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Mint
13-05-2025
- Mint
Are these the world's most beautiful airports?
AIR TRAVEL in India can be frustrating. Flights at major airports are often delayed. Security protocols vary from one city to the next. The price of an airside beer would cause blushes even at Heathrow. Yet there is a redeeming factor that compensates for the annoyances: Indian airports are some of the most beautiful in the world. They reveal what India is capable of—and where it falls short. Around the world modern airports are variations on a glass-and-steel theme, usually with lots of white everywhere. Rising nations tend to pour money into erecting extravagant things. As countries in Asia and the Middle East grew in economic power over the past quarter-century, they signalled their new importance by building monumental terminals. Qatar, long determined to punch above its geopolitical weight, opened Hamad International in 2014. Under Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has overseen a building boom, Turkey inaugurated an airport in Istanbul, one of the largest in the world, in 2018. China's Beijing Daxing (pictured, below), finished the following year, is all soaring arches, luscious curves and soft edges. Sleek, modern and ambitious, the airports proclaim themselves and their countries as the future. Not in India. Bangalore's Terminal 2 (pictured, below), which opened in 2023, was designed as a 'terminal in a garden", a nod to the verdant metropolis's reputation as a 'garden city". It is different from anything in China or the Middle East. As a statement, its vision is less sci-fi spaceship than prelapsarian arcadia. Earthy tones dominate the colour palette. There are splashes of green where the ample foliage emerges from gigantic hanging planters. Beams are covered in bamboo, giving the impression that the whole thing is made of organic materials. Renewing the past Bill Drexel, an American think-tanker who recently visited India, recalls being 'blown away immediately" by Bangalore's new terminal. That, he adds, 'was particularly remarkable because I arrived in the wee hours…and would have much rather been asleep". Tanner Greer, an analyst who took part in the same trip, wrote that 'Aesthetically, Indian futurism is very pleasant. It fares well in contrast to Chinese futurism, which is raw and ugly." The first major new terminals to open in India's modern airport-building boom aspired to be like those Chinese ones. Airports in Bangalore and Hyderabad (pictured, below), opened in 2008, are standard-issue glass-and-steel. Delhi's shiny Terminal 3, opened in 2010, has a similar aesthetic, distinguished only by its infamously ugly carpet. Mumbai's Terminal 2 (pictured, top), completed in 2014, marked a turning-point. The predominant material is concrete. Its reigning motif is the feather of a peacock, India's national bird. The motif is visible in the detailing of the huge columns that hold up the roof, in the light fixtures, even in the signage. GVK, the conglomerate that commissioned the terminal, wanted to ensure that when someone arrives at the airport they will instantly know they are in India, says Derek Moore of SOM, the American firm that designed it. Bangalore's second terminal, also by SOM, followed suit. For Mr Moore, the two projects were 'the high points of my career". Goa's second airport, opened in 2023, is another example. Its interior is embellished with the façades of Portuguese-inflected homes found in the state. Cheerful bunting is everywhere. A second airport for Mumbai, scheduled to start operations in May, uses as its motif the lotus, India's national flower. Designed by Zaha Hadid Architects, a British firm, it, too, is guaranteed to be distinctive. The design of India's airports reveals deeper truths about the country, among them a willingness to allocate money to beauty, or at least decoration. Across India, even the most mundane underpasses and bridges are covered in bright murals of tribal art, local landmarks or abstract designs. In Mumbai pillars holding up the metro rail now being built have already been festooned with patterns. Not all of it is attractive, but it is never boring. Prettying up infrastructure raises costs, although not by much. Mr Moore reckons that the aesthetically pleasing extras are unlikely to have added more than 1-2% to the overall cost of Mumbai's or Bangalore's terminals, compared with an unornamented design. Yet 1% is not nothing in what remains an extremely cost-conscious country. Government authorities and private firms believe the expense is worth it. It's what's on the inside that counts A second insight is that India is unwilling to forsake its history and traditions in pursuit of modernity. GVK's vision for Mumbai's Terminal 2 (pictured, below), says Mr Moore, was that it 'needed to embody the heritage of India" while also being contemporary. The firm's designers were taken on a tour of historical sites to serve as inspiration. China's attitude, says Mr Drexel, who has spent time in both countries, is 'we want to be at the top for looking more modern than anybody", whereas India's is 'we want to be ourselves, we want to be congruent with the traditions of our national culture." Lastly, India's airports exemplify the power of privatisation. Until the turn of the century the state operated every airport in India, and most were awful. Massive amounts of investment poured in after each privatisation. But the job is incomplete. State-run airports and other public buildings—new railway and metro stations, especially—are an eyesore. No less important is the quality of construction. 'A lot of stuff coming up is awful: poorly designed, poorly detailed and poorly constructed," says Bimal Patel, an architect and urban planner. Government projects are afflicted by many ills, including poorly designed contracts, inflexible requirements and corruption. Corners are cut. Last year three airport canopies collapsed in heavy rains (including one at the privately run Delhi airport). New highways and bridges quickly develop cracks or potholes. The joins in flyovers are inexact, making for bumpy rides. In 2022 researchers at the IMF published a paper that looked at average speeds between big cities in 162 countries as a proxy for the quality of infrastructure. Despite building tens of thousands of highways in the previous two decades, India ranked 127th, just ahead of Somalia. Quantity is a poor substitute for quality. Nor can gorgeous new terminals and their world-class operators banish the ghosts of the old, inefficient India that haunts travellers. Security officers hand-wand every passenger and physically inspect seemingly every third bag. Immigration officers insist on hard-copy paperwork. At customs, passengers must load bags into x-ray machines—as they exit airports. Many new airports have no public-transport links. All these functions are handled by the state. Indian airports are designed to evoke the country's past. But not everything is worth preserving. Stay on top of our India coverage by signing up to Essential India, our free weekly newsletter.
Forbes
14-04-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Qatar's Hamad Airport Holds Steady In New Rankings As Duty-Free Offer Expands
A series of rankings were unveiled today and last week that are often reliable indicators of current and future duty-free retail performances at airports. One airport, Qatar's Hamad International, maintained its standing across all these lists. Last week's 2025 Skytrax Awards saw the Qatar Airways hub, opened in 2014, lose its crown as the world's top airport to Singapore Changi; the latter returning to the number one spot, as voted by air travelers around the world. Hamad International dropped to second place as the Singapore hub recovered traffic volumes after Covid, but it retained pole position as best airport in the Middle East for the 11th consecutive year. The biggest movers in the global Top 10, released at Passenger Terminal Expo in Madrid, were Dubai International, which dropped out, slipping from 7th last year to 11th in 2025, while Hong Kong International and Rome's Fiumicino airport climbed to 6th and 8th respectively, from 11th and 12th. Today, global airport association, Airports Council International (ACI), released its definitive preview list of 2024's busiest international airports for traffic. While Doha is ranked 10th with 52.7 million passengers, it is now 36% ahead of pre-pandemic 2019, indicating the progress the airport has made in recent years in building capacity and hub connections. This is in sharp contrast to several European hubs, notably Germany's Frankfurt, which is still 11% down on 2019, but remains on an infrastructure expansion path. Only Turkey's Istanbul Airport—where travel retail Gebr. Heinemann and its local partners have the core retail business—has shown better results since 2019, with 59% growth. However, this reflects, in part, a change in location from Istanbul's previous pre-pandemic hub of Atatürk to a much larger, new gateway. Heinemann has gained handsomely from the growth, which has also been fueled by Turkish Airlines' unswerving focus on network expansion. A third ranking, also from Skytrax, saw Hamad International see off some stiff competition from the likes of London Heathrow and Singapore Changi, to win the award for the world's best airport shopping for the third year running. Retail at the airport, with a slew of luxury brands present, is operated by Qatar Airways subsidiary Qatar Duty Free (QDF) which saw high sales growth of 18% last year. The three rankings combined put QDF in a good position for the rest of 2025, on the back of continuing traffic growth. Last year, the retailer launched more than 18 new retail outlets and created high-impact campaigns with luxury brands like Chanel and YSL. This year, the official opening of further terminal extensions in the form of concourses D and E at the end of March has added almost 30,000 square feet (2,700 square meters) of new retail space in the terminal, boosting the airport's capacity to more than 65 million. Hamad Airport's chief operating officer, Hamad Ali Al Khater, said: 'Our focus is to deliver operational excellence that supports both current demands and future growth. Concourses D and E mark a significant milestone in expanding our capacity. This combined development streamlines passenger flow, optimizes resource management, and strengthens airline connectivity.' The concourses complete the airport's development plan (started in 2018), adding 17 new aircraft contact gates to push the total to 62. They also introduced about 10 new retail and dining outlets, including a souk-style market, Joe & The Juice, Accessories Lab, plus luxury Fendi and Giorgio Armani stores. QDF declined to provide details of all the stores, but the larger footprint should help the retailer to ramp up growth this year. A 25th anniversary campaign is also coming soon, plus a total of 25 retail and food and beverage outlets are expected by the year-end to mark the occasion. QDF's data-sharing platform, 36Q, launched in late 2024, will be instrumental to future sales gains. In a statement, the company said: '36Q empowers QDF and its partners to deliver hyper-personalized experiences—whether it is luxury splurges or daily essentials.' Personalization is high on the priority list. Hamad International now has more than 200 retail and dining outlets, but Qatar Duty Free continues to hunt for retail experiences that travelers will see as unique, exclusive, and that cannot be found anywhere else.
Bloomberg
10-04-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
These Are the World's Best Airports in 2025
Singapore's Changi regained the title of world's best airport in 2025, edging out Doha's Hamad International, which took the number one spot last year. Overall, Asian airports led the rankings at the Skytrax World Airport Awards 2025, with Tokyo's Haneda and Narita, and Seoul's Incheon rounding out the top five.
