People are traveling less these days, and airport revenues are down. Here are a few ways that airports could get more people interested in traveling and increase per-passenger revenue:

– Introduce airport loyalty programs that aren’t tied to a specific airline, e.g. get a $20 meal coupon for every three flights you take.

– Provide separate security lines for people whose flights leave within the next say 30 minutes, to reduce the chance that people will miss their flight due to security line delays. (I don’t have any data on this, but my guess is that people who miss a flight once probably aren’t very excited about traveling again.)

– Hire “secret shoppers” to audit the quality of restaurants and other airport services. In my experience, even the branded shops like Starbucks tend to underwhelm compared to the normal, out-of-airport versions.

Of course, it’s not enough to simply undertake these sorts of projects. Airports need to actually tell people about the efforts they’re making to improve. With appropriate marketing and promotion, these efforts should make travelers happier, increase passenger traffic, and drive airport revenues higher.