It's true to say that airline and rail operations aren't the same, but I don't think that necessarily makes one or other 'right'.
The suggestion that there's little physical interface between an aircraft and physical infrastructure is only credible when overall operating and standing hours are the measure; by any other measure, physical interface is both critical and crucial in aviation.
At its most basic level, airport runways, taxiways, aprons and stands have a 'loading guage', and there's a vast amount of ground-fixed facility whose position is fundamental to the safe and efficient movement of aircraft, support vehicles, workers and passengers. The reason that only certain airports can handle an A380, for example, is that it's 'out of guage' for the others.
The principal reason that BA doesn't operate the A380 to JFK is that A380s won't fit into Terminal 7 stands.
Notwithstanding that, the difference, potentially, is that aviation generally works largely to international standards, with only a few international equipment manufacturers, and infrastructure and equipment is developed on a more collaborative basis. Here's the airport development guide for a Boeing 737, for example:
www.boeing.com/assets/pdf/commercial/airports/acaps/737.pdf
The airport must decide: if it wants to develop and not meet the Boeing specs, then it precludes itself from handling 737 operations.
The analogy would therefore more closely be between Heathrow requiring Boeing to develop a special variant of 737 to fit within its physical limitations, and TPE requiring modifications to an otherwise off-the-shelf Siemens product.
