# Why don't airports have clocks?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-airports-have-clocks/275700
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [November 19, 2004, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-airports-have-clocks/275700 "2004-11-19T19:03:24Z")
**Posts on this page:** 16
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Zagadka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zagadka)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2004, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-airports-have-clocks/275700/1 "2004-11-19T19:03:24Z")
I’m doing an awful lot of traveling in the coming week - I have flights from LA to SF to London to Oslo and back on each.
One thing that has bugged me in the past is that airports never seem to have clocks anywhere. For places that run on strict time schedules and everyone needs to coordinate what to do when, you’d think they would have an abundance of clocks. But in most airports, there are almost no clocks - and where they are, they are tiny (like a little clock on the arrival/departures screen).
If I were designing an airport, I would put clocks at each terminal, FFS. There should be clocks everywhere.
What’s the gist?
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### Author:  [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2004, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-airports-have-clocks/275700/2 "2004-11-19T19:13:26Z")
In my experience, there are TV screens showing the departures and arrivals all over the place, and each of these has the current time shown in a corner somewhere.
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### Author:  [@Zagadka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zagadka)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2004, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-airports-have-clocks/275700/3 "2004-11-19T19:16:23Z")
> [@Colophon](#):
>
> In my experience, there are TV screens showing the departures and arrivals all over the place, and each of these has the current time shown in a corner somewhere.
Yea, but those don’t help for when you’re sitting at a gate wondering when to start boarding.
I guess it is mostly with Southwest flights, where it is first come first serve, but I hear other airlines are doing the same thing (I don’t have a seating assignment for my British Airways, dunno how that works)
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### Author:  [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2004, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-airports-have-clocks/275700/4 "2004-11-19T19:24:44Z")
Because they don’t want people complaining about the clocks being wrong. The “official” time is on the arrivial/departure screens and they don’t want to cause confusion. It cost money to have syncronized clocks mounted everywhere and airlines are taking away pillows to cut cost these days.
I just use the time on my cell phone when it gets close to departure time. Or, heaven forbid, ask the person next to me or wear a watch.
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### Author:  [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2004, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-airports-have-clocks/275700/5 "2004-11-19T19:25:49Z")
> [@Zagadka](#):
>
> I don’t have a seating assignment for my British Airways, dunno how that works
You can either go online and ask get a seat, or they give you a seat when you check in. If you’re worried about the time, take a watch 🙂
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### Author:  [@Zagadka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zagadka)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2004, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-airports-have-clocks/275700/6 "2004-11-19T19:30:29Z")
Feh, watches are always a hastle at the security scan 😉
Alright, alright, I give. Airports don’t want to shell out the few thousand it would cost for a synchronized, computer controlled clock system (despite the fact that they have them anyway for functioning purposes)
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### Author:  [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2004, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-airports-have-clocks/275700/7 "2004-11-19T19:36:54Z")
The place where I work, in theory, has a big system of synchronized clocks.
And they are never synchronized. I tell people that each floor is inside its own relativistic time frame and there are wormholes all over the place.
Picture that in an airport. The clock by the Sbarro says it 10:15. The clock by the Cinnabon says it 10:25. Your flight leaves at 11. Which one do you trust?
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### Author:  [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2004, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-airports-have-clocks/275700/8 "2004-11-19T20:25:17Z")
> [@BobT](#):
>
> The place where I work, in theory, has a big system of synchronized clocks.
>
> And they are never synchronized. I tell people that each floor is inside its own relativistic time frame and there are wormholes all over the place.
Is that what those things with the moving stairs are?
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### Author:  [@Zagadka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zagadka)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2004, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-airports-have-clocks/275700/9 "2004-11-19T20:32:00Z")
> [@BobT](#):
>
> The place where I work, in theory, has a big system of synchronized clocks.
>
> And they are never synchronized. I tell people that each floor is inside its own relativistic time frame and there are wormholes all over the place.
>
> Picture that in an airport. The clock by the Sbarro says it 10:15. The clock by the Cinnabon says it 10:25. Your flight leaves at 11. Which one do you trust?
Um, it is f\*ing 2004. I could write a program and do the hardware that would perfectly synchronize a series of LED clocks in a weekend.
If someone paid money and they can’t be synchronized, then there is incompetence at several levels.
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### Author:  [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2004, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-airports-have-clocks/275700/10 "2004-11-19T20:50:54Z")
For the record, the clocks I was referring to are analog and the problem seems to be that the parts break down.
The clocks are a whopping 11 years old though.
I’ve never figured it out though.
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### Author:  [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2004, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-airports-have-clocks/275700/11 "2004-11-19T20:51:02Z")
> [@Zagadka](#):
>
> Yea, but those don’t help for when you’re sitting at a gate wondering when to start boarding.
It’s really fairly simple. When the gate agent arrives at the gate you have about an hour to departure.
When the gate agent picks up a mic and announces
> [@](#):
>
> We are now boarding
it is time to board.
That is easy enough isn’t it?
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### Author:  [@SmackFu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmackFu)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2004, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-airports-have-clocks/275700/12 "2004-11-19T21:14:58Z")
Maybe they want to force you to look at the screens. It doesn’t matter if your ticket says 2 PM if the flight was delayed.
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### Author:  [@King\_Friday](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/King_Friday)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2004, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-airports-have-clocks/275700/13 "2004-11-19T21:17:12Z")
At Baltimore Washington Intl., there’s a digital clock between every gate.
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### Author:  [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2004, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-airports-have-clocks/275700/14 "2004-11-19T22:43:38Z")
Since ours here have them…
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### Author:  [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2004, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-airports-have-clocks/275700/15 "2004-11-19T22:52:17Z")
> [@Zagadka](#):
>
> I’m doing an awful lot of traveling in the coming week - I have flights from LA to SF to London to Oslo and back on each.
>
> One thing that has bugged me in the past is that airports never seem to have clocks anywhere. For places that run on strict time schedules and everyone needs to coordinate what to do when, you’d think they would have an abundance of clocks. But in most airports, there are almost no clocks - and where they are, they are tiny (like a little clock on the arrival/departures screen).
>
> If I were designing an airport, I would put clocks at each terminal, FFS. There should be clocks everywhere.
>
> What’s the gist?
At Oakland airport’s Terminal 2, there’s a large analog clock above every gate check-in position.
Many airports have large digital clocks near the flight information monitors.
Ed
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### Author:  [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)
#### Post date: [November 19, 2004, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-airports-have-clocks/275700/16 "2004-11-19T23:09:54Z")
Excepting the examples given (and I’m pretty sure they _are_ exceptions to the rule) - maybe they don’t put huge clocks up to _encourage_ you to look at the only ones availabel, which are on the flight information screens (as noted by **Colophon** way-back-when), and hopefully making it less likely that people won’t notice important information about their flight on those same screens?