Airport city

An Airport City or AirportCity is an efficiently designed international transport hub for both passengers and cargo with an urban character agglomerating uses associated with the old city center and providing a growing number of services and facilities not directly related to actual transport functions. It exudes the atmosphere of a global city where people of all nationalities can be found. It is a place where work and recreation meet. Tourists, businessmen and businesswomen, those meeting and greeting people; all visitors feel at home and relaxed in an AirportCity. The AirportCity concept consists of a number of logically combined elements that reinforce each other. On the one hand, the services and facilities are guaranteed to guide travelers easily through the airport process. On the other hand, the facilities and activities have been designed to meet the individual needs of travelers and visitors to the extent possible.

An aerotropolis (pl. aerotropolises or aerotropoli) comprimises the AirportCity and is extending up to 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) outward from major airports.

• 
  Düsseldorf AirportCity Project
• The "Airrail" at the Frankfurt AirportCity will be accommodating the KPMG HQ, two Hilton hotels and retail outlets
  The "Airrail" at the Frankfurt AirportCity will be accommodating the KPMG HQ, two Hilton hotels and retail outlets
• 
  The Zurich AirportCity
• The Vienna AirportCity
  The Vienna AirportCity
• 
  The Aerotropolis, Airport City and Airportcorridor

From Airport to AirportCity

The French Ethnologist Marc Augé has subsumed the airport terminal under the denotation of a non-place. Just like shopping malls, supermarkets and hotel chains, the airport terminal is not involved in an urban context; it is de-historical and therefore unable to develop in contrast to the identity of its antipode - the place or the city. Today, the marketing strategies of many European airports speak a different language: What was once a mere transport node should become the AirportCity. Observing the pacified-by-cappuccino shopping sections with the ever equal arrangements of check-in booths, high-grade business clothing and wannabe-historical tea-shops, one could think about it as a brilliant marketing gag developed at the world’s elite Master of Real Estate schools – The AirportCity. However, upon further consideration, the discussion as to whether or not an airport can develop a form of urbanity is almost irrelevant. The growing number of facilities not directly related to actual transport functions makes many airports today agglomerations that could at least be called spatial, if not urban. Acknowledging the historical development of the city as a crossroad joining trade paths, recent literature names airports the new city nuclei, using the term aerotropolis.

AirportCity drivers

Airport Cities have evolved with different spatial forms predicated on available land and ground transportation infrastructure, yet virtually all emerged in response to four basic drivers:

1. Airports need to create new non-aeronautical revenue sources, both to compete and to better serve their traditional aviation functions.
2. The commercial sector’s pursuit of affordable, accessible land.
3. Increased gateway passengers and cargo traffic generated by airports.
4. Airports serving as a catalyst and magnet for landside business development.
The most common airside and landside AirportCity commercial activities include: duty free shops, restaurants and specialty retail, cultural and entertainment attractions, hotels and accommodation, banks and currency exchanges, business offices and complexes, convention and exhibition centres, leisure, recreation and fitness, logistics and distribution, perishables and cold storage, catering and other food services, Free Trade Zones and Customs Free Zones, golf courses ...

Some notable airport activities

AirportCities may be found in varying stages of development surrounding major airports worldwide, particularly in Europe, where older airports are being redeveloped or expanded on large tracts of unused airport land.

Among the most notable AirportCities, existing or under development, are those that surround these airports:
- Amsterdam Airport Schiphol Amsterdam AirportCity
- Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport AirportCity Belgrado
- Bremen Airport
- Brussels Airport
- Düsseldorf Airport Düsseldorf AirportCity
- Dublin Airport
- Frankfurt am Main Airport Airrail Center Frankfurt Gateway Gardens
- Manchester Airport
- Vienna Airport
- Zurich Airport - == References ==