Airports Are Actually Doing Something We LIKE This Holiday Season. (We Promise.)

It’s become increasingly clear that dining variety in airports is crucial to costumer satisfaction. As Jacob Gross reports in The New York Times Style Magazine, while only seven percent of passengers purchase food onboard, 55 percent dine in airports. In response to this increase in traveler airport dining, there has been a 500 percent increase in the amount of space in U.S. airports that is devoted to restaurants and bars since the 1960s. But improvements to actual offerings is a much more recent trend, occurring over the last few years. Well-known celebrity chefs, such as Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsay, have expanded their restaurant empires to airports, and 13 former contestants of Top Chef Masters currently own real estate in airports worldwide.


Retail in airports has developed similarly. Designer clothing brands have begun to infiltrate airport retail space that was once dominated by newspaper kiosks and bookstores.  Designers such as Michael Kors are leading the way; he currently has about 50 airport stores worldwide. “People still want to shop in physical destinations,” Britteny Dee, a writer for Fashion Times, explained to Oyster. “Airports have become the perfect venue for brands to reach both new and loyal consumers because there is guaranteed foot traffic.”


And this foot traffic has increased; in fact, it has doubled over the last 15 years. Airports also generally have a more affluent, ready-to-spend crowd than your average shopping center, thanks to the presence of international and business travelers. For large, well-developed and well-recognized brands, opening an airport outlet is a relatively low-risk endeavor.

In 2014 in particular, however, the main goal has shifted from solely bringing in well-known establishments, to bringing in beloved local spots as well. Hildegarde Assies, co-founder of airporttrends.com, points out that this is due in part to the recent decline in consumer trust in large, national chains. For example, earlier this month, Thrillist published a ranking of the best U.S. airports for food and drink; the factor they weighted most heavily was the presence of regional cuisine. Dallas/Forth Worth International, with its four barbecue restaurants, eight Mexican options, eight bars, and outpost of Texas native Stephan Pyles’ Sky Canyon, took the top spot.


“The general consensus is that default airport food outlets are not good,” said Plautz. “But places like the San Jose airport are becoming their own destinations, with great additions like local restaurants in the terminals.” Farley highlighted San Francisco International Airport. “With a farmers market, that is truly a farmers market, in the terminal, it really sells you on the San Francisco location right away,” she said.

It’s international airports that have truly led the way with both the “going high-end” and “going local” trends. Germany’s Stuttgart Airport is the only airport in the world to boast a Michelin-starred restaurant, thanks to Top Air, a gourmet restaurant serving innovative spins on Bavarian classics. Plautz referenced United Arab Emirates airports as being ahead of the curve in high-end and local retail and dining as well, and Heathrow’s Terminal  2 is also replete with luxury and local shops and restaurants. Among other British favorites, Terminal 2 features The Gorgeous Kitchen, opened this summer, which is run by a group of local chefs. It also has numerous boutique shops helmed by local owners.  Zurich Airport highlights locally made products in its dining and retail areas by dubbing them as either “Swissness” or “Zurichness.”

So U.S. airports may be slightly behind the innovative game when compared to those in international markets, but a new cycle of development has begun, and they are quickly catching up. Sure, some of the more unfortunate trends may not be going away anytime soon. The Federal Department of Transportation reports that domestic flight delays and cancellations have increased by almost 10 percent in the last year. Nearly 400 TSA luggage handlers have been fired over the past decade for stealing from passengers, and the significantly higher number of reported thefts implies that it’s even more common. In 2010, Continental Airlines started the “no free food” trend, and the money-saving (for airlines, of course) strategy caught on; not one major airline today offers free meals to coach passengers on domestic flights.