Skift Take
With the return of business travelers to the skies, more flexible office providers are honing in on airports as havens for remote workers.
“We’re not a WeWork,” the boss of Delta Air Lines' Sky Clubs once famously said, as the airline began capping the amount of time passengers could stay in its airport lounges.
That could be about to change.
Airports continue to transform as they keep up with new post-pandemic travel trends, including the rise of blended travel. Airport hotels, for example, are becoming more popular meeting venues for companies with geographically diverse teams.
But now co-working is set to feature more prominently, as flexible office platforms and lounge operators capitalize on corporate work-from-anywhere policies. And the number of flexible workspaces located in airports has already grown 83 percent year-on-year since the end of 2021, according to data and analytics platform CoworkIntel.
Now Departing
One of the biggest players, IWG, has just opened its second Spaces co-work venue at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, as part of the Lounge 1 redevelopment. There are six working areas, four meeting rooms and spaces for 100 people.
It’s designed for transfer passengers who need to work while they are waiting for connecting flights, as well as people working nearby. IWG said it had ambitious plans for growth and was delivering that by scaling up the variety of locations it operates.
To date it has nearly 50 hybrid workspaces in or close to airports across the world. That includes hubs including Los Angeles
