The airport industry is often perceived as an emblem of modernity, global connectedness, and operational excellence. Yet behind its façade of seamless connectivity lies a deep paradox: the tension between exclusivity and inclusivity. This paradox manifests in both the core airport operations and its peripheral, often invisible, supporting industries — from ground handling and logistics to security, cleaning, catering, and retail concessions.
In the evolving discourse of airport economics and service design, exclusivity is often equated with premium experience, high safety-security standards, and regulated access. Conversely, inclusivity speaks to democratized access, community empowerment, open market entry, and social equity. Both are necessary, but their coexistence requires delicate paradox management, especially in the context of emerging economies where aviation growth must be harmonized with developmental goals.
Understanding the Paradox: The Airport as a Semi-Public Space
Airports are not just physical infrastructures; they are socio-economic ecosystems. Functionally, they are entry and exit points of a sovereign state, demanding strict exclusivity in terms of security clearance, aviation safety protocols, and controlled commercial environments. Simultaneously, they are public utilities meant to serve society at large, from passengers and communities to service providers and entrepreneurs.
Here in lies the paradox. An overly exclusive airport model tends to reinforce inequality by favouring large-scale, often international, corporate players, marginalizing small and local enterprises. At the same time, excessive inclusivity may undermine safety, efficiency, and brand integrity, potentially eroding the passenger experience and operational reliability.
Striking the balance is not simply a matter of regulatory design but of philosophical orientation: what do we believe airports should be in a modern state?
The Problem with Over-Exclusivity
Over the past two decades, liberalization and privatization trends in airport governance have encouraged performance-based competition. In many cases, this has yielded positive outcomes, including improved infrastructure, enhanced service quality, and better financial returns. However, the downside has been the rise of monopolistic or oligopolistic behaviour in ancillary service sectors, where access is limited to a few dominant players.
Take, for example, the ground handling sector. In some airports, a single licensed provider may dominate due to safety considerations and economies of scale. Yet this often creates a rent-seeking structure, discouraging innovation, overburdening service monopolies, and reducing resilience in times of operational shocks.
The same applies to duty-free retail concessions and inflight catering contracts — awarded to big brands with deep pockets, while sidelining local SMEs that could otherwise thrive within the airport economy. This form of exclusivity not only limits economic multiplier effects at the local level but also disconnects the airport from its social and cultural context.
The Costs of Unregulated Inclusivity
On the other hand, a laissez-faire approach that opens the airport marketplace to all comers may appear equitable on paper but comes with its risks. Airports are high-risk environments that demand high reliability. Allowing low-capacity or unregulated service providers to operate in such settings can jeopardize operational efficiency and safety.
Inclusivity without performance standards also breeds mediocrity. It undermines the trust passengers place in the airport as a premium, secure, and well-curated environment. Worse, it can invite corrupt or rent-seeking behaviour from political actors seeking to insert their preferred operators under the guise of empowerment.
Thus, the objective is not full openness, but structured inclusivity — a managed system of entry that allows more players, especially from the marginal sector, to participate without compromising airport integrity.
Paradox Management as Strategic Thinking
The way forward is not in choosing one over the other – exclusivity or inclusivity – but in managing the dynamic tension between the two. This is the essence of paradox management: the ability to hold two seemingly opposing values in constructive tension for long-term resilience.
Effective paradox management in airport services requires:
- Regulatory Agility: Aviation authorities must design frameworks that set performance-based criteria without being anti-competitive. For instance, allow multiple ground handlers but certify them based on safety KPIs and reliability, not political proximity.
- Capacity Building for the Marginal Sector: Inclusivity can only work if marginal actors are upskilled. This means vocational training, technical certification, financing schemes, and incubation support for small airport service providers — from cleaning firms to baggage handling startups.
- Zone-Based Service Ecosystems: Instead of treating the airport as a singular space, divide it into ecosystem zones. Some areas may be highly exclusive (e.g., runway operations), others semi-inclusive (e.g., terminal retail), and others open for innovation (e.g., digital service kiosks, logistics warehousing).
- Data-Driven Access Governance: Use digital platforms to transparently evaluate service provider performance. Entry and renewal of airport licenses should be merit-based, using public dashboards of service levels, delay rates, security incidents, etc.
- Stakeholder Engagement: The paradox is best managed not in isolation but through participatory mechanisms — airport user committees, public consultation forums, and social audits.
The Role of Supporting Industries in Paradox Navigation
The paradox becomes more evident — and more challenging — when viewed through the lens of supporting industries. These are often hidden from the passenger’s eye but crucial to the airport economy.
Industries such as airport logistics, food services, waste management, and security manpower are typically outsourced to third-party vendors. In a country like Indonesia, this represents a significant employment and entrepreneurship opportunity, if managed inclusively.
Yet these same industries are prone to informalization, labour exploitation, and low-quality service delivery when oversight is lax. Here again, paradox management must be employed: formalize without over-bureaucratizing, monitor without stifling initiative.
This can be achieved by:
- Developing a Support Services Charter, outlining clear rights, responsibilities, and performance benchmarks for each vendor type.
- Mandating labour welfare standards, including living wages, shift protections, and health benefits.
- Establishing a tiered participation model, where local SMEs are mentored by prime contractors in a co-implementation approach.
Sustainability and the Inclusivity Imperative
Sustainability is no longer a peripheral agenda — it is central to the future of airports. And sustainability is inherently inclusive. A green airport is not just about carbon-neutral runways, but also about socio-economic equity: who benefits from the airport economy, and who is left behind?
Inclusivity thus becomes a pathway to resilience. Diverse vendors reduce reliance on monopolies. Empowered local suppliers reduce supply chain vulnerability. Community-based services improve passenger trust and airport legitimacy.
Moreover, inclusive airport governance promotes adaptive innovation. Marginal actors often bring fresh solutions — from zero-waste catering to app-based porter services — if only given a seat at the table.
Policy Recommendations for Indonesia and Beyond
For Indonesia, where aviation is a critical enabler of archipelagic connectivity and national development, the question of exclusivity versus inclusivity is not academic. It is urgent.
Policy makers should:
- Revise Procurement Frameworks to encourage open tenders with inclusivity clauses.
- Strengthen Oversight Institutions, especially in secondary and tertiary airports, to prevent crony-based service contracts.
- Build Inclusive Training Ecosystems through PTKL (Perguruan Tinggi Kementerian dan Lembaga) to upskill marginal airport labour and SME actors.
- Pilot Multi-Stakeholder Management Models at select regional airports, measuring outcomes across safety, economic impact, and vendor diversity.
- Incentivize Green and Inclusive Services through tax benefits, reduced concession fees, or fast-track licensing.
A New Philosophy for Airport Governance
The 21st-century airport cannot be merely a site of aircraft movements and duty-free shopping. It must be a platform for equitable economic participation — one that fuses exclusivity with inclusivity, safety with opportunity, and control with creativity.
Navigating this paradox is not easy. But in a world where resilience, equity, and sustainability are no longer optional, it is not only necessary — it is transformative.
Let us build airports not only for airplanes, but for people — all people.
