When you’re stuck at the airport, wouldn’t it be great if there was a place where you could take a shower and a nap or just close the door and watch a movie or get some work done?

In some airports there are. A great example is the YOTEL, the short-stay hotel located inside the South Terminal at London’s Gatwick airport.

The brainchild of Simon Woodroffe, a brash British entrepreneur who also created a conveyor belt-style chain of sushi bars called YO! Sushi, the 46-room Gatwick YOTEL offers rooms that are a cross between what you might find in a Japanese pod-hotel and an amenity-rich first-class airplane cabin. But these rooms also include full showers, flat-screen TVs, wireless Internet access and room service.

Travelers can book a YOTEL room for as little as four-hours. So it seems ideal for those times when you’ve just come off a long flight or have a super early departure in the morning. Prices start at about $50 for a standard cabin for the minimum four-hour booking, but during August, to celebrate the GATWICK YOTEL’s first anniversary, overnight stays will go for under $100.

Not traveling through Gatwick? There’s a 32-cabin YOTEL in Terminal 4 at London’s Heathrow airport and another YOTEL scheduled to open at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport later this year.

So sleep tight - but sleep fast!

One of the new airline routes introduced on March 31 (2008) as part of the EU – US Open Skies Agreement is daily Los Angeles-London service on Air France.

Passengers on this route cannot yet use Air France’s new in-flight cell-phone service (that’s being tested on one airplane that flies within Europe) but they can watch live afternoon news bulletins from the BBC World.

One topic the BBC is certainly covering: the story of airline bankruptcies (Aloha, ATA) and the ongoing fiasco in Heathrow’s Terminal 5.   British Airways is still canceling flights (schedules might be normal by Saturday) and trying to reunite passengers with checked baggage that’s been stuck at the airport since opening day.

FedEx has been called in to help ease the backlog and a convoy of “lorries” (sounds more dashing than “diesel trucks,” doesn’t it?) has taken thousands of bags to Milan for sorting.

Milan! Instead of handing out discount vouchers to inconvenienced passengers, the airline should offer free “baggage reunion” trips to Milan instead.

I doubt it. But we do know that she popped over to Heathrow Airport at least twice.

Back in 1955, Queen Elizabeth II was on hand to open Heathrow Airport’s first terminal building – which is now Terminal 2.

She was back on site again today for the opening of Terminal 5.

According to the BBC, the Queen spoke of the ‘bright, airy space and clean, efficient layout,” as she declared the terminal ready for business.

I’m hard at work figuring out how to swing my own visit to the shiny new structure, but in the meantime here are some fun facts about Heathrow’s new baby:

· It took 60,000 people to build the new terminal.

· The UK’s biggest single-site dig unearthed 80,000 items, including pots, cups, buckets, flints and a 3,000 BC hand axe.

· During construction, two rivers were diverted. Fish and other water creatures were moved and new channels were made habitable for wildlife.

Want even more fun facts? Check out Heathrow Airport’s official Terminal 5 Web site, which includes a virtual walk-through, some cool photos, a time-lapse video, and lists of all the shops, restaurants and services.

Photo from BAA website