The airport spa has been the greatest invention for travelers. Especially when put by the departure gate. Those who have experienced wearisome distant flights and enervating plane delays will undoubtedly agree with such statement. And while some may consider all the spa services too indulgent in ordinary life, the necessity of them becomes palpable once you arrive at the airport.
“The response from travelers has been incredible,” notes Bruce Schoenberg, co-owner of the Manhattan-based Oasis spas, speaking of newly-opened Oasis mini-spa in the JetBlue terminal at JFK. “We’ve gotten everything from ’it’s about time’ to ’thank God you’re here.’ Attracting customers has been no problem.”
The Oasis spa at JetBlue is one of two at Kennedy airport; the other, run by the U.K.-based company Molton Brown, is located in the British Airways first-class lounge. Other airport spas include the d_parture spa located in Terminal C at Newark Airport, the simply-named Spa at the Cathay Pacific terminal of Hong Kong International Airport and the O2raOxygen spas at Detroit International and Calgary International Airports.
However, opening and running a day spa at the modern airport is not as unclouded as it may seem.
“Our biggest problem has been convincing people that the airport is a great place to work,” Schoenberg tells FashionWireDaily. “It might be a commute, for one thing, and then there are security measures like background checks to take into account, so a lot of qualified people are wary. And also, you know, there’s a lot of retraining that has to go on — giving a facial, for example, is a different thing when your client has exactly one hour until boarding.”
A very important thing that must be taken into account both when planning and scheduling services is the time travelers have at their disposal. Oasis has even timed the walk from the spa door to the farthest JetBlue gate, as well as the length of every service on the menu.
“The first question we ask clients is what time their flight is supposed to board,” Schoenberg explains. “And then we tell them what services we can offer in that amount of time. With some of our express services, it’s obvious, of course — we’ve got 15 minute chair massage and 15 minute express facials, for example. But the last thing we want is for someone to miss his or her flight because they’re in the middle of a blowout.”
“Of course,” he adds, “there have been a lot of long delays this season, so fortunately or unfortunately for our customers, they’ve had plenty of time.”