The largest US airports have chapels inside them, and here's why

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From notoriously delicious, indulgent food options to expansive playgrounds and beautiful swimming pools, many airports are filled with features and amenities that have nothing to do with boarding a plane. But there’s one feature that more than half of major U.S. airports have that most travelers don’t know about: chapels.

Yes, there are actual chapels in airports — and believe it or not, they’ve been around for quite some time. In fact, there’s a good chance you’ve been to one or more of the airports that have one.

Since Our Lady of the Airways opened in 1951 at Boston’s Logan International Airport, major airports around the nation started catching on.

Surprisingly, the first airport chapels weren’t intended for their fliers. Rather, the areas of prayer and worship were established by Catholic leaders for the airport staff, Smithsonian reports. This way, working parishioners could still attend mass.

The Our Lady of the Airways Chapel, seen here, opened at Boston Logan International Airport in 1951. (iStock)

Four years later, Idlewild (now known as John F. Kennedy Airport in New York) constructed the second Catholic airport chapel, Our Lady of the Skies, and later added a Protestant chapel and a synagogue. Airports in Atlanta and Dallas were the next to welcome Protestant chapels. By the turn of the 21st century, however, single-faith chapels began to convert into interfaith chapels.

Today, more than half of the “large hubs” (airports that cater to 1 percent or more of the nation’s annual passenger boardings) in the United States now offer one or more chapels for their busy fliers and staff, the Pew Research Center found. The majority of large hubs offer an interfaith chapel, but others continue to offer specific religious services. In fact, JFK, Washington Dulles International, and Ronald Reagan Washington National all offer a Catholic chapel, a Protestant chapel, a mosque and a synagogue.

But while you can attend religious services at many airports, there are several things you should never, ever do at the airport — and here's what they are.