the
idea is that more than enough. The ideas that's more
(42:03):
than enough time to take you to a lower altitude,
which is when you won't really need them. And actually,
one other thing about those oxygen masks. What you're getting
isn't really oxygen. It's actually kind of this cocktail of
chemicals that when they're burned together, they release oxygen because
pure oxygen tanks would just be too heavy and bulky
(42:23):
to take up into the air. That's interesting. So if
you're wondering why certain passengers get pulled aside for a
cavity check, there's actually a system for it. So t
s A agents assign you points for specific suspicious behavior,
and if you have too much of it, you know,
too many points, that's when it happens. But here are
some of the things they're looking for. Exaggerated yawning or
(42:44):
excessive throat clearing, covering your mouth when you're speaking, showing
up in disguise, which makes sense, carrying an almanac, which
makes less sense to me, widely open staring eyes, and whistling. Whistling,
I'm mean, whistling is like the classic thing people do
in movies when they're like, I'm not up to anything.
(43:05):
But is that really whistling? Is it really on the list? Yeah,
it's when the individual approaches the screen process because they're worried.
It's a code or signal. But you know, maybe it's
also to teach annoying people to whistle us. All right, Well,
here's a strange one. In New York. There's an airport
dentist and I just learned about this. He's actually at
(43:26):
one of the airports that I frequent but his name
is Dr Robert Traeger, and much like those airports stores,
he's taking full advantage of this location. So he's got
to practice in Terminal B at LaGuardia apparently, where he
both sees airport employees and frequent flyers along with some
emergency walk ins, and at JFK his office is close
(43:47):
by outside of the main airport, so his wife will
actually show for you to the main terminal, but that's
only if you're part of his Smile High club. And
I'm wondering how often these people are going to the
dentist and in onto the airport to be part of
whatever this club is. But it's pretty amazing. The crazy
thing is that Dr Trigger also does work for the
(44:07):
government while he's there, so the I n S uses
him to look at wisdom, teeth and these other indicators
to determine whether people they're detaining our miners or whether
they may be lying about their age because you can
tell age through inspecting bones and also teeth. It's crazy
that he's got this double life. Well, yeah, here's a
weird one. Do you know the f A has a
(44:28):
theme song, M and I was not aware of that.
And here if you're the lyrics, So we're planning and
building away to make tomorrow even safer than today while
flying grows, so do we And that's what it's all about.
We want to help you get back home in a
jumbo jet or flying alone. We make it safe up
(44:49):
in the sky so you'll relax when you fly. So
it's super cashy. Everyone knows the lyrics, they can sing along.
But it's actually got a great story. Apparently, when morale
was down in the eighties, this guy named John Hanks,
he was the public affairs director at the time. He
decided to give the f A a little boost, and
as he put it, quote, it was designed to bring
(45:10):
the f A employees closer together and the common purpose
we had in our mission of aviation safety. Oddly, it
was a huge success, so employees really bought into it.
They thought it was super fun. The f A administrator
thought it was great, and the f A Corral was
performed at lots of events around the country, including and
this is from Auntlas Obscure at quote, one of Nancy
(45:32):
Reagan's Just Say No anti drug rallies, following the headliner
LaToya Jackson. You know, the eighties were this heady time
where LaToya could be followed by Corral. But you know,
the best part of it is that the song costs
nothing to taxpayers. It was all done by Hanks and
his friends in their free time. You know, that's a
(45:54):
good fact But I think the fact that you slipped
the words LaToya Jackson into a fact off makes you
just automatic winner. There's nothing I can do to beat that.
So congratulation, and we wanted to say thanks to some
of our listeners out there. It's actually been a lot
of fun to hear from you guys in recent months
keeping track of who is winning the fact off battle,
(46:16):
because we actually haven't been keeping track, and it was
pretty funny. We stumbled across a website that somebody had
actually pointed out to us where one of our listeners
is keeping track of who is winning this fact off battle,
and unfortunately, it looks like Mango has been in the lead.
And of course just widen that lead again today. And
I think you've been in the lead all year. You
(46:38):
took a big lead last year, and we've been pretty
even this year. But I think his house Frounce he uh,
he created this whole graph of it. It's pretty amazing,
it's pretty terrific. But we love hearing from you on
this kind of thing and and and always love seeing
those types of things. But if there are any facts
that we forgot to include about airports, about flying, anything
(46:59):
related to the this episode, we always love hearing from
You can reach out to us at part Time Genius
at how stuff Works dot com or hit us up
on Facebook or Twitter, or from Gabe, Tristan, Mango and me.
Thanks so much for listening, Thanks again for listening. Part
(47:26):
Time Genius is a production of How Stuff Works and
wouldn't be possible without several brilliant people who do the
important things. We couldn't even begin to understand. Christa McNeil
does the editing thing. Noel Brown made the theme song
and does the mixy mixy sound thing. Garry Rowland does
the exact producer thing. Gabe Bluesier is our lead researcher,
with support from the research Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan
Brown and Lucas Adams and Eve. Jeff Cook gets the
(47:48):
show to your ears. Good job, Eves. If you like
what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe, And if you
really really like what you've heard, maybe you could leave
a good review for us. Do we do? We forget
Jason Jason who did
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