Walking the floors of PTE World (Passenger Terminal Expo) for the first time, I was impressed. The innovation on display in terminal design, passenger flow, technology, sustainability is genuinely exciting.

But something was missing from the conversation.

Wayfinding? Everywhere. And rightly so, helping passengers navigate complex, high-pressure environments is critically important work. But wayfinding is the visible expression of something deeper. That deeper thing, airport identity, brand, this was almost entirely absent from the discussion.

That’s a huge opportunity.

Passengers have a choice.

We talk constantly about airline competition. Loyalty programmes, seat selection, lounge access, airlines have spent decades understanding that passengers choose and invest accordingly. But in multi-airport cities and catchment areas, passengers choose airports too. The decision of which airport to fly from is real, and it’s made on more than just price and schedule.

It’s made on feeling.

How does it feel to arrive? To depart? To connect? Is this a place that feels considered, confident, characterful or does it feel like every other terminal you’ve passed through? That feeling is brand. Right now, most airports are leaving it to chance.

Wayfinding without identity is just signage

Wayfinding gets attention because it’s measurable and operational. You can count wrong turns, dwell times, missed gates. Brand identity is harder to quantify which is why it tends not to get prioritised in an industry that’s fundamentally infrastructure focused. But that framing misses something important.

The best wayfinding systems in the world aren’t just legible, they’re expressive. They carry a sense of place. They feel like they belong somewhere specific, not anywhere generic. That only happens when wayfinding is designed as an extension of a strong, intentional identity.

When identity comes first, wayfinding follows naturally. When it doesn’t, you get functional but forgettable. In an industry increasingly competing on experience, forgettable is a strategic risk.

The business case is hiding in plain sight

Airport leadership speaks the language of commercial performance, retail yield, dwell time, spend per passenger. Brand investment speaks that language too! Passengers with genuine affinity for an airport spend more, they return and they advocate.

Identity isn’t a soft investment, it’s a commercial lever.

That’s exactly where Air Design works. We’re a branding and wayfinding consultancy built and our work starts with identity, not signage. Because when you get the brand right, everything that follows, the wayfinding, the environment, the passenger experience becomes coherent, intentional, and powerful.

The gap is the opportunity

I’m leaving PTE excited not just because of what was there, but because of what wasn’t. The airports that invest in identity now, that treat their brand as a strategic asset rather than an afterthought, will be the ones passengers choose, remember, and return to.

For airport operators and industry thinkers is brand identity on your radar? Or is it still being drowned out by the operational noise?

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Written by James Brown