(MONEY Magazine) – Would you pay $15 for a shower or to catch the last quarter of a football game on television? You might if you were exhausted, slightly grimy and stranded between planes at the Tom Bradley Terminal of the Los Angeles International Airport, which is otherwise known as LAX. At least that is the idea that lies behind Skytel, a novel 13-room mini-hotel there. So far, the concept seems to have worked. Just a year old, the $500,000 hotel is already turning a profit. Roughly 75 customers a day pay rates that start at $7.50 a half-hour, descend for the first eight hours, then go back up to $15 an hour after that (plus 11% room tax). The cost for a 24-hour stay, which almost no one would want to make, is $285 -- comparable to some of L.A.'s tonier hotels. The money buys a windowless six-foot-by-13 1/2-foot air- conditioned and soundproofed room with bed, color TV, worktable, phone and fully equipped bathroom. Complaints? Not many, except from people who would -- for only the most altruistic of reasons, of course -- try to share their space. The rooms can be used by only one person at a time. ''That was the airport commission's decision,'' says Skytel Inc. general manager Jeffrey Panish. ''Otherwise . . .'' Panish and his father Norman, the originators of Skytel, are currently negotiating with three other U.S. airports -- in Florida, Honolulu and New York -- about similar operations.