Emerging infrastructures of low-cost aviation in Southeast Asia

Air traffic in Southeast Asia has grown at an extraordinary rate due to the emergence of low-cost aviation networks that serve a vastly enlarged clientele of air travelers: migrant workers, students, retirees, pilgrims, and tourists on the threshold of the middle class. The article investigates how Southeast Asian airports – along with the cities that they serve – have been redesigned to meet the needs of this rapidly expanding flying public. Through fieldwork conducted in Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, and Singapore, it probes the development of architectural typologies and low-tech transport systems that cater to passengers who lack the basic knowledge and technical infrastructure that is needed to fly: such as a credit card, internet access, familiarity with check-in procedures, or a way to get to the airport. The advent of these low-cost infrastructures has fundamentally reshaped the social and spatial dynamics of contemporary Southeast Asian cities; and has significantly reordered the functional interdependency of those cities by accelerating cross-border flows of labor, consumption, capital, and knowledge. The article concludes by studying the tension between the populist narratives espoused by budget airlines and the airport designs produced by state planning agencies, which have only belatedly responded to the socioeconomic diversification of air passengers.