FLYsmart Focuses on Airport Art

A mobile app for the airport art connoisseur?

Yes, FLYsmart, a free iPhone and Android app from mobile-developer Geodelic and outdoor advertising company Clear Channel Airports, delivers that service to traveling art lovers with the initial focus on Philadelphia Airport.

FLYsmart provides details about the exhibit, “Tuskegee Airmen: 70 Years of Aviation History,” which is visible to ticketed passengers passing through Terminal A-East.

On display through June 2012, the exhibit portrays the mostly unsung heroism of African American World War II pilots in the Army Air Corps.

And, there are 14 other art exhibits, including one on the city’s dancers entitled “How Philly Moves,” with various cultural themes dispersed throughout the airport.

FLYsmart focuses on more than airport art exhibits and also documents and maps ATMs, restaurants, gift shops, restrooms, lounges, gate locations and nearby gas stations at 34 airports in North America using location-based technology.

The app also enables you to track arrivals and departures at each airport, and provides information about ground transportation options and baggage claim locations.

Clear Channel Airport’s advertising bent comes across a bit too heavily in the app, however.

For example, in exploring what’s In the Area near Boston Logan Airport, you get perhaps more information than a traveler needs to know about ExxonMobil’s gas stations in the vicinity.

“ExxonMobil is the world’s largest publicly traded international oil and gas company,” the FLYsmart app explains. “We hold an industry-leading inventory of global oil and gas resources. We are the world’s largest refiner and marketer of petroleum products.”

Good information perhaps, but more than travelers need to know when they are looking for a place to fill up with regular unleaded.

Clear Channel Airports says it will be frequently updating the app’s features and adding new airports, as well.

Photo: johncarey/