Amsterdam’s Airport Offers the Ultimate Comfort Chairs

I’m sitting in one of the most comfortable chairs I can imagine. It’s a leather divan with a table by my side and they’ve even supplied us with blankets and pillows. It’s Amsterdam’s  Schiphol airport’s “comfort chairs section,” the only one that I’ve ever heard of in a major international airport.

With long layovers so common on international flights, I must thank the Amsterdam authorities for putting in these fifty-or-so comfort chairs and making this long layover on my way home from Iran so comfy. In fact I am loathe to get up out of this chair, since there are travelers milling about who don’t have a chair who will quickly plonk themselves down on my pre-warmed up divan the moment I get up.

I just read a report about two new terminals that have been built, they’re both called T5, and are at JFK and Heathrow airports. The costs to build them was tremendous, British Air spent upwards of 2 billion on their terminal. But no mention in the Wall Street Journal’s review of a comfort chair section like this. Nor does the new Jetblue T5 have this fabulous amenity.

But Jetblue does offer one thing that would make this comfort chair section even sweeter: Free WiFi. No, Schippol hasn’t offered this yet, instead they have a very swank set up for travelers who want to pony up about $4.83 for 15 minutes on their machines, or $6 for an half hour of wireless.