Travel & Hospitality Intelligence · 2025-05-20 · 10 min
This episode explores Indianapolis International Airport through JD Power's lens on what differentiates award-winning airports. Michael Taylor, practice lead for the airport study, breaks down how IND's design choices - open architecture with high ceilings and natural light, strategic TSA checkpoint spacing, convenient highway access via I-465, and rotating displays of vintage IndyCars - collectively create emotional and functional advantages. The airport's medium size (under 10 million passengers annually) provides inherent benefits: shorter navigation times, less crowding, and proximity to the terminal. Taylor emphasizes how airport design follows ancient principles of spatial psychology - when travelers look up at soaring ceilings and skylights rather than surveying crowded terminals, they perceive spaciousness and reduced anxiety. The episode also highlights practical considerations like food and beverage curation and how physical infrastructure around TSA screening directly impacts perceived wait times. For B2B operators in hospitality, airport management, or commercial real estate, the discussion illustrates how architectural intention, wayfinding, and passenger psychology drive measurable satisfaction metrics and repeat positive experiences.
Architecture and layout, ease of access, a sense of place, the security experience, and food and beverage experiences - particularly the airport's high ceilings, natural light, generous TSA space, convenient I-465 access, and rotating displays of vintage IndyCars.
High ceilings and upward-directed sightlines make travelers look up rather than at crowded terminals, creating a psychological sense of spaciousness; generous pre-allocated TSA space also physically enables more security lines and reduces perceived congestion.
Medium airports (under 10 million passengers annually) offer easier navigation, fewer concourses, less crowding, shorter distances to parking, and less traffic congestion on approach - creating a sense of time surplus that improves passenger experience.
The rotating vintage IndyCar exhibits create a dynamic local sense of place that connects travelers to Indianapolis culture; they're borrowed from a museum and changed out every couple of months to maintain novelty and engagement.
Smaller spaces both physically limit the number of security lines TSA can operate and psychologically communicate longer wait times; generous space allocation enables multiple lines and reduces the visual impression of congestion.
Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.
In this month’s Travel & Hospitality Intelligence episode, we’re diving into the next chapter of our hit video series, " What Makes an Airport Great?" - but this time, it’s all about medium-sized airports. Join Michael Taylor, senior managing director of travel intelligence at J.D. Power, as he shares behind-the-scenes insights from his visit to Indianapolis International Airport (IND), a top-ranked performer in our North America Airport Satisfaction Study. From architecture and accessibility to security, local flavor, and passenger experience, we explore what makes these airports shine and why IND is leading the way!
Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.
Speaker A: Welcome to the JD Power Travel and Hospitality podcast. I'm Sarah Baggett with the marketing department, joined as always with Michael Taylor, our subject matter expert. Welcome to the podcast, Mike.
Speaker B: Well, nice to be here as always.
Speaker A: I'm really excited about today because we are talking about one of my favorite video projects that we have ever done. Uh, what makes an airport great. Do you want to sort of reintroduce that to our audience?
Speaker B: Sure. For those of you have seen any of the previous installations of this, uh, it is basically a series about, um, airports that do well in the J.D. power study and why they do well. So what are the people, processes and things that, that happen on the airport that make them a great airport, um, and do well in the rankings? And you know, it, to me it's, it's a lot of fun because I get to talk in detail about bathrooms and things like that and you know, floor, know floor finishes and uh, artwork and things like that that are present in the airport. So yeah, it is a fun series
Speaker A: to do well in our first episode, we visited Tampa International a couple of months back. And who are we visiting? Uh, in the second episode and this
Speaker B: one, it's Indianapolis International, uh, airport, obviously in this great state of Indiana, where I'm from by the way. And that's not why they win it.
Speaker A: Near and dear to your heart.
Speaker B: I'm a proud Hoosier, but I, you know, somebody from STATS tells me who wins, I don't have any impact on it at all. So uh, but yeah, they do a great job there. They have, I think they've won it's the uh, our awards seven times in their category. So they do know what they're doing down there and they do a great job. And it's uh, it's. This was a fun shoot for me as well.
Speaker A: Well, let's take a look at what makes an airport great, the Indianapolis International edition and see what makes an award winning airport like that tick.
Speaker C: Hi, I'm Michael Taylor, practice lead for the airport study at J.D. power. We're in the great state of Indiana at Indianapolis International Airport. A fantastic airport that has great access, local food, beverage and retail and is
Speaker B: a winner of multiple J.D. power Awards.
Speaker C: Today we're going to look at what makes an airport like this great. In this series we hope to show how great airports are. A blend of many positive attributes, including an airport's architecture and its emotional effect on travelers. Here at ind, we can see that upon entering the building, the first impression for travelers is one of open space and natural light. This sets the scene for a great airport experience. There is room to navigate. There are clear lines of sight, a welcoming invitation to start your journey. Airport architecture has come a long way in the last hundred years, as we can see from this picture of the old Werequick Airport in Indianapolis. Indianapolis is in our medium airport classification, handling just under 10 million passengers per year. Small airports have some distinct advantages over larger airports. Medium airports are generally easier to navigate, have fewer concourses, less crowding, and they're not as difficult to drive to as airports located in larger metropolitan areas. IND is located just off the 465 ring road with Interstate 70 running along its south side. Easy access to the airport campus is another key aspect of Great Air. If passengers can get to the airport quickly and efficiently, passengers feel they have more time before their flight departs. With that feeling of extra time, passengers are more likely to enjoy what the airport offers. What makes for a great medium airport? That sense of place we talk about so often in this video series. And we're in Indiana and that means basketball. The Indiana Hoosiers, five times national champion, and even these guys have done okay lately. The airport has a rotating display of antique IndyCars to let everyone know they're back home in Indiana. Going through the Transportation Security Administration checkpoint at any airport fills the average traveler with a sense of dread.
Speaker B: Will there be a line?
Speaker C: How long is the wait? Will I make it to my gate on time? All these concerns are greatly affected by what happens before the passenger gets to the TSA checkpoint. One of the biggest advantages that a medium sized airport has over larger airports is often the absence of traffic on the way to the airport and the ability to park closer to the terminal.
Speaker B: These advantages create a sense of time
Speaker C: for the traveler, which in turn makes
Speaker B: anxiety lessen and TSA wait times seem shorter.
Speaker C: Another aspect of TTSA performance that J.D. power has noted over the years is the need for physical space to accommodate TSA equipment.
Speaker B: So often TSA screening is jammed into an area that was never designed for that purpose, making it difficult or impossible for TSA to operate as many security lines as they might like.
Speaker C: Smaller spaces also create the impression that the lines are longer, and longer lines communicate longer wait times. During the design of the airport terminal, IND reserved a great deal of space for the TSA to conduct security checks and utilize the latest technologies. Medium airports are a slight disadvantage to large and mega airports. They don't have the space to offer a wide variety of food, beverage and retail. However, a great airport has quality food and beverage in addition to other concepts and Other brands that are familiar to travelers, and coffee. Coffee, even coffee from a machine. When we think about what makes this
Speaker B: airport great, a few key factors come to mind. Architecture and layout, ease of access, a sense of place, the security experience, and food and beverage experiences. To learn more about what elements create a satisfying airport travel experience, visit our website.
Speaker A: Wow, that was great. Uh, something I loved seeing in person in the Indianapolis International Airport was just the beautiful architecture. You see all that natural light coming through in that video. Tell us a little bit about why that makes an airport really special.
Speaker B: Well, it's, you know, it's very common type of thing that architecture can create an emotional response. And I think we talked about that in the video there a little bit. But, you know, uh, this is nothing new under the sun. You know, the ancient Romans knew how to build, you know, beautiful buildings and have that kind of impact as you're coming into a space and going out of a space, uh, and, uh, that's very present in a design like Indianapolis Airport. You know, where the ceilings are very high and you got a feeling of spaciousness. And again, because you're looking up, you know, uh, you don't really look in front of you and see how many people you have to dodge. There's a lot of people, so it gives you that feeling of spaciousness. And, you know, I'm not crowded because I'm looking up rather than down. And you're going to see that in other, you know, public spaces. Um, Union Station, for example, Washington, D.C. if you've been there, and that's a very often visited place, you'll see that they have the statuary kind of, you know, suspended up there. Not, you know, not at eye level, but up, you know, near the ceiling. So you're looking up as you're going through. That's a much smaller space too, by the way. And so, uh, just that those kinds of things, you know, the natural, uh, light that comes in through the, you know, very large sheet glass windows, sometimes skylights, uh, things like that. Some of the translucent artwork that you saw in the main lobby, uh, where all the food, beverage and retail is. And then, of course, there's other little things about the flow design of it, you know, you know, having a lot of space, uh, in which to empty into after you've gone through, check in, and then you have enough space for tsa. I believe we spoke about that during that video as well. So a lot of thought went into the design of that particular airport. Um, again, it's in a great location, but it's Ah, it's very much helped by, you know, the emotional reaction that people have as they go through the building itself.
Speaker A: It's also just got a wonderful sense of place about it. I felt like as soon as we stepped. Set foot in that airport, I felt like I was in Indianapolis.
Speaker B: Yeah, well, you know, it has some IU stuff in it. That's big life there. Which, of course, as a Hoosier graduate, in case you can expect that from the video, uh, no offense to Purdue, uh, they do have a fairly good basketball team every once in a while. So, um, and they certainly have been being the heck out of us, uh, lately down in Bloomington. Um, but anyway, uh, yeah, it does have those race cars. I love the way that they use the antique race cars. And it's not a static thing. You know, they're borrowing those race cars from a museum, and they change them out every couple of months or so. And it's really interesting. You walk, you know, obviously, you can see that. You can walk right up to them. Now, of course, you can't get in them. Years ago, I did get into one and got in trouble, so they cut that out, right? Yeah, we didn't show that. That this time. Um, but, you know, you can stand up, you can touch them, and it's amazing that people actually got in those things and drove around, you know, the Indianapolis 500 racetrack at 140, 150 miles for some of the older ones. And there's an open cockpit with a very large, uh, you know, steering wheel, as you noticed, because you had to have leverage because they didn't. Power steering had not been invented yet.
Speaker A: So, um, well, tell us, are we going. Are we going to any airports past this? Do we have anything?
Speaker B: Yes. The next one that we're going to be doing is Detroit Metro. Another, you know, former multiple winner of the J.D. power Award. Very different airport design. Uh, they do some interesting things. They do a lot of things. Indianapolis does a lot of things that Tampa does. So there's some common things that happen, uh, among airports that are, you know, consistent winners in our study. Uh, and they do things. Things are different, uh, and you'll just have to wait for the next video to find out what those differences are.
Speaker A: Well, I can't wait. I'm sure our audience is excited, too. Michael, thank you so much for walking us through this today. Um, as always, we look forward to seeing you next month on the JD Power Travel and Hospitality Podcast. Thank you so much for joining us.
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