Airport shopping: Why airport shopping is so hard to avoid

I spend so much time in airports I might as well get to like them.

The strange Twilight Zone of departure halls can be strangely comforting if you're in the right frame of mind. The cares of the real world are left behind and all you have to worry about is how long the line will be at your gate. And you know you will be going somewhere. Maybe not soon, but eventually.

These days, airports are not simply places that direct traffic on and off planes but food and beverage hubs, shopping malls and spas. Shrewd airport-owning conglomerates have realised in recent years that they have a captive retail and dining market and so have redesigned the departure areas to make them less about moving people efficiently and more about finding ways to make these same people stop and shop.

Which is not always a good thing. The international airport I spend most time in is Sydney T1 and it's a nightmare. Recent redevelopment of the retail space means that everyone heading to a gate, restaurant or lounge has to first run the gamut of the amorphous new Heinemann Tax and Duty Free outlet.

The departure area always was badly designed. You felt like a pinball in a machine being flung around between perfume spruikers. But at least there was a (sort of) path through it all, which allowed you to avoid the stands. Now the duty free has swallowed much of the floor and travellers must navigate their own way through the labyrinth before finding clear space to the gates.

Few come out unscathed, having purchased an item they'd never wanted, needed or could afford in the real world. The danger of crashing into people filling wire baskets with bottles in a pre-flight frenzy is high.

Airport retailers bank on the fact that excited travellers leave their good sense behind when they're about to step on a plane. I'm convinced the need to arrive early at check in is not about security but about giving the retailers more time to flog stuff to bored passengers.

But I admit I'm grateful for such distractions when I have a few hours to kill in transit. Some airports are very entertaining, cities unto themselves, and I imagine it would be possible to live in them, even take citizenship if it were allowed.