Heathrow airport to play poetry to passengers to make travel ‘more enjoyable'

Travelling during the Easter rush can be pretty stressful, but the UK's hub airport has just announced a new initiative to entertain passengers while they wait.

Passengers at Heathrow Airport this Easter can expect to hear poetry from former children’s laureate Michael Rosen, performance poet Laura Dockrill, and authors Danny Wallace and MG Leonard broadcast via overhead speakers at designated "poetry points."

The poems — written especially for the initiative — will all be inspired by holidays and tales of faraway destinations intended to entertain families during their airport waits.

For the initiative, children's poet Rosen penned a poem about a downtrodden suitcase that wants to be free:

I may be a suitcase
but I want to be free
I want to go to the beach,
and swim in the sea
I want to go to the mountains
and learn how to ski

With 850,000 passengers and 250,000 families expected to take off from Heathrow Airport this Easter, the new initiative is designed to keep passengers entertained as they wait.

“Easter at Heathrow brings huge numbers of families travelling for leisure and we wanted to make it as enjoyable as possible as soon as their journey begins," Heathrow CEO John Holland-Kaye said in a statement.

"We hope that by providing poetic inspiration from children’s authors such as Michael Rosen and Danny Wallace, children and families will enjoy getting involved during their journey,” he continued.