Airport Vocabulary

In the 21^st century, going to an airport is a common experience for many millions of people. As such, it is useful to know lots of words and phrases to talk about these places. It is also helpful for IELTS candidates because occasionally airports are mentioned.  

If you prefer to learn through a video, then you can look at this one I made last year:

Parts of an Airport

Let’s begin by looking at the different parts of an airport. We’ll start with the exterior.

Airport Exterior Vocabulary

In this cartoon image, we can see some key parts of an airport:

Terminal building	The main airport building with departures and arrivals areas.
Control tower	A place where people communicate with pilots to ensure that planes can arrive and depart safely.
Runway	A long stretch of tarmac for planes to land or take off.

These are features of almost every airport in the world.

I used two verbs when talking about runways:

Land	The action of a plane coming down out of the sky and safely coming to a stop on the ground.
Take off	The action of a plane moving from the ground up into the sky.

Those verbs are extremely important if you want to talk about airports or airplanes. Another useful word is “taxi.” This means the process of a plane moving from the terminal to the runway.

Here are some more features from outside an airport:

Hangar	A building that stores airplanes. These might be under construction, under repair, or just kept out of the weather.
Taxiway	This is the place where planes move slowly from the terminal to the runway and vice versa. It is sort of like a road for planes.

Airport Interior Vocabulary

Baggage drop-off counter	This is where you take your bags if you have checked in online.
Baggage pick-up area	This is a place where you collect your bags after arriving at an airport. They will come out on a baggage carousel.
Boarding pass	A document you receive in order to fly. This will contain your seat number, gate details, and destination.
Checked-in luggage	This is your luggage (i.e. bags and suitcases) that you hand over to be stored in the underside of an airplane.
Check-in desk/counter	The place where you go to get your boarding pass and check in your luggage.
Carry-on luggage	This refers to bags that you can take onto the plane with you.
Concourse	Different terminals have different shapes. A concourse would be a part of a terminal – usually an arm stretching out with many gates attached to it.
Duty-free shops	These shops sell certain items, such as alcohol and cigarettes, without the usual tax restrictions.
Gate	This is where you board the airplane.
Jetway	A bridge through which you walk to go from the terminal to your airplane. This may also be called a “sky bridge.”
Lounges	These are places in an airport where you can rest or enjoy certain perks. You usually need a membership to enter.
Passport	A document you need in order to fly to another country.
Security check	A place where you have to go through certain screening procedures, such as walking through an X-ray machine and having your bags scanned or searched.

Verbs

There are also many verbs we might use at an airport. I have mentioned some above:

Board	To get on an airplane
Check in	To give documents in exchange for a boarding pass
Disembark	To get off an airplane