ABSTRACT
Nearly all aspects of passenger air travel, from booking a ticket to checking in, passing through security screening, buying goods in duty free, baggagehandling, flying, air traffic control, customs and immigration checks, are now mediated by software and multiple information systems. Airports, as we have previously argued (Dodge and Kitchin 2004), at present consist of complex, overlapping assemblages to varying degrees dependent to function on a myriad of software systems, designed to smooth and increase passenger flows through various ‘contact’ points in the airport (as illustrated in Figure 5.1) and to enable pervasive surveillance to monitor potential security threats. Airport spaces – the check-in areas, security check-points, shopping areas, departure lounges, baggage reclaim, the immigration hall, air traffic control room, even the plane itself – constitute coded space or code/space. Coded space is a space that uses software in its production, but where code is not essential to its production (code simply makes the production more efficient or productive). Code/space, in contrast, is a space dependent on software for its production – without code that space will not function as intended, with processes failing as there are no manual alternatives (or the legacy ‘fall-back’ procedures are unable to handle material flows, which means the process then fails owing to congestion).
