How to fix airports
Designers are hoping to calm aggravation with more views and less noise
During this summer of frequent flight delays and cancellations, many travelers spent more time in airports than expected, often subjected to blaring TV news, rockhard seats and scarce electrical outlets. Add anxiety over COVID19 and disagreements regarding mandated masking, and it’s little wonder incidents of bad behavior have surged in the air. The Federal Aviation Administration reported more than 4,000 cases of unruly passenger complaints this year through August, initiating more than 700 investigations to date, compared with 183 in 2020.
Deep into a six-hour travel delay recently, as I was pondering the role of airports in aggravating travelers, I found my way to Denver International Airport’s Concourse B-West and a set of new gates with floor-to-ceiling windows, modular furniture, high-top library tables with ample outlets, clear signage, no TVs and — the biggest surprise — an outdoor lounge with views west to the Rocky Mountains. Fleetwood Mac’s bouncy “Don’t Stop” played over the sound system, signaling a more inviting approach to what the industry calls “hold rooms” or gate waiting areas.
Travel’s comeback this summer, as tenuous as it is, has the entire industry — including airport managers and architects — thinking about doing things better.
“COVID was a shock event that caused a great disruption, and accelerated thinking about giving back the joy of travel,” said Alex Thome, head of the airport division in the United States at Stantec, which has designed airports in Denver; Toronto; Nassau, Bahamas; and elsewhere.
A clutch of new terminals and recent upgrades to existing concourses demonstrate ways both small and large — from muting the televisions to installing indoor gardens — that airports are trying to ease psychic turbulence on the ground.
The $115 billion backlog
Compared with global gateways in cities like Singapore and Tokyo, U.S. airports have a lot of work to do to improve the passenger experience. According to SkyTrax World Airport Awards, an annual set of awards based on passenger satisfaction surveys, the highest-rated airport in North America is Vancouver International in Canada at No. 24. Houston George Bush Intercontinental, at No. 25, is the highest-ranking U.S. airport, with Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International next at 42. Only 14 American airports are in the top 100, which is led by Hamad International Airport in Qatar.
“In the U.S., we view airports as a service provided not necessarily as a civic building, whereas the rest of the world wants to view it in a city context,” said Ty Osbaugh, an architect and the leader of the aviation practice at Gensler, which has designed airport terminals in numerous cities, from Pittsburgh to Incheon, South Korea.
In the United States, airport infrastructure funding sources include federal grants, operating revenue from things like tenant leases and parking, and the passenger facility charge flyers pay when they purchase their plane tickets. According to Airports Council International, the trade association of commercial airports in the United States and Canada, the passenger facility charge has not been raised in more than 20 years and stands at $4.50 maximum; meanwhile, airports have an infrastructure backlog of $115 billion.
“Airports aren’t standing still, but the challenge is airports are designed with the assumption that every flight will depart on time and there’s never bad weather or problems,” said Henry Harteveldt, a travel industry analyst and the president of Atmosphere Research Group, a market research and advisory firm to the travel industry. “When those problems are large and cascade, like bad weather that grounds and delays flights and you have more people in the terminal, everybody’s grouchy.”
Across the country, the average airport terminal is more than 40 years old and further challenged by the growth of air travel. Denver International, for example, opened in 1995 with capacity for 50 million flyers; in 2019, it handled more than 69 million.
The quiet movement
Even if travelers have to occasionally cram into an overcrowded gate area as late flights beget late flights, there’s something airports can do to calm the setting: Dial the noise down.
Before the pandemic, when the airport was setting passenger records, San Francisco International rolled out its “quiet airport” program, a noise reduction plan that has eliminated TVs in seating areas of terminals and narrowed the scope of broadcast announcements, rather than airing them terminalwide.
“We’ve seen a terrific reduction in audio clutter by design, to make the facilities more relaxing for passengers,” said Doug Yakel, a spokesperson for the airport. Flyers can still catch news and sports on TVs in airport restaurants and bars, but, he added, “There’s really no need at the gates since content is available on passengers’ own devices.”
‘Biophilic’ design
Exposing passengers to nature by way of plants is another stress reliever airports are adopting as designers champion “biophilic” — or nature-loving — plans.
“The last thing you want after traveling in a stale tube is being in a hermetically sealed airport environment,” said Matt Needham, director of aviation and transportation at HOK architects, which created parklike areas in the new LaGuardia Terminal B in New
York City and in outdoor terraces at Tampa International Airport in Tampa, Florida. “We put it everywhere we can. It makes a difference.”
At the new terminal in Pittsburgh, expected to open in 2025, passengers will have outdoor terraces both before and after security.
“We have the incredible opportunity to build one of the first terminals post-pandemic,” wrote Christina Cassotis, CEO of Pittsburgh International Airport, in written responses to questions, noting that wellness is central to the design, which includes indoor air quality monitoring.
The outdoor areas Denver International is adding to its concourses, including fire pits, aim to capture Colorado’s outdoor spirit.
Plants add to maintenance budgets, of course, so some designers are finding alternative ways to embrace nature. “Natural materials can echo biophilic design without fully bringing in plants and outdoor space into the project,” said Laura Ettelman, a managing partner at the architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, and one of the lead architects working on the new Kansas City International Airport in Missouri, now under construction.