The future is now: 11 modern airports you need to visit

Monday, 28 July 2014

From Los Angeles to Singapore, discover the most high-tech airports in the world and learn what’s to come in the future.

As Skyscanner’s Future of Travel Report has unveiled, airports will undergo major changes within the next decade. They will cease being transitional holding pens with a few shops and restaurants to becoming a travel destination in their own right. However, you don’t have to wait long for this big move, with some airports already modernising to give visitors a taste of what the future will be like.

So if you fancy a departure lounge with digital shopping walls, forests, rooftop pools or yoga pavilions, then read on to discover the 11 most futuristic airports.

1. Changi Airport, Singapore

Changi Airport in Singapore is already impressive but when their T4 terminal opens in 2017 it will have Biometric scanning, self-service check-ins, digital boarding via mobile among many other modern features. Get ready for virtual concierges, stores with showroom products that you can scan to buy (and then have delivered to your home) and lots more futuristic stuff. On top of that, they already have a 5-storey vertical garden with 25 species of climbing plant, a rooftop swimming pool, waterfalls and four cinemas, the world’s largest moving sculpture (Kinetic Rain) and even a butterfly garden.
Garden in Airport

2. Dubai International Airport, UAE

Dubai airport is - apart from being really beautiful - home to the second largest building in the world by floor space and the biggest airport terminal in the world. It is filled with palm trees, mirrored spaces and even yoga pavilions - definitely worth checking it out.

3. Los Angeles International Airport, USA

Only in Los Angeles could you find an airport like this one. LAX has teamed up with Moment Factory to turn the place into a sensorial and soothing experience. They have seven giant LED screens built at strategic locations around the terminal with inspirational displays. But the central feature is the four-sided, 72-feet Time Tower, a haptic illusion wrapped around one of the terminals main lifts. This trompe l’oeil feature tells the story of Los Angeles through old Hollywood films and mesmerising images that are deliberately soothing and peaceful.
LAX

4. London Heathrow Airport, England

Heathrow is constantly changing and adapting to modern times. They are currently testing iQueue, a Bluetooth-based product that will help understand passenger behaviour and reduce bottlenecks.

5. Incheon international Airport, South Korea

One of the biggest airports in the World, Incheon Airport has a golf course, a spa, private sleeping rooms, an ice rink, a casino, indoor gardens and even a Museum of Korean Culture. And they have common use kiosks that allow 3-minute check-ins to 8 major airlines. Plus, departure will soon operate a biometric immigration system that uses facial recognition and boarding passes will be scrapped in favour of machine-readable passports. Not bad, right? If great food and stunning landscapes were not a good enough excuse to go to South Korea, this unique airport is.

6. Kuwait International Airport, Kuwait

Due to open in 2016, the new Kuwait International Airport will be a world leader in Energy and Environmental design (LEED) with a gold certified passenger terminal. To top it all off, they will have cooling internal waterfalls and landscaped oasis-style gardens.

7. Amesterdam Airport Schiphol, Netherlands

The biggest airport in The Netherlands is a beautiful building that has gone far beyond being just an airport. Their terminals feature Dutch masterpieces borrowed from the Rijksmuseum, making your time in the airport a very cultural one.

8. New Delhi Indira Gandhi International Airport, India

India’s New Delhi Airport takes duty-free shopping to a new level. Here you can make quick, luxury purchases using QR code on your smartphones – a shopaholics dream.
New Dehli Airport

9. San Francisco International Airport, USA

San Francisco International Airport’s terminal 2 has recently been revamped and now boasts a state-of-the-art yoga centre that will surely help anyone relax and enjoy the experience of travelling (or hanging about the departure lounge).
The Reflection Room

10. San Diego International Airport, USA

San Diego International Airport have already made checking-in and boarding a pleasure. They are currently working on an enhanced lounge, designed to reflect the local terrain with interactive projections. Lamps also react to each traveller and display flight information as they recline in departure lounge seating.

11. Frankfurt Airport, Germany

Frankfurt Airport is one of the busiest and most important in Europe and it is therefore only natural that they are one of the very first to use shopping walls so that travellers can buy whatever they wish using QR codes on their smartphones.

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