ABSTRACT
Airports, those familiar and often much-maligned interfaces between ground and sky, are vital nodes in the modern world economy. Every year, the world’s airports collectively facilitate the safe aerial movement of over 34.8 million flights, 3.57 billion passengers and over 50 million tonnes of valuable air freight (ATAG, 2016) and the prevalence and socio-economic significance of aviation is such that every nation worldwide, bar the European microstates of Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco, San Marino and the Vatican City, and some remote oceanic islands, has within its territory at least one airport capable of handling fixed-wing commercial aircraft. These facilities vary in size from profitable mega-aviation cities that handle tens of millions of passengers every year and boast attractions and facilities ranging from a 23-feet-high bronze sculpture of a teddy bear (Hamad International Airport, Doha) to butterfly and cactus gardens (Singapore Changi Airport), nature trails (Zurich Airport in Switzerland), a dental surgery (Sao Paulo Guarulhos International Airport in Brazil), saltwater aquaria (Vancouver International Airport in Canada) and an in-house brewery (Munich Airport in Germany), to loss-making, predominantly publicly owned remote landing strips that offer few, if any, concessions to passenger comfort.
