“Life is like an airport. It's where every hello and goodbye take place.” ― Mia Haryono
If you are a frequent flyer, your first and final destination is the airport. It’s the place where planes take-off and land, embark and offload. But there’s more to airports than just those.
The airport is also the place where you have to check-in and have your passport stamped. Then, that is followed by eating some snacks or meals in one of the dining places, buying books or magazines, and sitting down in the boarding area.
Once you arrive at your destination, the airport is the place where you join a queue of people to have their passports stamped all over again and get your luggage and other stuff at the assigned carousel. Then, it’s getting out of the airport.
You either hate it or love it – although most people hate it. It’s no wonder why Douglas Adams was quoted as saying, “It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on earth has ever produced the expression, ‘As pretty as an airport.’”
The concept of an airport, a designated area for the landing and takeoff of aircrafts, has likely been around for as long as humans have been flying. However, the first recorded use of an airport was in 1909, at College Park Airport in Maryland, United States.
But the first time the word “airport” was used in reference to a specific location was at the airfield in Atlantic City Municipal Airport in New Jersey. Opened in 1910, Bader Field – as it is also known – was (and still is) a strip of land surrounded by water on three sides.
Robert Woodhouse, a journalist, used the word “airport” when he wrote an article in 1919 describing the place and the seaplane service that ferried passengers back and forth to New York. Because of its location, the “airport” could accommodate both seaplanes and land planes.
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