Blessings for the air

No matter where you travel across the globe, be it New York, Rio, Tokyo or Frankfurt, it is still possible to find a place of calm and meditation to collect your thoughts and perhaps pray for the welfare of a loved one.

The concept of prayer rooms in airports originated in the United States with the first chapel opening in Boston’s Logan Airport in the 1950s, but now the idea has also established firm roots across Europe and Asia.

“They spread to Belgium and Great Britain in the 1960s after the International Civil Aviation Authority recommended the establishment of prayer facilities,” explains Claudio Cimaschi, a Catholic deacon at Zurich’s Kloten airport.

Rolf Fuchs is head of the Catholic airport chapel at Frankfurt airport where he works together with Protestant pastors.

“There are also prayer rooms for Muslims and one for Jews, as well as a small chapel for Orthodox Christians,” he explains. The airport is home to 78,000 employees while 150,000 passengers a day travel through Frankfurt. The ecumenical chapel is open 24 hours a day and mass is celebrated daily in English and German with the congregation made up of passengers and airport employees alike.

Cimaschi shares Fuchs’ view regarding the use of prayer rooms for travellers.

“We don’t ask people about their religion. Anyone looking for assistance, receives it,” he says. “This morning I dealt with an plane mechanic who had just undergone a serious operation.”

Cimaschi deals with passengers primarily when some tragedy has occurred.

“Around 100,000 passengers pass through our airport every day and we have around five to 10 fatalities per year,” explains the deacon.

“The rooms are generally used by people who are consciously looking for places of silence before their departure. There are some passengers who avail of the facility every time before they fly,” says Cimaschi.

Others simply come across the sign pointing to the prayer room by accident and go in to light a candle and recite a prayer because they might be thinking of a sick relative.

Prayer rooms are not always designed for a specific religious faith. Amsterdam’s Schipol airport, for example, has a meditation centre for all religions, where people can pray or meditate.

Visitors can access Christian Bibles, the Koran or Torah as well as other religious works, which are available in numerous languages.

People who seek out the religious ministers often have a problem they need to discuss in confidence.

“They don’t only tell us about what they did on their holidays,” says Cimaschi. “These encounters are usually very taxing and need a lot of energy. I’m usually completely drained emotionally afterwards.” 

However, sometimes the airport minister also has more pleasant duties to administer.

“Children have also been baptised in our church,” explains Cimaschi. “We’ve also had weddings, mostly involving airport personnel.”

A couple of regular fliers who met each other at the airport had their nuptials here, but Cimachi, who is married himself, emphasised that this is the exception rather than the rule.

“We aren’t some kind of wedding chapel like in Las Vegas.”