What to Do at the Airport: A Guide to Surviving Boredom

Missed connections, long layovers and flight delays are not only deeply annoying. Because of them, you have to wait at the airport, doing nothing.

Imagine that you arrive at the airport on time, only to find out that your flight has been delayed.

You could be in for quite a long wait, so how are you going to spend all that time?

Here are some suggestions of what to do at the airport while you're waiting for your next flight.

Put your earphones on and sing. Loudly.

Select your favorite playlist and start singing. From your seat or while you're walking. Go wild. Like this guy:

Create a bucket list

Instead of feeling sorry for yourself, look at the bright side: you have plenty of time ahead of you to list all of the things you want to do this week, month or in your life. Look at the board with all the arrivals and departures and pick what your next destination is going to be.

If you haven't seen that movie yet, I can only recommend that you watch "The Bucket List" with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman! That might give you some ideas. Or take a look at some of the top travel destinations.

Find the craziest souvenir in the airport shop

This is more fun if you are flying with a friend, but you can play alone as well: just take a picture of what your discoveries and send it to your friends. Even better if it’s a selfie.

Create backstories to other passengers

Don’t feel like leaving your seat? Imagine you are conducting a study and spend a few minutes observing how the people around you behave. You’ll realize there are many odd-looking folks everywhere. What could be their story - why are they dressed like this? Where are they going? What’s their secret? Bonus point if you can get really creative!

High five people on the escalator

Head towards the escalator - preferably the longer one - and high five the people on the opposite side. This will surely make you feel better about your delay. Even if no one high fives you back, it's still a lot of fun. At the very least, you'll make other people smile: making someone else's day brighter is no small feat!

Make up stories about your life and try to see if strangers will believe you

Should you feel creative and in a mood to talk, find someone ready to listen to you and start describing how amazing your imaginary life is. Or if you believe in the saying “Complaining brings us closer together”, just tell them the sad story of why your flight was delayed.

Pretend you are late for your flight

There is this scene from the movie “Home alone” that we all love, when the almost-whole family is running through the airport hoping to catch their flight, with Chuck Berry’s “Run Rudolph Run” playing in the background. Act out the scene by running from one terminal to the opposite one. If possible, play the soundtrack on your phone while running.

Ask an attendant to call someone for you on the intercom

First, make up a funny name - something very French like “Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath” for instance - so that the airport attendant will have trouble pronouncing it. Tell them he is a distant relative of yours coming here for the first time. The objective is to have the attendant repeat the name as many times as possible.
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Take a nap. But don’t forget to put an alarm.

You wouldn't want to miss your flight, would you?