Travellers' Checks | Is the TWA Hotel at New York’s JFK airport the coolest in the world?

Also in travel news, Thailand and Cambodia reconnect by rail, with services between Phnom Penh and Bangkok expected to resume

And Hilton opens property on Morocco’s country’s Atlantic coast, the Hilton Tangier Al Houara Resort & Spa

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An artist’s rendering of the rooftop infinity pool at the TWA Hotel, at New York’s John F Kennedy International Airport.

Adam Nebbs

Published: 10:00pm, 3 May 2019Updated: 3:20am, 4 May 2019

The long-awaited TWA Hotel, at New York’s JFK Airport, recently released an impressive image of its dramatically positioned infinity pool, offering a “runway view that rivals an air traffic controller’s vantage point”. With its own restored Lockheed Constellation airliner repurposed as a cocktail lounge, and retro Trans World Airlines (TWA) branding throughout the former TWA Flight Center building, it will surely be one of the world’s coolest airport hotels when it opens on May 15.

Airport hotel “pioneer” Hilton, incidentally, would have you believe that 2019 marks the 60th anniversary of the first such property. The company cites 1959 as the year that it launched the “airport hotel concept”, with the sprawling and sadly now-demolished Hilton Inn, at San Francisco International Airport.

The first airport hotel in the United States was, in fact, the Oakland Airport Inn, which opened on the other side of San Francisco Bay in 1929. It was followed in 1931 by the Dearborn Inn, which adjoined the Ford Motor Company’s own Ford Airport, and offered guests sightseeing flights over nearby Detroit in a Ford Trimotor.

The Oakland Airport Inn building now houses the Amelia Earhart Senior Squadron 188, whose name recalls the doomed aviatrix who frequently stayed there. The Dearborn Inn is now operated by Marriott, and is the only part of the old Ford Airport still standing.

The world’s first airport hotel was, however, the Aerodrome Hotel at Croydon Airport (aka Croydon Aerodrome), in south London. Opened in 1928, the hotel was built to serve Britain’s first international airport, and is still in business, though the last aircraft took off from Croydon in 1959. Hallmark Hotels, which operates the property as the Hallmark Hotel London Croydon Aerodrome, also runs the Hallmark Hotel Derby Midland, which dates back to 1841 and is said to be the world’s oldest surviving purpose-built railway hotel.

The Hilton Tangier Al Houara Resort & Spa opens in Morocco