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Nearly all aspects of passenger air travel from booking a ticket to checking-in, passing
through security screening, buying goods in duty free, baggage-handling, flying, air traffic
control, customs and immigration checks are now mediated by software and multiple
information systems. Airports, as we have previously argued (Dodge and Kitchin 2004),
presently consist of complex, over-lapping assemblages to varying degrees dependent on a
myriad of software systems to function, designed to smooth and increase passenger flows
through various ‘contact’ points in the airport (as illustrated in Figure 1) and to enable pervasive
surveillance to monitor potential security threats. Airport spaces – the check-in areas, security
check-points, shopping areas, departure lounges, baggage reclaim, the immigration hall, air
traffic control room, even the plane itself - constitute coded space or code/space. Coded space
is a space that uses software in its production, but where code is not essential to...
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