J.D. Power just released a study confirming that travelers are happier with U.S. airports because some of them opened new gates and terminals. Not better staff. Not faster security. New rooms with newer chairs.
This happened during near record travel levels, which means millions of people stood in the same nightmare lines they always stand in, but this time they got to sit in a slightly less disgusting chair afterward and thought "wow, things are really turning around."
The bar for American infrastructure is now so low that adding a building qualifies as innovation. Airports figured out that if you construct a terminal that doesn't smell like 1987, people will forgive the $19 turkey sandwich and the two-hour TSA line staffed by one guy named Derek who definitely peaked in high school.
J.D. Power interviewed these travelers right after they experienced the most dehumanizing cattle-shuffle process outside of a slaughterhouse, and the travelers responded with higher satisfaction scores. Stockholm syndrome has nothing on gate syndrome.
The study didn't measure whether flights left on time or if baggage arrived intact or if anyone could afford the f*cking parking. It measured vibes. Shiny terminal vibes. And travelers ate it up like it was Cinnabon, which they also bought for $14 because they had no other options and mistook that transaction for free will.
You know who benefits from this report? Airport construction bonds. Retail investors will see "passenger satisfaction up" and assume airline stocks should rally, completely missing that the airports and the airlines are different entities with different balance sheets. But that level of research would require reading past a headline, which would cut into valuable time spent losing money on meme stocks.
Turns out you can rebuild an entire terminal and flyers will call it progress as long as there's an outlet to charge their phones while they wait three hours for a delayed flight to Newark.
Photo by Izyan Sultanali on Unsplash
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