ABSTRACT
Along with consumption and communications, aeromobilities have undergone a stunning series of transformations in recent decades. Flying has, of course, long bridged identities, populations and places, spread as it is across runways, fields, cities, airport terminals and airspaces. From the 1950s to the 1980s, airports derived the large bulk of their income from the provision of aeronautical facilities, organizing the complex logistic services involved in passengers boarding and exiting flights on national carriers at publicly owned airports. Passengers often experienced such journeys as an ‘adventure’, given that flying was – for the great bulk of the population, at any rate – a rare occurrence. By the 1990s and the arrival of the 2000s, thanks to privatization, deregulation and the advent of a new business budget model for many airlines, airports became sites for mass travel. And airports, as if overnight, suddenly earned the bulk of their profits not from aeronautical facilities, but the provision of non-aeronautical services. The whole atmosphere of airports had undergone a massive transformation, one involving a shift away from ‘duty free’ as the single defining moment of passenger pleasure towards a more diffuse, ambient world of lounges, frequent flyer programmes, five-star transit hotels, adventure parks, business conference rooms, cinemas, health clubs and a great deal more.
