Business management & development
From flight centre to suite splendour
Rejecting the dreary clichés of airport hotels, a new generation of properties is offering a range of sophisticated services. But beyond the bright colours and comfy sofas, what can guests expect as they check in before their check in? And how do hotel executives develop alluring new spaces – while preserving the useful features that made airside properties popular? Andrea Valentino talks to Karen Gilbride, a VP at Atwell Suites, to learn more.
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n 1962, passengers from Idlewild Airport would have noticed something new. The brainchild of Finnish architect Eero Saarinen, the TWA Flight Center was modernism made concrete, its innovative shell design and green-glass facade symbolic of the jet age in all its enthusiasm. The architect himself compared the building’s bird-like design to a “Leonardo da Vinci flying machine” – and it’s hard to disagree, its soaring white roof as dramatic as anything conjured by Saarinen’s renaissance forebear.
Though widely regarded as his finest design, Saarinen himself would never see the TWA Flight Center open, sadly passing away in 1961. Idlewild Airport has passed into history too, renamed JFK after the president’s assassination. Nor would the TWA Flight Center really stand the test of time, closing in 2001 and amiably
rotting as aircraft came and went. Now, though, Saarinen’s masterpiece has been revived in the most unlikely of guises: an airport hotel. Foregoing all the unfortunate clichés that title implies, Time described the new TWA Hotel as one of the ‘greatest places’ on Earth when it opened in 2019, reasonable enough when you recall the glamorous cocktail lounge or heated swimming pool. Nor is Saarinen’s reborn showpiece alone. From Singapore to Texas, hotel operators are rushing ahead with a new generation of airport hotels, like the TWA offering passengers lashing of luxury alongside aircraft- side convenience.
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Hotel Management International /
www.hmi-online.com
Hotel Management International /
www.hmi-online.com
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