Sitting in departures at Belfast City airport (I refuse to refer to it by it’s daft new name) and I am reminded of the kicking that Heathrow, Gatwick and others got in the press when they could not stay open in the snow.  The criticism was levelled that they were more focussed on being shopping malls than airports, something they howled at and denied. 

If airports want to be taken seriously as transport conduits and not “retail experience centres” they need to stop shit like the following.  I am currently sitting looking at a departure board and the status comments for all non-boarding flights is listed as “Relax and Shop”.  It does very little for your credibility when you are trying to pretend that you are not just focussed on extracting cash from a captive audience.