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Who wants to hang around the airport long enough to look for flowers? All people want from an airport is to get from the curb to the plane in as short a time as possible, in relatively nice surroundings.

If that's true, then why the huge expenditures on public art? Also, how do you know what "all people" want? Did you interview them? Is there a record somewhere that supports your claim?
 
Whether or not you want to hang out at an airport, most people tend to spend quite a bit of time there. We all cant get there last minute, check in, go through security, to the gate and right on the plane in a matter of minutes. Chances are, you are sitting around an airport for at least an hour. Might as well make it a pleasant experience. That said, I dont know that adding plant life is the cure. Public art is definitly important. Good shops is a must.
 
If that's true, then why the huge expenditures on public art? Also, how do you know what "all people" want? Did you interview them? Is there a record somewhere that supports your claim?

That's not what I wrote. Perhaps the time you spend looking for flowers in airports could be better spent.

But since you brought it up, how do YOU know what people want?
 
I buy three Saturday papers and sit and read them before I fly. Pearson's acoustics are good - nice and quiet! I lunch before I leave home.

Returning, I browse Heathrow and maybe buy something fancy that I don't really need, sometimes lunch in that nice seafood restaurant. Back in T.O. I'm through Customs quickly if I don't have checked luggage.
 
Word. Waiting for a plane is time to catch up on those pesky unread New Yorkers - light, compact, perfect for travel. The last thing I want to do at an airport is eat overpriced food or shop for trinkets.
 
Some airports obviously do a better job at providing the comforts than others. I haven't spent a lot of time at the airport myself, by this I mean waiting around for hours, but I have heard that the restaurant, bar and store choices are not particularly good for those that have to. However I do like the art at the new terminal, it definitely adds some intererst and atmospehere to very large blank space. Not sure about flower arrangements but a bit of greenery in some of the sitting areas wouldn't hurt.
 
Having been away from the city for nearly a year, I would have to say that arriving at T1 was exhilarating ... even though Ficus benjamina could not be glimpsed anywhere.

T1 nicely reflects Toronto's "big, international city" aspirations... corny but true.
 
Globe

Link to article

Terminally bored? You won't be, with digital art
Five works that riff on airport signage, architecture and travel liven up wait times at Terminal 1

NADJA SAYEJ

Special to The Globe and Mail

July 14, 2007

'What is this?" asks Jerry Laehi, furrowing his brow at an arrivals and departures sign at Pearson International Airport. Instead of showing which gate his flight to Vancouver departs from, the times and locations gale around the screen like a tornado of alphabet soup.

The sign isn't broken - it's a work of digital art by New York-based artist Daniel Shiffman. Along withfour other works that riff on airport signage, architecture and travel, the piece is part of an unconventional art show that opened this month in Terminal 1, and attempts to stop jet-lagged travellers in their sleepwalking tracks.

"How clever," says Mr. Laehi, 60, a consultant from Athens, after clueing in. "It really catches you off guard, but I like it. For some of us, it might be the only art we experience."

Presented by the Toronto-based Year Zero One digital-art collective, the idea was sparked in 2005 when co-curator Michael Alstad, 42, found himself stranded in dull airports on business trips in Europe. "I noticed that a lot of airports' art is static, but a better metaphor for the constant coming and going of people is digital work," he says while plugging in wires to Mr. Shiffman's screen.

After getting the green light from Lee Petrie, Pearson Airport's manager of cultural programming this January, Mr. Alstad and David Jhave Johnston, 42, chose five digital works from a call of 90 submissions to reflect the new terminal that opened this January.

The Touch and Go collective is showing short slapstick films that follow the iconic stick man taking some time off from the bathroom wall (in one, he heads down to the bar for a martini; in another, he jousts with an umbrella).

A few other works fall into the "generative art" category, a kind of digital art that brings live data feed (such as weather patterns or plane-departure schedules) to light. One is Karen Thornton's piece, ETA, an outgoing-flight detector that shows a bird's-eye view of the Toronto runways planes will land on. And Erik Adigard and Chris Salter's walk through the Terminal 1 rendition in Second Life is another (though a 10-year-old boy managed to crash it when he sent the character to an off-the-map terrain - a technician had to be called in to get the program back up and running).

Passage Oublié by Montreal-based artist Maroussia Lévesque, 24, invites passengers to text-message their thoughts on terrorism and rendition flights, which are then posted on an online map. "I get racial profiled all the time in airports," wrote one traveller, while another noted, "I don't want to think about this kind of thing before boarding a plane."

Though it makes some passengers nervous, the project is important to Paul Onwubuke, a 42-year-old screening officer. "It's not the kind of art someone will ask to be photographed in front of, that's for sure," he says. "But people need to know that terrorism is real."

Though Ms. Petrie, 37, hasn't seen the exhibition yet, she thinks digital art is the next necessary step for airport art. "I am committed to offering challenging art," she says. "Not everything has to be so lightweight."
 
19.07.2007 13:15
Icelandair Starts Toronto Flights Next Spring
Icelandair has decided to start operations to Toronto in Canada next spring. This will be in addtion to the Halifax flights and Icelandair is also considering services to Montreal, Winnipeg, Ottawa and St. John in Canada. This decision was taken following the completion of the new Open skies agreement signed by the Icelandic and Canadian authorities in Ottawa last week.



"Icelandair has worked ceaslessly over the years and decades to establish an open skies agreement between Iceland and Canada and we are extremely pleased to see that such an agreement has now been concluded. We are ready and willing to enter the Canadian market both with passenger and cargo services. Our flights to Canada, despite the very strict rules enforced by the Canadian authorities, were a clear reflection of our interest in the Canadian market. We believe that this showed the Canadian authorities how serious we are. Now that the agreement is a fact, we see a tremendous opportunity to further develop our route network to serve new and exciting destinationsâ€, says Jon Karl Olafsson, CEO of Icelandair and Icelandair Group.



Toronto is both the largest city in Canada and its main transportation hub. “We are keen to enter this new market, which we believe will become a key gateway for us, like Boston or New Yorkâ€, says Gunnar Mar Sigurfinnsson, Icelandair SVP of Sales and Marketing. “We are confident that this will become a popular destination for Icelanders as it’s a lively multicultural city with a wide variety of attractions as well as offering great connections for further flights in Canada and the U.S.. We also believe that this gives us a great opportunity to market Iceland, as a destination, as Toronto is a transportation hub which serves a large densely populated area. The open skies agreement also opens up a wealth of opportunities in serving customers travelling between Scandinavia and Canadaâ€, said Gunnar Már.


Icelandair will offer 5-7 flights per week throughout the year to Toronto. Flying time to Toronto is approximately 5 hours and 30 minutes from Iceland, which is similar to Baltimore-Washington in the United States. Today Icelandair operates 160 flights per week to 25 destinations in Europe and N-America.

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I'm amazed that of all airlines it's Icelandair!
 

One has to imagine that traffic from Toronto to Reykjavik (in a country with less inhabitants than Scarberia) is much... Though they seem to be doing great in Halifax so I see no reason why Toronto wouldn't work out either. Good news, to add another Scandinavian legacy carrier to the YYZ market!
 
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