Set the context...

An airport can hardly be compared to any other activity center... there are thousands of people working there, for hundreds of companies, each with different aims, some can be state operated, other are purely private companies... but by the end of the day, all want to keep the passengers (we call them PAX) happy, and the traffic smooth.

There are certainly bigger companies employing more people, but remind that an airport is not made of a single company, but many of them, typically including:

-Airport authority
-Air traffic control
-Airlines
-Police
-Firemen
-PAX security
-Handling (check-in and boarding)
-Fuel companies
-Catering
-Planes cleaning
-Aicraft maintenance
-Medical services
- ... and I probably forgot many.

and for most of these activities, airports have various companies offering services. Moreover, most airports are now shopping centers as well. A typical mid-size european airport (taking away Heathrow, Frankfurt, Charles-De-Gaule and Madrid) has something like 10'000 to 25'000 on site workers. Hopefully not all at the same time, as many of the services work with irregular schedules, 24 / 7.

What a normal PAX sees is may be 5 to 10% of the total spaces arround, and has no idea of what goes on behind the scene... so I'll reveal some to you...

In the next post, more on three of the most important actors: Airline - Airport - Air traffic control. The three A, with A lot of conflicts.