Cost guide
What airport advertising costs, and what sets the rate
The terminal and the zone set the price, and arrivals and departures are quoted differently because the people standing there are different.
The GullySales team · Updated 21 Sept 2026 · 7 min read
An airport quotation moves on five things: which airport, which terminal, where in the passenger flow the site sits, what format it is, and how long you hold it. Footfall is not on that list, and it is the first number most sellers lead with. The question that decides this buy is not how many people pass the site. It is who is standing in front of it, how long they stand there, and whether your sales team is already trying to meet them.
Who you are actually buying from
The airport is the landlord. The advertising is sold by a media owner holding a concession for that terminal, won for a fixed number of years. Different zones inside one airport can sit with different owners. The approach road and the forecourt are frequently not the airport's property at all. A site sold to you as being at the airport is sometimes a plain city hoarding on the highway outside it.
Two questions before anything else. Who holds the rights to this exact site, and what date does that concession run to? A cycle that outlives the concession is a cycle nobody will honour.
The same applies to the terminal itself. A newer terminal built as a showpiece may carry far less advertising by design, because the operator restricted what can go up in it. Ask what exists there before you plan a campaign around it.
Where the site sits decides what it is worth
Walk the building in your head as a passenger does.
On the way out: the kerb, the entry gate, the check-in queue, the security queue, the tray at the scanner, then the hold area with the gates and the shops. The queue and the tray are the captive moments. A person in a security queue has nothing to do and nowhere to look, and the tray is held in both hands with the phone already inside it.
On the way in: the aerobridge, immigration on an international arrival, then the baggage belt, the exit where the drivers stand with name boards, and the taxi rank. The belt is the most captive spot in the whole building. Several minutes, standing still, watching a loop of luggage.
Everything between these is a corridor. Corridors are walked at pace by people who are late, and they are frequently quoted at prices that assume otherwise. When a package is presented as a terminal-wide buy, work out how much of it is corridor.
Why arrivals and departures are not priced alike
They are two different audiences in one building.
Departures reaches residents of that city. The same corporate flyer passes the same check-in hall every week, so a quarter gives you repetition against the people you are selling to. Departures also holds more inventory and more of the premium, high-dwell zones, so more of the money sits there.
Arrivals reaches people coming into the city, many of them for the first time. It holds less inventory and a shorter journey, but it has the belt, which is why belt sites carry a premium out of proportion to their size. Sell to visitors and arriving passengers are the only people in that building worth reaching. Sell to the local market and arrivals is the same residents coming home tired.
Format, and what each one is really selling
- Backlit static panel. Yours for the whole cycle, lit all day, one message. The simplest thing to value.
- A slot in a digital loop. A few seconds that returns every few minutes, shared with other advertisers. Ask for the loop length, the number of advertisers, the number of screens it plays across, and a playout report at the end.
- Trolleys, trays and belt wraps. Bought for the hands and the waiting, not for size. Priced per unit, with a minimum quantity.
- Pillars, glass fascia and escalator panels. Judged on what faces them, which is why every site needs a photograph before it needs a rate.
- Lounges and boarding gates. A narrow audience held for a long time, and priced for it.
- Anything with staff in it. A kiosk or a sampling activity is rent plus people plus a separate permission. The operator's rules decide what may be handed out.
Duration, and the trap inside it
Airport sites sell by the month, the quarter and the year, and the rate per month falls sharply as the cycle lengthens. A quarter is the shortest cycle that does the job, because the same traveller has to pass the site more than once.
Two dates need to be in writing. When does the cycle start, on installation or on the first of the month, and who carries the days lost if the artwork approval runs late. Ask both before you sign, because the answer decides whether you paid for twelve weeks or ten.
What a quotation must break out
| Line | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Airport, terminal, zone, site code and a photograph of what faces it | Two sites at the same rate can be a security queue and an empty corridor |
| For digital: loop length, seconds, screens, share of voice, playout report | Otherwise you are buying an unknown fraction of a screen |
| Cycle start and end dates, and whether installation days count | Decides the length of what you actually paid for |
| Production and installation, priced separately | Material, printing and fitting are not part of the media rate |
| Who submits the artwork for the operator's approval, and by when | The operator approves what goes up in its building, not your office |
| Category exclusivity, if you want it | It is sold, it costs extra, and it is worthless once a competitor has signed |
| The concession validity for that site | The right to sell it has an end date |
What arrives after the quotation
Production to the operator's specification, which means particular materials and fire ratings rather than ordinary printing. Installation by an approved vendor, after hours, at the operator's rates. Entry passes for the people doing the fitting, which take time to clear and are the usual reason a job slips.
Then the part everybody forgets. A panel in a terminal has no form on it. The campaign needs somewhere for interest to go: a short web address or a code used nowhere else. The page behind it is written for somebody standing at a belt with a phone in hand. Brand-name cover on search during the cycle belongs in the same budget.
When this is the wrong buy
When you need enquiries this quarter. Nobody rings a number off a panel at a baggage belt. A campaign bought on that promise gets cancelled in month one, for failing at something it was never doing.
When your customers live within a few kilometres of your shop and see an airport twice a year.
When the people you want are a list of two hundred named buyers. Going to see them, or reaching them by name on LinkedIn, costs less and does more. The terminal is worth paying for when your sales team is already in those meetings and wants the name to be familiar before it walks in.
What to do next
Ask for photographs of every site on the list, taken from where a passenger stands, and refuse to price anything you have not seen that way. If you fly through that terminal yourself, walk it once with the list in your hand.
Then decide honestly what this campaign is for. We put that in writing during the free audit, alongside where this quarter's enquiries are actually coming from. Then the terminal is judged on recognition rather than on a lead count it was never going to produce.