Also I don't believe your efficiency story, there are plenty of cases where it's possible to know the gate ahead of time, and plenty of reasons for airports not to want people congregating at the gate as soon as they get airside.
exactly, sometimes even flight radar tells you the gate, but the main displays in the airport will tell you the gate number only 30 minutes before: Istanbul (IST) is my main reference here: what I do is I just go to any personnel and gently ask for the gate for my flight telling them I need to sit down and rest: they quickly check and tell me.
I have no proof, but I do believe that those 30 mins only advance notification are planned so not to have me sitting down in a comfortable chair for hours not spending money.
yes, but I am not talking about the structure, the "concrete": I am talking about the walking way inside big open areas that makes you walk from A to B in a zigzag pattern: it is a bit like having salt and sugar in different places in a supermarket, which makes you go all around the supermarket (which is planned, no doubt, even moving those places every x months).
I am 100% sure that the super expensive rent a shop pays in an airport goes along with the guarantee that a number of X passengers will pass in front of it every day: you need to maximize the model, so what do you do?
anything goes
Is actually to maximize surface area for airplanes to park in a single terminal. Next airport trip, pull out a gps and look at where you are walking.
>announce your gate 30 minutes
The airline you are flying on only has X number of gates but X+y planes at that given time. So they will hold off on gate numbers to optimally fit you in. Lots of pilots talking to ATC telling them they don’t have gate info from their carrier yet
I understand it may appear as though they are trying to get you, but they are trying to be efficient