Every airport hides another airport inside it—a city of its own, humming just out of sight. Behind the Departure Gates invites readers into the unseen layers of the world's terminals: the cafeterias that never close, the lost-and-found vaults that tell human stories, and the secret tunnels where the real journeys happen. Blending travel writing, cultural history, and investigative storytelling, the book uncovers the networks that make global movement possible—and strangely human. Beneath the polished glass and branded gates lies an intricate choreography of chefs, cleaners, customs officers, and couriers, each contributing to a kind of industrial poetry in motion.