If ever there was a place where every person inside was guaranteed to already have luggage, it would be inside an airport. And yet ... the airport luggage stores persist. Who is going to these places? To answer, we will of course, unpack the story of the entire airport -- how these hellish modern places of security and commerce came to be. Alastair Gordon's Naked Airport. Unclaimed Baggage. Support Search Engine at search engine.show To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: Who are the curious airport shoppers?
Welcome to Search Engine. I'm PJ Vogt. No question too big, no question too small. It's the holidays here at Search Engine headquarters. In this season, like all seasons, the questions continue to roll in, providing our team, I would argue, the sharpest take on the national pulse of probably Any news outlet? Anywhere? We know the world because we know the questions that people in the world have.
And that's how we know that the most pressing concern, the thing Americans most wonder about currently, has to do with our nation's airports. We got not one, but three listener questions, all on the same topic.
Hi, Search Engine. My name is Tiffany.
Hi, I'm John Morris.
And I'm Leah Siegel. And I have a question I'm hoping you can help me answer. What's the deal with airport shops?
Who the fuck buys luggage in airports?
Or are people buying luggage at the luggage store at the airport? I just cannot buy that anyone goes to the airport, probably waits and pays to check a suitcase, clears security, and then decides to buy another suitcase right before getting on their flight. Do they have a handful of clothing? Who needs a whole new bag in the airport after we've gotten through security?
Perhaps it's like a babushka doll type thing where you buy a bigger luggage and then put your luggage inside. But I don't know.
Who buys luggage in an airport? To spell out the paradox here, every passenger, in theory, goes to the airport with the amount of luggage they need. The luggage store is only accessible to passengers. I've never seen a fellow passenger with loose clothes spilling out of their arms. And yet, the store is there. It does not make sense.
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Chapter 2: Why do airport shops exist?
There's a version of this story that's about Charles Lindbergh, how after this flight he became a hero, then later a figure of nationalist sympathy when his baby boy was kidnapped and murdered, and still later a symbol of nationalist scorn for his suspected Nazi sympathies during World War II.
That's a version of the story, but we're here to talk about airports, not the people who flew between them. When Lindbergh in 1927 reached Paris, he looked down and the airport he saw, which he was so stunned by, we wouldn't recognize it as the modern airport we all dutifully file through today. But it was a step towards it.
It more resembled our airports than it did the bare bones hangar Lindbergh had left behind in New York.
In terms of history of airport evolution, the Europeans were way ahead of Americans. In Europe, there was this sort of tradition of beautiful urbanistic railroad stations, and they kind of adapted that for their first airports. Most American airports were barns, you know, or hangars with nothing. Maybe there was a little room put aside in one of the hangars for passengers to sit and wait.
But the Ford Airport in Dearborn, Michigan, was the first that I could find. Comprehensively designed American airport. Had a terminal that was just for passengers. So you weren't in danger of being, you know, chopped in half by propellers and stuff. Was that happening? Were people getting chopped in half by propellers? Yeah, it was dangerous. Also, you know, there were so many crashes.
I mean, it was pretty horrible. You know, there was a good chance the plane was going to crash and you were dead. So people were very, very... nervous about flying.
And what, sorry, just to, I'm just curious, like, in that very early era where the fatality rate is incredibly high, like, who is willingly flying? What are the circumstances in which someone says, like, I really don't want to sit on a train. I know that I'm sort of playing Russian roulette. Is it just adventurers like Lindbergh?
I mean, basically, the first commercial air travel in America was the mail service because you could make money from the government carrying air mail. And passengers were almost like a second thought. Most of them in the beginning were salesmen, you know, who could beat out the guy taking the train to Detroit by flying there, but at a risk, at a huge risk, right?
I don't think many people, if they didn't have to fly, they didn't.
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