Man Shows Newly Launched Rest Pods At Baku Airport, Internet Questions Hygiene

Picture yourself stranded at an airport, waiting to board your connecting flight or facing a five to six-hour delay due to bad weather. At this point, anyone would love to catch a nap, but unfortunately, the airport benches are far from comfortable. Enter “rest pods,” offering a solution to this age-old problem. A viral video showcases an individual exploring these innovative “rest pods” at Heydar Aliyev International Airport in Baku. These compact structures resemble oversized chairs at first glance.

To utilise these innovative rest pods, one simply needs to slide out a shield covering the spacious chair, which can surprisingly accommodate an adult in a lying position. Once comfortably laid down, the shield cover can be dragged over oneself, equipped with small ventilation openings for airflow. Additionally, these pods feature a separate compartment for storing luggage.

This video was taken in Azerbaijan. It was posted on Instagram by Unilad on June 7. While many thought the idea was genius, others argued that the “pod” might be unhygienic.

An Instagram user commented, “That pod better come with the built-in air freshener.” Another person wrote, “Are they being cleaned after every person? Probably not.” Expressing similar concern, a person wrote, “Eeeeeeew just thinking about everyone else’s germs in the pods.” Someone described the rest pod as too claustrophobic.

In response to this criticism, an Instagram user wrote, “All these hygiene advocates don’t know the value of a power nap. Especially during post midnight flight changeovers.”

Someone else commented, “People talking about bacteria…it’s an airport, everywhere carries risk lol – I had a 6 hour layover in Dublin on an international flight when it was night my time so exhausted and they wouldn’t let me sleep in chairs so I had to set my alarm and sleep on a weird mat thing at the terminal. Kept getting woken up with each new flight as people became concerned I was missing mine. A nice little pod would have helped.”

An Instagram user chided the critics and wrote, “Comment section is exactly why people have no immune system nowadays. But they would drink and eat all the chemicals in the world with 0 complaints.”

People also noted that if they took a nap in rest pods, they might miss their flight. Making this point, an Instagram user wrote, “He woke up, realized his boarding time was closing soon and forgot his backpack in the pouch. He’s not the only case.”