The Sunday after Thanksgiving is expected to be the busiest air travel day of the year in the United States. Crowds will swell, schedules will bend, and many passengers will spend far more time in terminals than they planned, whether because of staffing shortages, weather, or system strain. In moments like these, a simple truth becomes clear: what happens inside the airport matters as much as what happens on the plane.
I learned that lesson early in my career. More than four decades ago, when I was a young architect, Art Gensler himself asked me to rethink the firm’s concept for Delta’s new terminal at LAX the night before a major presentation. After reviewing my sketches the next morning, he took me with him to the meeting and then asked me to present my ideas to Delta’s chair. Approval came the same day, and the design informed the terminal’s delivery, which still stands today as Delta’s entrance to Los Angeles.
When I began my career, the airport CEO’s job was about operations, runways, gates, schedules, and safety. Today, it’s about experience, community, description and resilience. In 40 years, airports have evolved from infrastructure to influence, and their leaders from operators to orchestrators, where design has become one of their most powerful tools.
