Reassuring passengers about this subconscious fear, not to mention about the stress caused by delayed flights, lost luggage or even the mere idea of airplane travel, is important. So is encouraging people to follow the rules and heed authority. To accomplish both of these tasks, airport designers the world over use subtle (and not so subtle) cues.

One main cue is a process called “wayfinding”: visual suggestions that herd passengers quickly and efficiently to their gates without them realising that they are being herded. “The perfect airport would be one where you would naturally be guided by the surroundings,” says Alejandro Puebla, senior airport planner at civil engineering firm Jacobs. For example, the colours and shapes of signs often differ from terminal to terminal, the carpeting patterns change, and large art pieces serve as distinctive place markers for orientation. If ever you’re walking through an airport and suddenly sense that you are going the wrong way, you’re probably responding to subconscious wayfinding cues.

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More stressful even than the idea of going to the wrong terminal, however, is probably the security process. And it’s only become more so. In the pre-9/11 era, the airport was, psychologically, a very different place. Security was still present, but the area past the snaking checkpoint contained a mixture of passengers and well-wishers seeing loved ones off at the gates.

Today, the airport terminal is more like a fortress containing only verified travellers who have willingly passed extensive security tests – hands swabbed for traces of plastic explosives, passing through enormous x-ray machines that may reveal their internal anatomy to strangers, answering probing questions about their luggage and handing over multiple forms of state-issued identification. (Find out more in our previous story on the new tech changing airport security).