Out of the way

I am sitting on the floor behind the check-in machines at Frankfurt airport. It isn't very comfortable, but I can see outside (where it is cold and raining on and off) which isn't bad. I'm here because Lufthansa wouldn't recognise me as a Gold Frequent Flyer (I am), since they don't believe their own system and I don't have a current card (thank you SAS for still not sending it despite 3 requests and 4 months).

Normally if I was flying Lufthansa (as I am today) I would go into the lounge, and have electricity and free food and drink. The food is even reasonable at Frankfurt, which is good when I have a 6-hour wait. But sometimes I don't get a lounge.

Six hours is too long to sleep on the uncomfortable airport chairs. It is day time, not the time to sleep in a quiet corner as I would if I was here overnight. I am tired of walking around and I want to work.

But I can't do it without electricity. Airports are buildings that use enormous amounts of the stuff - cigarette machines, air conditioners, lights, and lots of computers. But they often don't have spare power points when you really want them, where you really want them.

Walking around when I arrived I found that there was one extra behind a row of check-in machines, but a woman was already using it. So I walked a bit longer, and explored a lot of the rest of the airport. Finally, I came back and she had gone, so I have power for a couple of hours.

Next is internet - wifi at 5€ / hour, or connect via mobile telephone which is even more expensive. And the pricing plans at airports are generally dreadful, from a consumer's perspective. I guess that maximises the return for the provider, but I think they are doing themselves out of a lot of business. Wifi is still not as comfortable as a phone in terms of finding a connection and getting on with work, so often I skip it and wait.

But this time I paid the money, I have had time to charge my laptop from dead, and I got some work done. Hopefully I have moved around enough so that when I get up my legs haven't gone to sleep. Because it is just about time I can go join another queue and start another leg of the journey of life.

(It's not all bad. I got four seats on the flight from Newark, which makes for better sleeping than any but the most modern and comfortable business class seats. There is a trick to that, which I might write about another time...)