Comment by cmurf

Airports are shopping malls. The article underestimates the sales being generated from a captive audience.

The show up lead time recommendation isn't followed by everyone, of course. But it produces a distribution of arrivals. The farther out, the more it moderates the peak arrival of passengers at the counter. The idea is to reduce that peak so that airlines save money not having to overstaff.

But also, if an airline is willing to set a policy that favors additional time for their passengers to spend more money, maybe they get a fraction of a percentage reduction in rent or some other kind of rebate?

We don't know all the incentives that go into the way things are the way they are.

I'm not sure how the credit card lounges make up their costs. Given Chase is raising their premium card from $600 to $800, it seems it's increased aggregate demand for such perks.