airports

Travel Nightmare: Lockdown on plugs

Great posting by Ed Kohler about a terrible new trend in US airports: Charging for electricity.

Ed took these photos at the Cincinnati airport. The scary part is how the SmartCarte machine locks down access to electricity, creating a monopoly on the suddenly scarce resource.

As blogged earlier, power is one crucial in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Geek Needs.

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  1. If Cincinatti’s or SmartCarte’s intent is to avoid people from disrupting the operation of the machine, then I agree. Many airports now offer device re-charging stations. They are quite plentiful in Atlanta, and I believe in Cincinnati as well.

    Posted by Andrew McDill | January 7, 2009, 8:49 am
  2. Thomas, thanks for the mention. Love the hierarchy of geek needs. Another peeve of mine that needs more attention: Hotels that hide outlets behind furniture.

    Posted by Ed Kohler | January 7, 2009, 11:09 am
  3. I was just in the brand new Bangkok airport this weekend which – amazingly – didn’t seem to have any plugs (free or paying).

    My question about the SmartCarte system is how you charge a laptop while working on it?

    Do you have to stand by the machine and hold your laptop in the air while typing?

    Posted by thomascrampton | January 7, 2009, 5:39 pm
  4. Seem crazy that you cannot plug your laptop in at an airport when you have hours to wait and a long flight ahead of you and yet on many 2 hour train journeys i have found a plug without any problems!

    Posted by lostinbangkok | January 16, 2009, 3:23 pm
  5. Seem crazy that you cannot plug your laptop in at an airport when you have hours to wait and a long flight ahead of you and yet on many 2 hour train journeys i have found a plug without any problems!

    Posted by lostinbangkok | January 16, 2009, 3:23 pm
  6. Seem crazy that you cannot plug your laptop in at an airport when you have hours to wait and a long flight ahead of you and yet on many 2 hour train journeys i have found a plug without any problems!

    Posted by lostinbangkok | January 16, 2009, 11:23 pm

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