"If the airport reflects the city, Sydney is one big shop"

Saturday, August 2, 2003

If the airport reflects the city, Sydney is one big shop
By John Huxley
Australia - The Sydney Morning Herald


Drop till you shop. That, at least, seems to be the guiding principle behind
the decision by planners to put a duty-free supermarket directly in the path
of passengers landing at Sydney Airport's international terminal.

At 5am, midday or 11pm. From London, Los Angeles or Kuala Lumpur. It doesn't
seem to matter.

The jet-lagged masses dashing towards the immigration hall must run an
obstacle course through stands piled high with perfumes, women offering free
samples of aftershave and the occasional, bleary-eyed straggler trying to
work out what that cuddly koala costs in Thai baht.

First-time visitors might be forgiven for thinking they had stumbled into
some super-cooled souk.

That may be about to change, however. Sydney Airport planners are committed
to giving future passengers a "high-quality first and last impression" of
Australia. It is not an easy task.

An airport should ideally be clean, comfortable, fast and efficient:
criteria which were applied by those who voted Hong Kong International the
best in the world in a recent Skytrax survey of more than 1.6 million
travellers.

But surely an airport should also reflect in its architecture and its
ambience something of the character of the city, the country, that lies
beyond. Regular travellers will confirm that that is not always the case.

The elegant, exotic tranquillity of Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta Airport gives
little hint of the chaos just beyond the glass doors. Similarly, Dubai
Airport, voted the world's best in an International Air Transport
Association survey, is a cool, futuristic oasis in a dry, dusty place. And
Singapore's Changi Airport, famously cool, clean, sterilised and
commercialised, is . . . well, OK, pretty much like the country itself.

Several airports do spring to mind that give an accurate first impression:
London's Heathrow, through which travellers muddle; Frankfurt, where they
are moved with high-tech precision; and Kinshasa, where, according to one
report, they are more likely to be herded at gun-point.

The airport serving the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo - which
seems to confirm the old adage that it is "better to travel hopefully than
to arrive" - was voted world's worst by two Australia-based businessmen who
visited a record 190 times during a 241,800 kilometre journey that ended in
the Guinness Book of Records.

"Think of the worst airport and multiply it 100 times," said one of the men,
after being given a "money or your life" ultimatum by an immigration
official.

Perhaps that's the point. When it comes to impressions, it's not the place
that counts (English thriller writer Anthony Price observed that airports
probably provided the devil with the blueprint for hell). But the people.

And as anyone who has arrived at Sydney's terminal recently will confirm,
the people - and dogs - are world-beaters. Once you get past the shops.

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