With times between flights getting annoyingly longer and air cabins becoming more crowded, the airport spa is an idea whose time has come.

By Marie Orara
Worldroom.com

Once again, you're stuck in an airport between flights. This time it's London's Heathrow. Other business travelers push by to get to their departure gates followed by Hawaiian shirt-clad vacationers starting their party early. You have to wait. With business proposals and corporate memos whirling in your pounding head and squeaky luggage wheels ringing in your ears, the last thing you want to do is switch on your laptop and mobile phone to work. You know the next flight will be numbingly tedious and yet hard to sleep through. What you need is to relax.

But where?

In Heathrow, the answer is easy: opposite Gate 10 in Terminal 4, a small corridor leads to the British Airways lounges and the Molton Brown Spa - an oasis amid the crowds, lines, travel announcements and crush to buy duty-free goods. As you enter, the sounds of ocean waves and chimes quietly play in the white treatment rooms where a cushy rectangular beds welcome visitors.

"Breathe in, and long breath out," whispers Alison Osborne, a resident beauty therapist, as she glides her fingers along the cheeks and forehead of a tense face, massaging in fragrant lotions. "This place is all about relaxation. We aim for that. Everything we do is for relaxation."

The airport spa is an idea whose time has come. With times before and between flights getting annoyingly longer and air cabins becoming more crowded, BA isn't the only company in the travel industry trying to relax frazzled passengers. Airlines, airport hotels and spa operators around the world are setting up on-site centers that offer facials, massages and other health and beauty treatments at air hubs.

Arriving in Top Form
"As people are traveling much more, they are much more concerned about their well-being on their flights and making sure that if you fly, it doesn't ruin the rest of your week," says BA press officer Sara Jones. "They want to be on top form when they fly. They want to arrive at their place of arrival and be able to work or sleep or do whatever they want to do."

One of BA's leading rivals in Britain, Virgin Atlantic Airways, has opened a clubhouse at both Heathrow and Gatwick airports in London with some beauty and spa services as well as entertainment facilities. Airports in Hong Kong, Singapore, Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary and Seattle - just to name a few -- also have spas on site or in adjoining hotels.

BA plans to expand its partnership with Molton Brown and open another spa at JFK International Airport in New York. And the company that operates the spa at Calgary International Airport in Canada plans to open spas in Detroit's Metropolitan Airport and at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam.

"The airports are waking up more and more to the fact that the traveling passenger is really fed up about this air rage, the bad air quality on board, and now the new kid on the block, DVT (deep vein thrombosis), creating blood clots in your veins," says Suzanne Letourneau, chief executive of OraOxygen, which operates the Calgary airport spa.

And passengers seem to agree that air travel takes its toll: "It always makes me feel oily," says France Murray, a process technologist at a Canadian pulp mill, who was changing flights at Calgary. "You feel awful when you come off. You want to get your muscles moving because you've been stiff for that long."

Swollen Legs
Murray spent a couple of hours between flights in Calgary where she received the works at the OraOxygen spa: full-body massage, manicure, pedicure and aromatherapy oxygen.

"My last flight was four hours and my legs were swollen," Murray says. "Now they're feeling great. And the massage also helped with the knots I had in my neck and my back. It's a great feeling."

Since BA teamed up with U.K. cosmetics firm Molton Brown to open its Heathrow spa in mid-March, on average about 150 people use its facilities each day.

"Most of them are quite highly strung, quite stressed because of their business," says Osborne, noting that the majority of the clientele is male. "Most of them just want to really relax and forget about all their work and everything - figures and all sorts of things going through their heads."

While most of the Heathrow spa's clients are first or business class passengers, Silver and Gold members of BA's frequent flyer program can also enjoy the complimentary services - even if they're flying in economy or on another airline at the time they visit the spa. Emerald and Sapphire members of the OneWorld frequent flyer program and some Qantas club members also have access to the spa's services.

Improving the Flying Experience
"We worked to make sure we were giving passengers something they would value rather than having a quick massage, a quick manicure or haircut that they would have to pay for," says Jones. "It's more than a service. It's much more. It's to try and improve people's flying experience."

The spa's beauty therapists advise passengers to allot a full hour for one of the spa's luxurious treatments, which include hand, foot or full body massages as well as facials. Those who opt for full body massages usually take long steam showers before and after.

Nonetheless, passengers in a hurry and in dire need of soothing pre- or post-flight massages - face and scalp, or head and shoulders - can skip the spa and go to the BA arrivals lounge on the other side of the terminal for a quick rubdown.

"Those treatments are only dry massage - over the clothes. Here (at the spa) at least you can have the luxury of having oils and things put on you and aromatherapy," says Osborne.