Why Airports Feel Like Home
Hello intersectional thinkers 👋
Greetings from Vancouver, where I first cultivated my love for aviation as a tween in Air Cadets. As I drove by the airfield where I first flew a glider plane, I realized I need to finish this love letter to airports:
The airport is called a non-place.
Non-place
NounA sterile and generic space of transience where large numbers of people pass through anonymously without identifying with the space.
This social science definition rings true for the signature airport barcode-scanning experience: travellers with ID and boarding pass in hand waiting in line as they are herded through the hoops of baggage checks, security clearance, passport control, boarding row calls, and eventually beef or chicken.
But to me, there’s a subtle, strange, yet definitive homeyness to this impossibly impersonal non-place.
What is a home anyway?
This is Oxford Languages’ definition of home:
Home
NounThe place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family or household.
Is it me, or did they misfile the definition for ‘house’?
I don’t live anywhere permanently. I’ve been lucky enough (by my standards) to move at least once every three years since I was 10 years old.
And for most part of the year, I don’t live with my family either. Not because we don’t enjoy each other’s company. But our dreams are just being realized in different geographies.
I thought my way of life makes the heart grow fonder. But apparently, I’m deemed homeless by Oxford Languages.
Refusing to have a dictionary dictate who I am, here’s an alternative suggestion for what home means:
Home
NounA sense of belonging. Often experienced in an unfamiliar situation.
It’s a sense, not a place - because home is a construct that can be applied to a person, a place, a sunset, or a whiff of fresh cut grass.
It’s belonging - because home is a source of acceptance, shaping the core of our identity.
And it’s contextual because it’s when we experience the unfamiliar that we realize what it means to belong.
Finding home landside and airside
Within the airport’s synthetic and fiberglass structure, a piece of your personal history is in the making.
Landside
Before security, the border between land and airside, is where drama happens.
There’s one level dedicated to emotional farewells, and another for anticipated reunions. The juxtaposition of the air traveller and the land-bound loved ones is almost theatrical. The tears and laughter. The meek waves and passionate embraces.
Where you’ve been, where you’ll go, the people in each of the places, and the complex emotions your journey uniquely combines are etched into each stakeholder’s memory in nuanced ways. The daughter’s excitement may be the mother’s worries. The tears of the girlfriend is motivation for the other half.
The only constant is the blurred white and greyish background of the airport.
At the very least, an airport is where emotion-infused memories are made.
Airside
As the traveller struts down the massive halls with inexplicable feelings, an elaborate security clearance brings her to airside – famously, and incorrectly known as the no-man’s-land in the Tom Hanks movie The Terminal.
Behind the same white and greyish non-descript façade lies a sense of belonging.
In the sea of travellers, carry-on luggage, and duty-free bags, you are free to be who you are. People from all walks of life fill the terminals, focused on getting to their own destination. The path is clear. The goal is within reach. The logistics have been taken care of. You just have to show up on time.
As you float through the humming mumbo-jumbo, your ears perk up to recognize familiar accents and your eyes dart to the recognizable phrases. A feeling of relief overwhelms you if you’ve been immersed in the unfamiliar. A moment to savour if you’re about to embark on a journey to the unknown. Sometimes, you have to leave to find home.
Maybe you find refuge in the lounge: present your frequent flyer number with pride to enjoy a Nespresso and a sparkling water (with lemon and ice) in peace before priority boarding. Maybe you do your last-minute gift shopping and skillfully lose the sales associates trying to tail you to earn that commission on your overpriced medjool dates and that limited edition Armani perfume set. Maybe you get to the gate early to play identify that aircraft.
It’s possible to have routines even in transient places. It’s possible to find belonging in a sea of otherness.
And once that announcement alerts you to get to Gate 118 for immediate boarding, just like leaving home, you check for all your belongings, rush to the gate, and take on what the world has to offer you that day with that inexplicable feeling.
Have a great week!
Vicky
PS. Let me know with a quick reply or a comment on whether airports holds something dear to you. I’d love to hear your stories!
I love airports! I always try to get to airports early: 1. Don't want to miss a flight (coming from Indonesia where it takes 2 hours to get to CGK without traffic from where I live and about 5 hours with traffic, one must always be prepared). 2. I like to get through checkin fast, then just enjoy the sights of other people rushing to their gates, making up stories as I go.
Lovely ode to the airport! I have always loved the airy, transitional space that airports provide. It is a strange familiar place to me. A breathing space between jumps.
I also want to know what drama unfolded in OSL… my hometown airport!