There’s no answer in this PC World article, but the question is a good one: Why are airport lounges power-free zones?
As far as I can tell, the world has two kinds of airport waiting areas: Those with no wall sockets, and those with far too few. I don’t get it–especially since so many airports have Wi-Fi, which would suggest that they understand that many of us need to get work done while we wait.
You can run a notebook off its battery, of course, but I can’t be the only person who wants to keep every bit of juice for use onboard the plane. (I usually fly United, which seems to be a laggard when it comes to power plugs in coach, so I don’t tote an airplane-friendly power brick.)
Here at SFO, this terminal recently went through an endless, obviously expensive upgrade to provide more restaurants and gift shops–yet there still seems to be an average of one wall outlet for every 8,162 notebook users. Maybe it’s just that airports aren’t used to providing amenities that they don’t charge for.
Amen, brother.
Any time I travel, I can always tell where the outlets are — because that’s where someone’s sitting with a laptop plugged in. And it’s usually on every fourth pillar in the middle of the concourse, as opposed to along the wall.
Rrg.
I have one favorite spot at LAX — there’s a pillar with an outlet, there’s a bookshelf that the notebook can sit on cleanly without having to balance it on my lap, and there’s WiFi spillover from an executive lounge (albeit it’s pay-to-play). I can stand there for an hour or two before my flight and do some writing, sift through e-mail, browse, blog, whatever. I haven’t played CoH there yet — but one of these days …
It’s nice.
It seems to me that there are so many notebook users out there, that rather than the hit-or-miss efforts I see to put Wifi into terminals, they’d be better off putting more outlets — especially when they do upgrades and refurbs.
(And, yes, one can use one’s battery — and be worried about when it’s going to cut off, or not have access then to one’s PC on the plane, and deal with various Energy Miser downgrades to performance.)
It is a puzzlement.