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:

HND in Tokyo - the best city airport on Earth. Disagree with me in the comments.

The airport is called a non-place.

Non-place
Noun

A 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.

YVR in Vancouver - How my city welcomes me home.

What is a home anyway?

This is Oxford Languages’ definition of home:

Home
Noun

The 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
Noun

A 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

OSL in Oslo - the place where fantasies of Scandanavia hospitality were shattered to pieces…

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

SZX in Shenzhen - My favourite airport in China

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.

YVR in Vancouver - nothing says home like the language choices of our trilingual signage

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.

CTS in Hokkaido - Boeing or Airbus?

BIO in the Basque Country - Who makes this aircraft?

OLG in Masai Mara - Does anyone know which aircraft is this? The tire popped right as we landed. Almost missed our transfer to Zanzibar, but apparently getting a flat tire is very normal on airstrips like this according to a cheerful Quebecois family

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!