Had a little trouble with that tittle lol.
Lemme explain. I always see such a mass difference in between American terminal layouts and Chinese Terminal layouts.
For example, Beijing Capital & Beijing Daxing Airport have such a unique design to their terminals. Why aren’t any airports in the US styled like that? Does it have to depend on space or budgets?
Now I’m sure there are some US airports with a unique style terminal. Dulles is the only one I can think of at the moment.
Pretty loaded topic lol
I’m from the U.S. too. It’s not just Asia. The U.S. is pretty much behind in terms of the aesthetic of the airports. The U.S. airport buildings are plain & straightforward.
The bottom line is money but there’s more to it.
It could possibly be due to being older & established already—the cost to renovate just to re-stylize isn’t feasible.
My other guess is that the other countries invest in tourism way more than the U.S. does. Part of the country’s investment in tourism is the airport building, which is pretty much going to be a tourist’s first impression of the country. The U.S. isn’t investing in “first impressions.”
Cost of labor is another thing too. Construction labor in U.S. is really expensive. Unions and wages.
Without getting political, even the President has said that the U.S. airports are “ugly.” So it’s no secret.
i think compared to american style they just want it to be simple as long as it does the job they dont mind thats all i can think of currently
Maybe they think the capital’s airport represents the image of the country? It is the first impression of a foreigner when they arrive in the country.
Working in Asia, I could compare with those in Europe.
I’d summarize in 4 points:
Airports in Asia are considered as an major investment for the future.. many of airport terminals are still far from being fully exploited. They’re built as economic and tourism hubs to boost global attractiveness.
I think there are a few main ideas. I think its mostly because airports in America and across the world, like JFK, were built a long time ago. The JFK airport was originally constructed in 1943. Of course since then they’ve renovated and built new terminals, but they cant really tear down the entire airport. Also like mentioned previously, land availably/planning. Most established airport have been surrounded by residential and commercial development, so often there isn’t room for expansion. Lastly, the populations are less centralized in most western countries, so you end up have many many major airports. In California for example, you have LAX, SFO, SAN, just to name a few. Almost every US state has at least a few major airports. That being said, money and investments from companies and the government are spread to hundreds of airports rather than, lets say 2 or 3 in the United Arab Emirates. Hope this is inciteful.
Yeah I could see that making sense
This is a great discussion. I’d like to add that it also depends how long the airport has been around and what area it is in. Take Frankfurt as an example, it’s arguably quite an oddly styled airport when it comes to the terminal structure and RWY layouts. But then you take into account that its been around since 1936, and has had continuous, sectional improvements over decades to accommodate for the massive increase of commercial aviation (with the new Terminal 3 building being the most recent project, opening in 2026). And then you also take into account that the terrain surrounding it is quite tricky, with hills to the north (Taunus and Vogelsberg) and south (Odenwald and Spessart) and the close presence to roads and other infrastructure (The Frankfurt football stadium is a few hundred meters away from RWY25C). Suddenly, it makes a lot more sense as to why it looks the way it does.
The other case is Munich. From 1939 to 1992, the Flughafen München Riem was Munich’s main airport, located in the city. The excellent decision was made to build an entire new airport, outside of the main city limits, in Erdinger Moos. This not only allowed the city of Munich to use the mere 1575 acres of the old airport but also allowed Mr. Franz Joseph Strauss to build a new airport from scratch. By 1980, aviation had already developed so much that Mr Strauss was able to gauge what airport layouts were working best in the industry. And with a few constant developments over the last few decades (T1 refurbishments are set to finish 2026), which are a lot easier to accomplish if you don’t have Frankfurt’s struggles, we now have Munich Franz Joseph Strauß international airport, europe’s only 5 star airport and in my (bias) opinion a near perfect airport.
This is a great discussion! Here’s my thoughts: Many airports aren’t that great, and you can notice these differences. There are even differences in-between airports. If you look at London Heathrow, there is 4 terminals. Terminal 5 and 2 at stunning with some great architecture, open space, and plenty of sunlight. But on the other hand there is T3 and T4 (from my own personal experience) you can definitely notice the differences. I flew out of Terminal 3 last weekend to go to Helsinki, and the layout was very confusing.
There are so many beautiful airports, and I thought I’d share my list of them here 
:
Helsinki-Vantaa
Singapore Changi
Sydney Kingsford Smith
Maldives
Koh Samui (it’s pretty much all outside)
San Francisco
Oslo Gardemoen
Istanbul
(I can’t think of anymore)
there are loads of Asian airports I didn’t mention.
Thanks for reading, and a nice topic!
And all that is said are very true statements and not saying that U.S. doesn’t bring in tourists it’s just not a top tourist destination like other countries like Dubai,India,China,Japan,Australia and more.
Love the fact you typed all of this! It’s interesting to read about, appreciate it!
Glad you used Frankfurt and Munich as examples.
It is very much a top tourist destination compared to those countries. In 2025, the US is expected to bring in 77.1 million international tourists (source).
In contrast:
Dubai (UAE): 22 million annual visitors
India: 18.89 million annual visitors
China: 65 million annual visitors
Japan: 36.87 million annual visitors
Australia: 7.48 million annual visitors
In terms of “and more,” only France and Spain brought in more visitors then the US.
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