Pilot Program at LAX to Put Business Travelers Online

Soon you can be cruising down the information highway while waiting to fly through the skies of Southern California.

In the next two to three months, Los Angeles International Airport will set up 12 computers inside two terminals where travelers can sign on to the Internet to send e-mail, pick up messages and dispatch faxes. For the totally bored, there will be a few games to play while waiting for a flight.

A six-month computer pilot program was approved this week by the airport’s Board of Commissioners, making LAX one of the first air transportation facilities in the country to offer computer services.

The computers, which will cost $2.50 for a 10-minute chunk of time, are geared for busy business travelers like Steve Simmonds of San Diego, who was at the airport Tuesday afternoon waiting for a flight to India where he and a colleague planned to recruit computer engineers.

“Yeah, it’s a good idea,” said Simmonds, carrying a briefcase loaded with papers but bereft of his laptop computer. “It’s kind of a hassle to carry around a laptop. I didn’t carry around one on this trip because I heard they didn’t work well in India. But the only reason I carry one is to check my e-mail.”

Since February, San Francisco International Airport has been experimenting with computers placed in its North Terminal on a six-month pilot project with QuickATM Corp. of Berkeley, the same company that will be installing the LAX computers.

About 80% of the people who use the computer stations check their e-mail, said David Dunn, senior principal property manager at the San Francisco airport. He said the need for computer stations is growing as people become more dependent on them for quick communication. Travelers can also use them to check out the weather at their destination and get stock quotes.

“Business service centers are dinosaurs,” said Dunn, noting that there is little need these days for someone to take shorthand or type letters. “Last July we did away with [the airport service centers]. We started looking at what we had and saw we were not meeting the needs of the business traveler.”

San Francisco was one of the first airports in the country to install public Internet stations. Soon New York’s La Guardia Airport and Washington’s National Airport followed. Stations are expected to be installed this fall at JFK in New York, Newark and Montreal.

However, officials at Denver International Airport, the country’s newest airport, said they don’t intend to install computer stations soon because consumers haven’t demanded them. Instead, they have electronic ports near pay telephones where laptops can be plugged in. LAX has electronic ports too.

At Los Angeles International Airport, the computer stations will be placed at the Tom Bradley International Terminal and Terminal 7, which is used by United Airlines for domestic and international flights.

Each station or kiosk will have two to four computers where travelers can pass a credit card through a magnetic device to set up a billing account by typing in their name and e-mail address and establishing a password.

Consumers must have an e-mail account with America Online, Microsoft Network, CompuServe, Telnet, AT&T; WorldNet or another commercial Internet service provider.

The two LAX terminals were chosen because international travelers who use them must arrive there at least two hours before their flight.

At the Tom Bradley International Terminal, there will be four computers installed in the Intransit Lounge. In Terminal 7, there will be eight computers near Gates 71B, 73 and 75B.

“People who check their e-mail every day feel especially out of touch the days they are traveling, particularly if it is a six-hour flight,” said Cliff Orloff, chief executive officer for QuickATM. “Before they get on their flights, they can check their messages and send messages. When they get off, they can check their e-mail again to see what the responses were. It is this concept of business turnaround.”

And, speaking of business, LAX will get a financial boost by receiving one-third of the revenues generated by the computer stations.