Stadtluft macht frei - urban air makes you free. If you were a German in the Middle Ages, and you somehow got inside the city gates for a year and a day, you would be a free citizen, and no longer a serf.
The modern equivalent of the city is the airport.
If I can get through the secure gates, I can go anywhere in airport-land, a highly dis-contiguous place where all travel is by airplane. I can stay in the airport I have entered and have the full gamut of services my credit card can pay for.
If I can get a ticket (now deliverable wirelessly), I can travel to any airport in the United States and stay there, or to any place else in the world, where I will be forced through local customs. I may even be stuck there.
Inside the airport I have freedom from fear, as the security will ensure nothing bad can happen. The airport is probably the safest place from other non-governmentally employed citizens. I no longer need pass through security, so my dehumanization is over. I am liberated.
And of course, food eaten at the airport has no calories.
