Aerotropolis, not just an airport
(January 26, 2004)The difference between Changi Airport and any Indian airport is just this: vision
Singapore's Changi Airport is called an Aerotropolis. The word means, an 'airport city'. How can an airport be called a city? And what is a city? When does a collection of people over a geographically identifiable place become qualified to be called a city? A city is more than just a collection of people. It has a complete life support system. As against a town or a village, apart from a mass of people, the life support system is more complete and accessible. While planning for Changi Airport, the designers had the completeness of a city in mind. They imagined that unlike a city in which you live a lifetime or part of it, Changi would be a city in every aspect, for the few hours of your life that you spend in it. You can take a shower, rest in a hotel room, visit a gym, browse the Internet, have Indian, Chinese or Continental food, choose to lounge in a coffee shop, play a video game, go to a prayer room, take your children to a science museum, buy hi-fi equipment, watch television, see a doctor, buy books, flowers or orchid plants that you may want to carry back.
Talking about shopping in Singapore, at one time, I saw signs that asked passengers to buy in a worry-free manner. If you were not happy with something you bought, they promised to refund the money within 30 days. Hold your breath for this one though - the signs also said they would pay you for the cost of sending the merchandise back. Similarly, when Singapore city fathers got feedback that shopkeepers were not seen as friendly, all the shopkeepers at Changi Airport were trained in polite conversation and friendliness. The thought process was to make Changi a desired city in every sense of the word. All these made Changi a preferred hub for the international traveller. And that's why airlines make sure that they fly through Changi. As a result, Changi makes money from providing berthing capacity, refuelling and engineering services to visiting airliners.
Bangalore airport, or for that matter any Indian airport, does not qualify to be called an 'Aerotropolis'. It is because they do not want to be in the life-support business for travellers. They see their business as pulling people out of airlines seats and matching them with suitcases. In reverse sequence, they separate departing passengers from their luggage and pack them into waiting airliners. This is called 'bum handling'. Doing it efficiently is critical, but that does not win you world-class status.
The difference between the two is: vision. I have been observing Changi for 20 years now. It started as a great vision. It built on that vision year after year. It is a great example of fulfilling unstated needs of customers, whereas Indian airports fulfil only stated needs.
Stated needs are rational needs. Unstated needs are emotional in content. Only when we scale from the former to the latter do we achieve excellence. It is only in the last few decades that we are beginning to understand the realm of human emotions and factoring that into the goods or services we create. Modern management grew as an extension of modern science in the last century. That science saw the world in terms of cause-effect relationships. Only in the last few decades has science begun to understand how we think. The role of the emotive mind is beginning to get explored.
The sceptics will jump in and say: Singapore is a rich country, why compare India with it? It is a sobering fact that Singapore got independence in 1957. It was a poor nation, smaller in size than any Indian state and had no natural resources. Even today, it has to buy water for everyday use from across the border in Malaysia. When Singapore had less than 5 million people - most too poor to travel - they had decided that they must create a world-class airline. That was the beginning of Singapore Airlines. That world-class airline needed a world-class airport. The resolve paid off.
As the Kathopanishad says: "You are what your deep driving desire is. As is your desire, so is your will. As is your will, so is your act. As is your act, so is your destiny."
