Walk through almost any major airport today and you’ll see where investment dollars are going.
Biometric boarding gates, terminal expansions, premium lounges, smart way finding, retail upgrades designed to increase dwell time and spend... All important, all highly visible, and all designed to improve the passenger experience.
Yet there’s a quieter, far less visible investment gap that airports around the world are still struggling to address: their workforce.
This imbalance is becoming harder to ignore, particularly as airports face ongoing staff shortages, rising turnover, and increasing operational pressure. The strong response to our recent white paper, Solving the Airport Retention Problem, confirms what many airport leaders already know: retention is no longer an HR issue. It’s an operational one.
Airports don’t deliver experiences, people do.
Every moment that shapes a passenger’s journey from safety checks, to check-in, boarding, airside operations, pr customer assistance during disruption depends on trained, confident, engaged staff doing their jobs well.
And yet, workforce development is still often treated as a background function rather than a strategic priority.
According to the Airports Council International, airports globally are facing growing workforce pressures driven by skills shortages, demographic change, and competition from other industries. At the same time, passenger expectations continue to rise, placing even more responsibility on frontline and operational teams.
The result? Airports trying to deliver world-class passenger experiences with workforces that are stretched, under-supported, or unclear about how they can grow.
There are several reasons workforce initiatives are often deprioritized compared to passenger-facing projects:
But ignoring workforce development doesn’t make the problem go away; it compounds it.
The global airport industry is experiencing persistent retention challenges, particularly in operational and safety-critical roles. High turnover leads to:
Research from International Air Transport Association highlights that workforce stability is now a key risk factor for operational resilience across the aviation ecosystem.
Our own white paper findings reinforce this: airports with limited visibility into roles, skills, and development pathways struggle to move beyond reactive hiring. Those that invest in structured workforce development are better positioned to retain talent and perform under pressure.
One of the biggest misconceptions is that workforce development and passenger experience are separate investment streams. They’re not.
Well-designed workforce initiatives directly support passenger outcomes by:
Staff who are clear on expectations are more confident in live operations, better equipped to make sound decisions under pressure, and more consistent in how they apply procedures and service standards.
Teams that can see defined pathways into supervisory or specialist roles are also more likely to stay, bring their experience to complex situations, and model the right behaviors for newer recruits.
Over time, that stability and capability translates into smoother journeys, fewer errors, faster recovery during irregular operations, and a level of service that matches the promise made by the airport’s visible investments.
Airports don’t need to choose between investing in passengers or investing in people. The most resilient airports are doing both and recognizing that people are the enablers of every passenger-facing investment.
Workforce development doesn’t have to be complex, but it does need to be intentional. That starts with understanding roles, aligning training to real operational needs, and treating workforce planning as a strategic function rather than an administrative one.
As the industry continues to evolve, the airports that thrive will be those that stop asking, “What should we build next?” and start asking, “Do our people have what they need to deliver the experience we’re promising?”
Because no matter how advanced the terminal, the passenger experience is only as strong as the workforce behind it.