1. Be Changi airport

I think it has all 15 of your suggestions.

And Chek Lap Kok has almost all of them too.

When I lived in the Bay Area (late '90s-early '00s), SFO always had great rotating art exhibitions that I really looked forward to. Random stuff, like early 20th century typerwriters and the like.

Middle Americans stand still on escalators. Eastern Americans walk up. Neither culture understands the other. Both hate the others when they are on escalators. Wide escalators are mandatory if we want to avoid civil war.

From a public health standpoint, it's hard to think of something worse than a Children's Play Area. (Well, maybe mandating the licking of escalator handrails.) Heck, elementary schools are already ideal disease-exchange centers -- do people really want to do the same thing on a national or worldwide scale?

YVR offers all of this. They just made the wifi free, and as of this coming November it will have an efficient rapid-transit link to downtown.

Because an astounding number of Americans are scared of airplanes. Really. Articles I've seen on the subject put the figure at one in four or one in three. These people want to pretend it's not really an airplane. They want to get through the terminal, down the jetway, and into their seat, without ever seeing wings or tails or jet engines.

The lack of windows is an attempt to accomodate these people. From the airport authority's perspective, it makes sense: If you put in too many windows, the most fearful passengers will have anxiety or panic attacks in the terminal at some predictable rate. Your employees have to deal with this, so it costs you money. (Keep in mind, at Atlanta Hartsfield, a problem that only affects one in a million passengers still happens every four days. I'd be willing to bet that they actually see multiple panic attacks per day, maybe multiple per hour.)

If you put in too few windows, a handful of flying buffs will be vaguely annoyed that they can't see the airplanes. This costs you nothing.

I still remember the time T3 caused me to miss a flight - a $99 PanAm hop to Cleveland in 1990.

I'd left plenty of time to get to the airport, but for some reason the "Train to the Plane" did not run in Manhattan for about 45 minutes. Once it finally came, it made all local stops through Brooklyn, so I was already desperately late when I got to the terminal.

But there was still time to get on the plane! Except that the elevators weren't working and there were no useful signs. I ran around like a rat in a maze until I finally made it to my gate - and they closed the door in my face. I watched the plane push back, then had twelve hours to kill until the next flight.

Oy!

one of my favorite ways to kill time has actually been implemented at amsterdam's schiphol airport: timed city tours. depending on how much time you have to kill you can choose to take city tours that last exactly 1,2 or 4 hours.

and by the way: escalators in europe don't work by light-beam triggers, in fact, it's much more simple than that. the large metal plates that you step on right before you get on the actual stairs works as a large button. In Munich (the airport there actually features a pharmacy and a full-scale supermarket) you can even feel your weight pushing down that plate and starting the escalator, which is how I first noticed how it works.

The Kite Runner at an airport.

John Lennon did not declare the Beatles "bigger than Jesus" at T3. That quote came from an interview with a British music magazine, given months earlier, which happened to hit the news just before their final U.S. tour.

On the other hand, T3 was almost certainly the site of their famous press conference upon arriving in the U.S. for their first tour in 1964 -- the presser where they dazzled the U.S. media, which was expecting the usual Elvis-style rock'n'roll stars, with their wit and rapid-fire wordplay.

From now on, when it comes to linking music and aviation histories, you might want to stick to what you know...in other words, the '80s.

I have a particular horror of being stuck in German Airports (and Zurich) -- grey, tedious places, where after security the food options are usually wurst and beer (even in the Business lounges.)

However, I do agree with most of your ideas. I would add a few -- in the bookstores, put in some armchairs, with a departures screen visible. Get me started on a book and I will probably buy it.

The other thing needed are a few decent restaurant choices -- at least a few of which are not the ubiquitous US Sports-bar. Funny that Heathrow Terminal 5 seems to have actually got everything I want in an airport (and almost everything on this list.) Finally, please have a Virgin Terminal 3 lounge in every airport (but could they please get some decent mustard.)

Duty-free in airports is these days a bad joke -- the prices are about 10¢ less than street prices, and often more (unless you smoke), which is little reward for the pain of lugging the duty-free bag.

Finally, I would like to see genuine regional specialty stores in all airports (they do this in Japan where you are supposed to bring something back from a trip (and there are stores in Tokyo where people can buy souvenirs to cover a night with a mistress.)) All over the place you see these gift stores offering say, the same teddy bear, but a different T-shirt (oh and the "My --- went to ___ and all he/she brought back was this lousy T-Shirt" is lame.) By that I mean say a locally owned and managed store that stocks local wines, or local leather-goods, glass, meerschaum in Turkey, shoes and bags in southern Spain, etc. And finally, what is wrong with proper regional restaurants -- why is there no decent Tapas bar in Alicante, but a bad British Pub a Burger-King and a sucky sandwich shop; why does Marseille Marielle have just a crummy bar with potato chips (and that is the main terminal, the new one is worse) instead of a Provençale restaurant. It's got to the point where you can be in dozens of airports in Europe and especially in the US and have no idea what city you are in.