В аэропорту обмен валюты уже закрылся, поэтому я расплатился картой.

I

Breakdown of В аэропорту обмен валюты уже закрылся, поэтому я расплатился картой.

• в: at
• аэропорт: the airport
• уже: already

Questions & Answers about В аэропорту обмен валюты уже закрылся, поэтому я расплатился картой.

Why is it в аэропорту, not в аэропорте?

Because аэропорт has a special location form in Russian: в аэропорту.

For some masculine nouns, when they mean a physical location after в or на, Russian uses an old locative ending -у / -ю instead of the regular prepositional ending. Compare:

• в аэропорту = in/at the airport
• в лесу = in the forest
• на мосту = on the bridge

But when you mean about the airport, you use the regular prepositional:

• об аэропорте = about the airport

So here в аэропорту is the normal form for location.

Does в аэропорту mean in the airport or at the airport?

Literally, it is in the airport, but in natural English this is often translated as at the airport.

Russian в is used because the speaker is located inside that place or within that setting. English often prefers at for places like airports, stations, schools, and so on.

So:

• В аэропорту обмен валюты уже закрылся
  = The currency exchange at the airport had already closed
  or
  = The currency exchange in the airport had already closed

Both are fine, but at the airport usually sounds more natural in English.

What exactly does обмен валюты mean here?