But at Portland International Airport (PDX), there’s now a new way to kill the time: movie theater right inside the terminal.
And there’s also an ordinance that requires shops in the terminal to charge the same prices as outside! So it’s totally reasonable to get a meal there.
They kinda asked and answered their own question there. As anyone who’s played Rollercoaster Tycoon will know, once you’ve got captive consumers, there’s nothing else to do but shake them down. Welcome to the land of $5 bottled water with scarce and inconveniently-located water dispensers. It’s 2026 and it’s easier to buy a bottle of water for orders of magnitude greater than its base cost than it is to refill a water bottle.
Yeah but cinema is like £20 per ticket £15 for a medium popcorn and £10 for a coke.
Agreed. Imagine what you could charge in an airport.
Surge pricing on kids films when there’s been a delay as well.
Excellent call. If you didn’t have a conscience, I’d recommend you seek out work as a marketing executive.
You go to the wrong movie theaters. I just bought a subscription to a local movie theater’s film club. Twice a month they play movies that have appeared at national film festivals.
CAD$90 (£48) for 12 films.
Popcorn and other snacks are still exorbitant, of course
Surprised no one is getting the obvious piece here… Airports are severely space limited. Movie theaters are massive.
Not space limited enough to have what are basically malls, so they should be able to find some space for a cinema.
I mean you need height as well. And everyone knows how much they have to overcharge at those stores to justify the cost of the rent. A cinema would need to take over multiple locations, have sound proofing, etc.
I’m sorry, but there’s no way the economics work out. They would need to charge insane amounts and/or have nearly full occupancy at all times.
More massive then airports? They could easily put theaters in an airport, what are you talking about?
The land value and the consumerism is why they dont.
Hell yes, $70 per seat lets goooooo
I’ve never considered going to a movie theatre to be a spontaneous boredom cure but maybe I’m doing it wrong.
You have to check showtimes and decide what you want to see.
I’ve never been like “I have two hours to kill and luckily there is a movie staring right now and ending when I need to leave”
That’s how I watched Project Hail Mary which I very much enjoyed.
I had like 4 hours to kill before I could check in to a hotel.
I used to do that all the time.
How badly do you want to watch the end of one movie and the start of another? That’s what you’d get most of the time.
Reminds me of some dumb airline I used once. They started all the movies at once. And played them continuously. So you gotta start watching one right away. And once it’s over too bad all the rest are at some point in the middle.
This reminds of a particularly frustrating experience with Turkish… Only episodes 3, 5 and 9 of The Last of Us were available. Similar story with other TV shows. I get it, maybe licencing the whole series is expensive, but at least bring a coherent set of episodes, ideally from the beginning. Trying to stitch the story together from that spead run was hopeless.
Cause you have one in your pocket.
This is a real thing at Changi airport in Singapore.
Séoul got one too and Toronto got one for kids
I wonder how many people would get sucked into a movie and miss their flight
Many
Well most of us find the nearest bar and buy over priced drinks and food while staring at our phones
Idk i’d rather play with my imaginary Steam Deck than watch a movie.
Mom said it’s MY turn with the imaginary Steam Deck
Media server. Tablet. Headphones.
Tada. You have a movie theater wherever you happen to be.
Or, you know, put the hotel IN the airport. Like duh, it’s really not that hard.
Doha does exactly that. Not exactly cheap, but great if you have a long lay over.
I never spend my layover in the airport unless it’s only like an hour or two. Usually I’ll just leave the airport and walk around. Last time I had an 8hr layover and I just walked to the nearest bar.
Depends on what time of day the layover is, and how far the airport is from anything. There’s no reason to leave the airport if your layover is from 1 to 4 am, and the airport is in an area surrounded by basically nothing but motels, fast food, and automotive repair shops. This is especially true if your layover is in a foreign country using a different language and getting through security again would be a gamble
