Airports: hiding in plain sight

For their sheer size, airports pull off a remarkable feat: they hide in plain sight (no pun intended).

When we visit them our focus is almost always on the journey ahead. For passengers, airports are literally the means to an end, the portal to a journey, a modern wardrobe to any number of Narnias.

We start by negotiating the entry to car parks, guaranteed to fuel anger and anxiety in equal measure. That puts us in no mood to savour what might be on offer once we enter the terminal building.

We’re too focused on checking that we are in the correct building, checking in our luggage (I’d love to see just one passenger with just an overnight bag), checking the information screens for the gate number and boarding time, checking we have all of our documentation and children.

No time at all to look up, and pause.

So: what is on view at airports?

They are, first of all, unique.

Much more than glorified shopping malls selling items we really don’t need on aeroplanes at prices we would never consider elsewhere.

Much more than the world writ large, in front of us, something we should not be surprised to see, though which is still wonderful to witness.

They are, in essence, funnels of people through every-narrowing pathways. When we enter a terminal building, we are, momentarily, equal. That changes very quickly. An airport is designed to take us to where we are, to where we need to be. From one angle, airports are the ultimate dopamine hit, with a background scent of eau de kerosene (I smell I will admit to loving).

That funnel, though, is not smooth. Passengers resemble Brownian motion — random movements of individual particles — rather than a smooth syrup, but the funnel slowly constrains our randomness until we pop out where we should.

So it’s ironic that airports seem to be built to frustrate and delay at every turn. Signs are ambiguous. At peak check-in times, public service announcements don’t inform, they merely compete with thousands of other conversations.

(And the airport’s announcement to stay safe by not standing too close to others simply seems to be pointless and worthless.)

But listen carefully. Deals are being done even as passengers queue. Romances are being nurtured. Babies are being soothed.

Remarkably, tempers seem rarely frayed.

Observe how one group of passengers flying business class are still there as economy passengers catch up, are processed, and leave for the coffee bar. What can their problem be? Do they even have tickets?

Intrigue is always visible at airports if you know where to look.

Away from the passengers, there is an entire community of workers — the cleaners, wheelchair aides, security guards, baggage trolley handlers — who interact with passengers, yet seem separate from them. Watch them closely and you see lives playing out in any number of wonderful ways. A cleaner flirts with a colleague through the glass wall separating the transit corridor airside from a coffee shop landside. Four work friends from the security detail fist-bump their farewells in a car park lift as they clock off their shift.

As night falls, as flights leave, and as the terminal building empties, the airport’s mood softens. The airport apron itself, and the surrounding cityscape, takes on an almost-beguiling aspect. Lights dance in different arrangements, none quite synchronizing. Cutting through the rhythmic flashing of distant dock crane lights and the regular winking of taxiway warning lights comes an aircraft, its landing lights cleaving their own pathway through the reds, whites and yellows around them.

Within the terminal building, the only sound is the purr of the air conditioning, and a momentary group of passengers checking in far away across the vast, empty expanse. The public address request to stand apart from fellow passengers is now clearly audible, but heard by no-one at all.

The comparison is stark. What resembled a sports ground just a couple of hours ago, now most-closely resembles an art gallery, museum or cathedral.

All of humanity passes through airports. So too does every human mood, from the tumultuous and anxious to the quiet and mellow.

All hiding in plain sight. Time to take a look.

Image by Steffen L. via Pixabay.