"Hard sell" airports. This is now a common phenomenon at UK regional airports, where landing fees have been squeezed to the limit by the dominance of ULCCs. You'll be charged £3 just to drop off or pick up passengers (taxis will pass this cost on to you) but then £1 a minute if you stay over 5 minutes. There's often congestion getting out due to ANPR failures at the barriers, leading to angry people refusing to pay the extra fees. Then you'll have a paid-for premium security channel, created by artificially restricting the main security channel. If you need a bag for your liquids, there's a vending machine charging £1. Once through security, you'll have to negotiate an Ikea-like maze through the duty free shop, then funnelled through the tills (because why on earth wouldn't you be buying something) before you're allowed to reach the main terminal. The main terminal, naturally, has every square inch of space given over to retail. Want to sit down? Buy a coffee. You have to stay in this area because they won't even tell you your gate until 20 minutes before departure, by which time, there's an edgy crowd by the departures screens, jostling for the off. I've even been to one airport where the only route through to some gates is via the newsagent.

"Helpers". People employed to "help" you get through crowded areas of the airport by barking orders at you, asserting their questionable authority. They will be seen telling you to display all your liquids before security, telling you to get all your electronics out well before the conveyor, even through to do so would result in an undignified juggling act, and telling you to use the e-passport gates which you know don't work with your passport, rather then the empty desk over there.

Airports that forget that they serve a wider area than the city they're named after. Often most of their traffic comes from outside the city, but you'll find all the transport heads into the city. If there's an overnight delay on the outbound, that's fine because "you can just go home, it's not far".