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Comment by simonebrunozzi | Hacker News Reader

Airports make 2/3rds of their money by renting space to shops, and the remaining third by allowing planes to fly. They have a strong incentive to be inefficient, so you will feel you need to arrive 2 hours before departure, or even more, because you don't want to risk losing your flight.

I flew ~1,000 times, and saw ~300 airports. I could write tens of books on how to make airports better... But the problem is that the incentives are such that this is not the way to go. Airports want to make money by selling you stuff. Period. They don't care about giving you a great experience.

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Seems dubious. I would expect doubling the amount of throughput would bring more shop revenue than doubling the waiting time of people in the airport. I can only buy so many slices of pizza.

Yes but you can load up on booze, perfume, chocolate, iPads, noise cancelling headphones and tons of other stuff.

Who's got the luggage space to buy these big items at the airport?

They're not even cheaper than normal shops - more expensive than Amazon. What's the point?

I agree with you — I've never bought anything other than food at an airport — but the shops wouldn't be there if they didn't make money.

I remember reading a book a while back that mentioned that the luxury shops in airports don't make any money and don't expect to make sales. They're there to make you see Armani handbags for $2500 and think 'Wow, Armani must be a really luxury brand to have $2500 handbags on sale!'.

This then makes you more likely to later buy an Armani t-shirt for $80.

The store in the airport is there to make you think the brand is glamorous, to convince you of its mystique, not to sell things.

That sounds unlikely. Those are expensive locations.

Last minute souvenirs

Souvenir iPad?

A lot of people are remarkably stupid when on vacation.

Or, there's the "crap, I left my tablet at home" customer.

Those are all impulse buys. Where I am tech is normally cheaper than retail. If you are so disciplined you won't be buying these things at all.

an interesting exception is Munich airport, which was originally designed to minimise the distance passengers have to take to reach their plane. Well visible here: https://www.theconstructionindex.co.uk/assets/news_articles/...

Say you arrive by taxi, you would go down the street in the middle, drop off at one of the four check-in areas (the triangular structures), then make your way through check-in and security and you're almost at your plane. The train station is below this structure and in the centre.

This opened in 1992 - Terminal 2, built later, uses a different approach with more shopping etc. along the way =)

In my experience all German airports are terrible, particularly Munich and BER.

Terrible is relative. Never been to BER, but FRA is far better than similar-sized European/US airports like LHR or LAX (though a far cry from best like Changi, Chek Lap Kok or Dubai), and the smaller international airports like STR or FKB are quick to traverse and comparatively easy to access.

In my experience living in the most important city in the world the Berlin and Munich airports are a marvel of efficiency and comfort that I would kill to have back home.

I went only there once, but I remember walking several kilometres because check-in was on one side, and my flight the opposite end.

This concept was much better in Tegel, not Munich. Interestingly the very same architect then was hired to plan BER, and was then instructed to deoptimize the traveller experience. He resigned in disgust, I think.

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