Why Do We Waste Time at Airports? [AI Error Notes]

⑤ Time Wasted at Airports and Artificial Intelligence
Uncertainty Filled with Airport Transfer Time and Immigration Inspection
Lavish Amenities and Shopping Malls Hide Passenger Complaints
Accurate Predictions Will Change the Appearance of Airports

Editor's NoteExamining failures is the shortcut to success. 'AI Wrong Answer Notes' explores failure cases related to AI products, services, companies, and individuals.

A person hurriedly running for fear of missing the airplane. DALL·E 3

"I have just arrived at the gate. Please open the door!
I am a Korean heading to Seoul and Incheon.
The security screening took much longer than expected, so I am late.
I can board right now. Please open the door!"

I have missed an international flight before. It was a flight from Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow, Russia, to Incheon. As you know, missing an international flight usually results in significant waste of time and money. The mental stress is also considerable. For years afterward, I even had nightmares about missing flights right before departure.

“Anyone who has never missed a flight has wasted their life.”

When I read that Nobel laureate in Economics George Stigler once said this, I laughed and finally felt somewhat healed.

What background led Stigler to say this? How could someone say, "Anyone who has never missed a flight is a person who has wasted their life"?

Taking a flight means embracing 'uncertainty'

Inside Singapore Changi Airport

Taking a flight is quite a big deal, unlike taking a bus or subway. It accounts for a large part of travel expenses and carries different significance and weight as both the start and end of a journey.

Therefore, most people try to arrive at the airport early before their flight. There are so many unpredictable variables: time taken to get to the airport, availability of parking spaces, ticketing delays, checked baggage delays, additional baggage fees, security screening delays, immigration delays, duty-free pickup delays, boarding process delays, and more.

It is impossible to know exactly where delays will occur. Taking a flight means fully accepting this uncertainty. For international flights, it is recommended to arrive at the airport at least 2 to 3 hours in advance. However, even 2 to 3 hours is not really enough. People try to arrive even earlier than recommended, ultimately wasting a lot of time.

The uncertainty and unpredictability related to airport use are not solely the consumer's responsibility. However, this uncertainty and unpredictability become a business opportunity for someone. Where do they make a lot of money by exploiting the 'forced time' of anxious passengers?

Yes, it is the airport.

Forced time, glamorous duty-free shops, and satisficing

Airports house duty-free shops, restaurants, cafes, and various convenience facilities. Airports earn significant revenue from businesses other than flight-related ones, most of which comes from rent. The comfort and glamour of modern airports are almost a kind of deception to convert passengers, who are tense from arriving early, into consumers.

Interestingly, passengers accept that wasting time by arriving early at the airport is a less bad choice than missing the flight. This is the concept of 'satisficing' in economics. It is an unsatisfactory situation, but people rationalize and accept it themselves. Passengers fill the spare time created by arriving early with shopping and dining, considering it leisure time rather than wasted time.

Of course, there are people who do not consider duty-free shopping and using airport facilities a waste but genuinely enjoy them. Even acknowledging that, it is clear that if using international flights were as simple and predictable as taking the subway, the airport scene would be very different.

People who fly private jets do not shop at airports. They do not eat at expensive food courts either. For them, boarding the plane as quickly as possible is the only goal and the best benefit.

Why do we waste time at airports? The lack of 'predictive power'

Perspective view of the outdoor park created inside Incheon Airport Terminal 2. Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport

Why do we waste time at airports?

Yes, because of unpredictability. If predictive technology advances, this waste and the anxiety we feel every time we go to the airport will disappear. If we could accurately predict the time from leaving home to boarding the plane, we would not need to head to the airport with a nervous heart. In that sense, the current airport system can be seen as a failure in the 'prediction' battle.

AI is the ultimate weapon in this prediction battle. Some startups overseas see this market as a money-making opportunity and have jumped in. By inputting flight details and departure time from home, they analyze all available variables such as traffic conditions, airport congestion, and weather to guide the optimal travel departure time. For example, they might say, "If you leave home at 7:30, you can board the 8:55 flight after waiting about 5 minutes."

With secured predictive power, individual passengers can gain autonomy over their time. They can move away from the situation where the flight departure time determines everything on the first day of travel.

Humans live by making predictions every moment. AI can have superior predictive abilities compared to humans. Getty Images Bank

However, on the other hand, this news might be devastating for the airport industry. What will happen to the lavishly decorated airport facilities? If there are no passengers who waste time by arriving early, what will airports live on? The current airport system's business model will be forced to undergo fundamental changes. In other words, AI-driven predictive power has the strength to cause changes in the business models of certain industries.

The AI innovations that have amazed us so far have been related to prediction. AI speakers respond by predicting the context of our speech and language; Amazon predicts and shows what we want to buy; Google predicts and shows the links we want to find through search; Netflix predicts and shows what we want to watch. Autonomous vehicles, from a prediction perspective, involve predicting when to apply brakes and when it is safe to change lanes.

In short, AI is predictive technology. What AI has brought is not intelligence itself, but 'prediction,' one of the core elements of intelligence.