The landside environment of an airport terminal is an important area for
both passengers and the airport as it is the first area passengers enter and
experience, influencing passengers’ overall airport experiences. This paper
focuses on landside passenger experiences and factors which influence the
quality of these experiences. Data collection occurred through video
recorded observations of 40 passengers’ airport experiences at two
Australian international departure terminals. The Observer software was
used to code and analyse data.
Indicative results show that passengers spend over half of their landside
dwell time undertaking processing activities. The results highlight the
important influencing role passengers’ companions have over the
proportion of landside dwell time passengers spend undertaking
discretionary activities.
The findings provide an understanding of passenger landside experiences
and how they can be improved. The significance of these findings lies in
their potential application to landside airport terminal design with specific
examples outlined. This new knowledge will assist in improving passenger
airport experiences through informing future airport planning and design of
landside spaces and retail environments.
DRS 2012 Bangkok
