Originally Posted by
newyorkgeorge
Just about all airports were constructed before 9/11 and when the number of paxs traveling was much smaller, particularly in the US.
Unfortunately, given the state of this industry, many airports now or soon be suffering from lower revenues as airlines cut flights, and inability to expand facilities (LGA, DCA) won't allow this to be remedied anytime soon.
As far as in flight, getting separate lavs is just impossible when on many narrowbodies there is only three lavs to begin with.
Agreed. Not to mention the fact that, prior to 9/11, the preferred design was to put restaurants and retail on the land side of security rather than the airside. Now I suspect that a lot of landside retail space at airports is underutilized, as folks are generally only concerned with getting their boarding passes and through security, given the increased amount of time screening can take today. Pre-9/11, screening was pretty cursory, and I think people were more comfortable lingering landside until just prior to boarding. Not to mention all of the restrictions on taking liquids through the security checkpoint.
Slowly, I suspect will continue to see airports being redesigned or retrofitted to shift the food and beverage from landside to airside.