Airports are rarely chosen the way brands are. For most travellers, the airport they use is dictated by geography, routes and convenience. You don’t decide which airport to fly from; the choice is largely made for you. Yet across India, airports are increasingly investing in marketing and brand-building. From celebrity-led walkthroughs to signature scents and soundscapes, airports no longer want to remain invisible transit hubs. But, if footfall is guaranteed by operations alone, why do airports need to market themselves at all?
The answer lies in how the role of airports is quietly evolving. While connectivity still decides where people fly from, it no longer shapes how they feel while they are there. With Indian cities moving towards multi-airport models, airports are no longer just transit points. Many are privately operated and now function as visible public spaces where people spend time and form impressions. This shift may not change bookings, but it does change how airports live in a city’s imagination. And it is here that airport marketing begins to matter- not loudly or urgently, but gradually.
The shift is especially evident when airports communicate even before they are fully operational. Recently, Farah Khan shared a vlog where she toured the upcoming Navi Mumbai International Airport. The content was not designed to inform travellers about routes or readiness. It functioned instead as a cultural introduction. Abhijat Bharadwaj, Chief Creative Officer, Dentsu Creative Isobar, articulates this shift clearly, “People pick airports with their head. But they accept them with their gut. Marketing doesn’t change the map. It changes the mood. A new airport like Navi Mumbai International Airport starts with a disadvantage. ‘Too far. Too unfamiliar. Sounds like work!’ The goal isn’t to win outright. It’s to get one visit.” Bharadwaj points out that once travellers experience the space for themselves, most of the imagined pain disappears. In that sense, marketing merely opens the door; the experience does the rest.
If acceptance is the first challenge new airports face, competition is the one that follows closely behind. The need to market becomes sharper when multiple airports begin to serve the same geography. Mayank Gaba, Creative Director, Sociowash, says, “Not every airport needs to market itself. It primarily depends on whether there is existing competition in the market. Most of the metros and key states in our country have more than one airport now and airports also act as a medium of advertising for a lot of brands. Be it brick-and-mortar stores or OOH installations, airports charge hefty fees from these brands and offer return on investment through footfall.”
What Gaba points to is not just passenger movement, but the ecosystem that builds around it. As you all must have observed, airports are not just neutral backdrops; they are commercial environments where brands, retailers and advertisers expect value from presence. The experience an airport offers directly influences how comfortable passengers feel. Over time, this experience-led reputation begins to matter as much to advertisers as it does to travellers.
This commercial positioning explains why large airport operators increasingly invest in institutional brand narratives, not just passenger-facing campaigns. For instance, Adani Airports has previously rolled out the ‘Hum Karke Dikhaate Hain’ campaign, aiming at reinforcing credibility and scale among policymakers, airline partners and the wider public.
A senior expert who has worked on airport communications explains the broader structural reality of how airports are financed and sustained today, “In this increasingly UDAAN-led and greenfield airport development and PPP-led marketplace of changing airport infrastructural development realities, with 45–60% of airport revenue globally generated by non-aeronautical revenue streams, experiential branding and visibility trends straightaway impact airport dwell time, spend per customer, airline relationships and investor confidence.”
Thus, passengers are only one side of the equation. Airports, by design, cater to multiple audiences at once and many of these make far more deliberate choices than travellers – airlines, cargo operators and logistics players. They actively evaluate airports when deciding where to deploy capacity, add frequencies or build hubs. Abhik Santara, Director & CEO, atom, breaks down the three different audiences airports speak to, “First, the frequent flyers; second are the leisure travellers; and third are the entire B2B audience. For frequent flyers, decision-making is driven largely by convenience, with very little impact on which airport it is. But for leisure travellers, experience becomes important, especially when there are two or three alternatives available. But, the larger intent of marketing airports is to attract the B2B audience - the right airlines, cargo partners and infrastructure around that place.
Santara observation helps explain why experience-led positioning often precedes hub formation. He points to global examples where airports like Singapore Changi and Dubai were once questioned for their marketing focus, only to later emerge as preferred connectors between regions. Over time, experience became a deciding factor not just for passengers but for airlines choosing where to route traffic, eventually shaping network logic.
This brings the conversation back to a quieter, less visible lever: time. Passengers may not choose their airport, but they are compelled to spend hours inside it. That time is unavoidable. What airports can influence is how that time is experienced. Is it treated as dead time, or as an opportunity for comfort and exploration?
And, Bengaluru’s Kempegowda International Airport has invested deliberately to this effect. By introducing a signature fragrance, a distinct sonic identity and recurring cultural programmes across terminals, the airport has focused on building consistency to create cumulative familiarity at scale. This philosophy plays out through sensory cues that are not designed to be noticed immediately, but to work over repeated exposure, building familiarity. Bharadwaj adds, “Sensory cues at Kempegowda International Airport matter. They stick. They humanise a place that could otherwise feel cold and interchangeable. Over time, that memory reduces friction. New terminals feel less intimidating. New routes feel easier to accept. Airport marketing doesn’t chase demand. It removes resistance.”
But how does this translate into commercial outcomes? And how do airports know whether this effort is working? Suumit Kapoor, Brand Growth Consultant, adds an economic lens to the discussion, “Airports secure footfall by geography, but marketing determines what passengers do with their 90–180 minutes of mandatory presence. International passengers arrive 2.5 hours early, domestic 1.5 hours; this isn’t dead time, it’s commercial inventory awaiting activation. Psychological research shows travellers in ‘liminal states’ exhibit 23% higher impulse purchase rates and 40% greater premium product bias than typical retail environments. The choice isn’t whether passengers show up—it’s whether they hide at gates or explore retail zones.”
Beyond passenger spending, experience-led differentiation also shapes airline decision-making. Kapoor notes that premium airlines like Vistara, Emirates and Lufthansa tie their brand equity to gateway quality, as poor airport experiences carry reputational risk. Elements that may appear cosmetic to passengers function as B2B collateral in airline negotiations, with airports that post high passenger satisfaction and Net Promoter Scores gaining leverage in route allocation, frequency increases and long-term commercial terms.
Explaining Farah Khan’s Navi Mumbai airport tour, Kapoor shares that it was about manufacturing familiarity early. As India moves towards multi-airport futures, building brand equity before competition materialises can cost 5-10x less than correcting entrenched perceptions later. Social and cultural visibility is gaining importance in a content-first media environment.
However, when it comes to measurement, Kapoor cautions against using passenger numbers as a proxy for marketing impact. Footfall is inevitable; behaviour is not. Instead, he points to indicators like pause rate—the time passengers spend in commercial zones versus gate areas. A traveller who pauses for 12 minutes in retail with a 60% likelihood of purchase can be worth nearly four times more than one who rushes through in three minutes. Emotional NPS, measured 48 hours after travel, captures how the airport is remembered once the journey fades and predicts advocacy, social sharing, and willingness to arrive early. Airlines track these scores closely, as they correlate with premium cabin bookings and corporate account retention.
So why do airports market themselves when passengers don’t really choose them? Because the next phase of aviation will be shaped not only by routes and runways, but by how airports are experienced, interpreted and remembered. As India moves towards multi-airport cities and increasingly competitive aviation ecosystems, marketing begins to function less as persuasion and more as groundwork, quietly building familiarity and setting expectations long before comparison becomes inevitable. While a few airports have already begun to lean into this shift, how many others will follow and how seriously - remains to be seen.
