Airports; a Case for Mischief, Magic and Memory

Airports shouldn’t just move people ... they should Move people. Most terminals are engineered for efficiency. But people don’t remember efficiency, they remember how a place made them feel.

Airports are for probably the majority of people, a bit of a chore to be survived. We often enter them braced for frustration with the series of queuing stages, artificial lighting, disorientation, sometimes a treasure hunt for a power outlet, an overpriced but still underwhelming sandwich or the twenty minute delay that turns into forty five with limited explanation. They're among the few public places that manage to feel both over controlled while still remaining chaotic.

(yes, there are exceptions to this immediately insulting provocation)

But what if those quite negative expectation are the opportunity?

When expectations are low, every moment of surprise, comfort or thoughtfulness feels disproportionately powerful. It’s behavioural economics 101 , and one of the great underused design levers in modern infrastructure from big, expensive and beautiful airports all the way down to utilitarian bus stops. Rather than simply try to make airports more efficient (the usual route), what if we aimed to make them delightful?

It’s in these kinds of overlooked spaces that the most subversive innovations often live. Not in what’s technically better, but in what’s emotionally superior, in the way that they feel designed for someone like you, that you will remember or tell the good story to your friends about. Rory Sutherland has spent years banging on about this, becoming TikTok famous with the whole perception trumps precision thing, that charm can outperform cost and that people are not logic machines, they’re emotional, meaning seeking, mood sensitive and contradictory social creatures.

And that’s precisely why airports, and indeed, all transportation places, are ripe for reinvention. Not only with billion dollar terminals and masterplans, but also through small, elegant, occasionally mischievous but always behaviourally intelligent moves that shift the mood of a place.

Having spent a couple of days this week at Passenger Terminal Expo in Madrid, where really it’s more about all the technology that enables an experience, and less about the touchy feely stuff, I wanted to explore some of the emotional things airports can do, do act more like Challengers, and ultimately enhance the cities they exist to serve, whether you’re a local, tourist or business traveller.

Waiting doesn’t have to feel like punishment, you could make it feel like a gift.

Right now, most airports punish you for being early, even when the airline told you to be at the airport ludicrously early! You get noise, rigid meta ( or plastic) seating and a parade of pretty mediocre, overpriced coffee options. If we really want people to get there early so they don’t miss the flight, and keep the logistics on the happy path, can we not give them something actually nice in the terminal, that you might even choose to do if you weren’t even there for a flight?

What if arriving early gave you access to a different layer of experience? Quiet areas. Secret menus. Entertainment. A haircut. Or some kind of speakeasy hidden behind a fake bookstore so you can escape the riffraff. These ideas don’t require massive investment, well, at least not in the grand scheme of things, but more a shift in mindset.

If you go from seeing early arrival as wasted time to seeing it as a premium tier, you’ve unlocked a bonus travel experience, because people love to feel like insiders! They love the thrill of the slightly hidden, the mildly exclusive, and maybe airports could lean into that beyond the usual business lounge. Anyway, half of them are full, and the airlines are actively trying to trim the fat.

You’d never put these seats in a coffee shop … or a hotel lobby … so why do we put them in airports?

Think like a playwright, not a project manager, and build the journey like a story.

Most of what happens in an airport is functional, it’s designed from the outset to be just that, functional. Which is somewhat logical, but it means you lose the magic, and you also tend to be vulnerable when the parameters are tested. Functional, is often forgettable, and maybe that’s fine if you’re a frequent flyer and you don’t want any distractions because you goal is curbside to boarding in a new record time.

But, between the drop off and the gate, there is a journey, but what if instead it felt like a narrative?

We know that people remember stories, not instructions, so why not put the customers in a bit of their own play? Act I: Arrival and orientation. Act II: Security necessities and exploration. Act III: Resolution and reward. That story can be told through lighting, sound design, pacing, even scent. It doesn’t have to be obvious either, it just has to shape the feeling of progress.

Imagine if the path to your gate wasn’t a long corridor with ads for global banks and consulting firms, but a dynamically illuminated path to suit the place, time of day, destination. If music shifted slightly as you entered new zones, if you felt guided rather than directed. Maybe a bit more contextual choreography than generic design.

When you think about the characters in your play; the knackered business type on their 76th flight of a year that’s challenging their metrics; the guy who is feeling a bit low in his long distance relationship after the hug before clearing security; the family juggling a couple of young kids on the way to Disney or the elderly parent on the way to visit their family, wanting to maintain their independence … there’s much more magic, and diverse thinking needed than the functional path.

Retail shouldn’t be a rerun, but a remix.

Almost every airport sells the same stuff. Duty-free perfume, ‘special edition’ bottles of Jameson, giant Toblerones, another set of headphones. It’s as if someone once decided what "travel retail" should look like and everyone just copied it. Sure, an IPA cask version of Irish whisky ain’t bad, and we always seem to end up needing a new pair of headphones when we’ve lost an earbud, let’s maybe not sack that off, but we could trim it back a wee bit, then add in a bit more variety in what’s being sold.

Airports are one of the few spaces where people actively want to spend money, perhaps because they’re actively looking to kill time, or perhaps it’s made a bit of time for them in a busy schedule. Finally getting the chance to get a haircut when the days have been getting away from them, or perhaps a chance to see the best of the retail offer in one place. You’re effectively stuck in limbo between one world and another, and in that in-between, people are rather open to suggestion!

Airport retail should really behave like a curator just as much they can be the convenience store. That could be popups from cult local brands, stores from the future, vending machines filled with things you’ll actually want mid-flight (relaxation roll-on oil for the temples, bougie socks, salty snacks that aren’t a can of Pringles). Maybe they’re designed give people something to talk about, like a bookstore that only sells stories set in your destination or the place you grab your business gifts that aren’t the usual corporate tat?

The best retail is never just about what you buy, but really about how it made you feel. Airports have this luxury of a captive audience, so why not put the effort it to make them say “wow” or “ooh that’s cool"?

Comfort doesn’t have to be exclusive when we can democratise dignity.

Airport lounges start out seeming rather luxurious, exotic, the place for the posh people. When you start out flying, you assume these places are kind of glamorous, and some of them truly are. But, when you’ve flown a lot, especially for work, you see the other side. Lots of them are … well, not great. But you’re just satisficed by having a free beverage and a rather worn out armchair … partially because you know there’s a line outside of people queueing because they didn’t have the same status as you!

Don’t worry folks, it’s only a half hour wait to get inside … now stand aside!

Lounge access is still one of the most absurdly stratified aspects of air travel because it’s not so much ‘luxury’ that is the requirement, but calm. Well that and a slightly nicer loo. Why not offer that to more people?

If you think about the ‘third spaces’ (bit of a wanky term, I know) that we frequent in our day to day lives, what do we like? The corner seat in the pub, the bar top where you chat with you new fellows, the cafe (whether it’s a carefully curated hipster joint, or the place that is a bit more bohemian and the local community hub), bookstores, libraries, lobbies, parks, promenades etc. We should be making more airport spaces like these. You’re only gonna linger so much, because you’ve got a flight to catch!

There’s a bit of a trend in US airports just now for outdoor patios. Which is nice.

These things don’t have to be expensive to build, just thoughtfully designed. In fact, even the act of trying to create that experience sends a signal by itself of “we see you”, and that’s hospitality basics.

Wayfinding is a fancy way of signage, but can it also deploy a little seduction?

Airports are full of signs, and still, people get lost. All the time. Signs are often a lazy apology for bad design, especially when they shout, rather than guide. We’ve been doing this stuff for decades, and great wayfinding is still more of the exception rather than the norm.

But what if wayfinding could be sensual, seductive, even? Think light paths and sight lines that draw, then focus your eye, ambient audio cues, nudges through colour. Imagine if you didn’t need to read where to go, but you felt where to go, so much so that it actually felt instinctive

This is design not as information, but as emotion. Theme parks use a similar principle, where people gravitate to the good stuff, instead of having to seek it out on the map.

If we make the movement feel natural, rather than barking orders, people feel more invited and less stressed out … and it goes for the employees too!

Could projection help do a little customisation for urgent wayfinding messages?

From throughput to thoughtfulness … airports are also emotional infrastructure.

At the heart of all these provocations is core premise, that people remember how places made them feel. Airports, despite being one of the most universally experienced public environments in the world, are rarely remembered for anything except their flaws. Those are actually dinner party conversations!

It’s such an enormously missed opportunity in an industry where investment sums are gargantuan. So while we’re still going to, and need to spend, billions on starchitects, and technology firms, we should also be looking to the smallest interventions that can have a bigger emotional return on the investment. A well timed moment of calm, a bit of unexpected delight, a sense that someone thought about your journey, not just your destination and that last minute purchase in the office to make the flight feel a little better or to bring a smile to the face of the person who’ll be seeing you at the other end.

If cities want to present themselves as innovative, welcoming, exciting, then their airports are more than infrastructure, they’re brand, mood and memory in physical form. That means we need to make sure they work for weird and wonderful people, that tend not to be as easy to direct as the robots that now deliver the baggage to and from the plane.

Let’s start designing them like places people might actually want to stay a bit longer in. Even if just for a while.

To being Challengers.