Reading Not a Lost Art for Travelers Stuck at Airports

RJ Note: Reading a great book while twiddling my thumbs at an airport or a doctor's office ranks high on my list. I've certainly ready my share of them while I've been a captive audience at both venues. Reading. It does a body good.

/PRNewswire/ -- Despite a measurable decline in reading among the general population, travelers overwhelmingly prefer to read when killing time at the nation's airports, according to a recent survey.

Conducted by GO Group, LLC, the nation's largest airport and ground transportation provider, the survey asked travelers to identify which activities they engaged in while waiting at the airport. Some 83 percent cited reading a book, newspaper or magazine as the No. 1 choice on a list of several options available.

The poll of more than 200 travelers also shows that doing crossword puzzles, Sudoku or other thinking games is the second-most popular method for entertaining oneself while waiting for take off, cited by 29 percent of respondents. Listening to music on an MP3 player was the third-most popular activity at 21 percent, in a survey that allowed for multiple responses.

About 45 percent of the respondents said they found other diversions, such as grabbing a bite to eat, accessing the Internet or buying gifts at airport shops. Other activities included playing handheld video games or watching DVD movies on laptop computers or other devices. Respondents were able to check all of the methods that applied to their time traveling, but reading was the clear favorite activity.

"These results imply that travelers primarily use their downtime at the airport to become either better informed or entertained as they deal with the delays often encountered at the nation's air hubs," says John McCarthy, president of GO Airport Express.

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