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airports

Travel Nightmare: Lockdown on plugs

By thomascrampton ⋅ January 6, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

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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Thomas Crampton was a correspondent for the International Herald Tribune and The New York Times for more than a decade, reporting from five continents, writing a column on Asia and covering Asian politics, economics and culture. Currently based in Hong Kong, he writes here about China, the Internet and New Media seen from Asia, while also advising companies on digital communication strategies. For more information click here...