Liven up airports ...
Just got back from Houston - I had been there for a two day business trip. Although there is a direct Continental Airlines flight from Houston to Raleigh, I flew via Dallas because I am a Platinum member at American Airlines. I flew a lot last year and had 14 round trips between North Carolina and California.
On the way back to Raleigh, I spent almost two hours at Dallas waiting for my connection. And this got me thinking about all of the time I have spent waiting for my connection at airports - There is usually nothing to do other than sit in a restaurant/bar ...
Why dont we have cinema theaters in the larger airports ? Think about it ... You arrive at the airport, your connecting flight doesnt take off for another three hours - Perfect time for a movie ! And if you could make sure that there is a show starting every ten minutes or so, nothing like it.
I wonder what the average wait time is for connections ?
And of course, people who have flight delays are a large potential market - Maybe airlines could distribute free movie vouchers to passengers whose flights have been delayed ....
4 Comments:
and some belly dancers and free popcorn.
Don't you think that having a movie start every ten minutes is a pretty unrealistic idea? How many movie theatres would be needed? Assuming each movie lasts 100 minutes, that means ten movie theatres...
Unless you have smaller sreens dotted around in front of a bunch of chairs. Anyway I'm sure the airport wouldn't want to pay for the screening rights.
You're meant to be shopping and spending :)
I was impressed by your idea to have a theatre in airports. It is a real good one and I am sure the cinema houses would be waiting to grab the opportunity. But I was also wondering if we need to have a theatre with say a capacity of over 40 to 50(I use my instincts to arrive at this figure. If we are talking about a mobile crowd, then better to have less capacity for a show). In this world of "core competencies", I am sure the airport managers would want to outsource the project to 3rd parties. And these guys in turn will have to invest huge amounts and wait for say couple of years to break even.
I thought of an alternative. How about having good chairs designed like an "easy chair", fitted with a LCD screen.
The control of these chairs could be with the airport authorities or a specified number could be allocated to flight operators. When the operators find it necessary for their customers to spend sometime in the airport, they will automaticallly offer a "seat reservation".Of course, it is the customer's prerogative to utilise this.
This way, we drive away the maintenance of a theatre like complex. Logistically, this would be implementable. And the shows are decided by the customers.
Sami, I like your spin on the idea because ultimately we would then move towards an "on-demand" environment - The only problem is that we would lose the cinema theater effect and would have to compete with handheld DVD units ....
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