"Shopping Malls with Airplanes: Differing needs of leisure and business travellers"

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

'They're just big shopping malls with a few planes'
AIRPORTS: Jeff Mills on the differing needs of leisure and business
travellers
United Kingdom - The London Financial Times 


The Victorians started the trend when they built railways throughout the UK
and the British Empire. Every major line started and finished in a lavish -
and often spectacular - terminus. They signalled to the world that this was
the design produced by a state-of-the-art civilisation.

Many of the great Victorian stations are still in daily use. London, for
example, has King's Cross and Euston, St Pancras, Marylebone, Waterloo,
Charing Cross and Victoria, among others. There are wonderfully designed
Victorian stations in York, Edinburgh and other UK cities. There are myriad
examples overseas, too.

However, the great stations were built not only as symbols, they served the
most practical of purposes: to serve the needs of the travelling public.

Today, of course, in spite of a revival in long-distance train travel, it is
the big international airports which have taken over the role of gateway.
Where once city fathers were proud of gothic-style stations, now they boast
of - often less attractive - airports, constructed of concrete and glass.

So important have airports become as a status symbol, often of national
pride, that they are often the first on the wish list of any president of a
developing country. Even if there are only a few flights a week, the capital
city of the tiniest third world state simply must have its international
gateway, often named after its president.

But the question is, why don't they work better? Indeed what is a perfect
airport? If we were able to build stations which were not only ideal for
their purpose but also a fit with the city landscape, why do we have so much
trouble getting airports right?

Airport authorities, of course, think they have - and, commercially, they
are almost certainly right. Most modern international airports, with their
acres of retail space, restaurants, bars and the rest, must be among the
most efficient money-making machines in the world. But how come so many of
them are so mind-numbingly ugly and user unfriendly?

One of the reasons, of course, is that, unlike railway stations, they have
not so much been designed in any co-ordinated way but have evolved.

What may have started out as little more than a wartime runway with a few
huts, has been developed over the years with commercial practicalities
taking precedence over aesthetic considerations.

Airport authorities often do not seem to think it matters much what airports
actually look like, provided they serve their purpose. But the question is,
do they? Many frequent travellers would argue they fail miserably. The best
designed airports, many think, are the smallest, such as London City, with
few unnecessary frills.

"Airports exist because people need to travel, but I often feel that
airports are geared towards anything but the people who need to travel,"
says Richard Lovell, a senior corporate travel agent.

"There are times when the business traveller feels like they are the least
important element in an airport operation."

It is true that many of the most modern airports, such as those in Dubai,
Hong Kong, Singapore, even Keflavik, which serves Iceland's capital,
Reykjavik, look fine from the outside, having been given the treatment by
top international architects and designers. But what about the insides, the
place travellers have to use?

They do not impress Keith Hobbs, of London-based United Designers, a hotel
design company. Speaking, appropriately, from Madrid airport, where he was
waiting for his flight to Heathrow, he describes most as "big shopping malls
with a few planes". There is no human scale about airports, he says, "nobody
has thought about how the environment affects the customers".

Neither is Mr Hobbs keen on so-called VIP lounges provided at airports for
airlines most valued passengers, frequent flyers. "They are among the most
charmless places on earth. It is as though the designers have tried to copy
domestic style and failed," he says.

There are practical problems with airport design, too. Having queued to get
through check-in and security, passengers then often have to walk for what
seems like miles to get to departure gates - all too frequently to find that
the flight has been delayed, so the traveller could have stayed in the main
part of the departure hall and gone shopping instead.

This, of course, highlights another of the problems faced by airport
designers, the conflict between business travellers - who generally want to
get through the airport and on to their flights as quickly as possible - and
leisure travellers, who often treat the airport, with duty free shopping and
the like, as part of their holiday.

Perhaps it is time to rethink airports altogether. How about, for example,
building basic but attractive simple-to-use terminals with nothing but the
essentials, for those who just want to check-in and go? The terminal could
then be linked by fast train or monorail to a nearby large mall with shops,
restaurants and bars for leisure travellers with time to spare. Could that
suit almost everyone?


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