KC’s New Airport Has Lots Of Digital, Including Real-Time Toilet Availability Screens

February 22, 2023 by Dave Haynes

Kansas City gets a new airport terminal next week, and the airport’s operators have published a lengthy preview video that takes viewers through the $1.5 billion facility.

I mention this because like a lot of new or refurbished airport terminals going up these days, there’s a lot of digital being used. As noted a lot recently, if you want to see how digital signage gets applied for everything from Wow Factor to pure, boring but effective utility, look at airports.

In this case, there are new LED signs at the drop-off curb that indicates to drivers the counter positions for different airlines. Inside, the back walls of the airline counters have embedded LED displays, which indicate which airlines are using specific counters, and can be changed and shared quickly in the case of smaller airlines that only need a counter for one or two flights a day.

I am told the LED product is from Atlanta-based Nanolumens, which seems to be winning a LOT of the airport reno and new build deals for large format display.

The airport also makes good use of simple displays at a pair of restrooms that are designated as multi-gender, and have floor to ceiling, fully-enclosed toilet stalls. In an interesting wrinkle, red/green light indicators above each toilet stall door tell users which ones are occupied or free, and that real-time data is relayed to a screen at the entry that shows occupancy status and, helpfully, notes another washroom is three minutes away by foot.