Oh, I don't NEED them - that probably was a poor choice of words. But, at times, they make life easier, most notably when a flight into a transit airport you are not familiar with is delayed.

My comment was more in exasperation that when airport apps first are a thing - why, oh why does every airport need its own proprietary one?

And why are they more often than not made with hardly a thought being spared as to UX - and all seemingly designed by some new media company who just hankered a bloke in from the street which had the good marketing sense and poor judgment to put 'app development' on his resume after successfully completing the 'Hello, World!' tutorial in Android Studio...