BLOG: HOW AIRPORTS CAN BETTER PLAN FOR THE FUTURE

Over the next 30 years, every assumption and norm underpinning the need for airports and the way that these facilities function will be open to disruption, writes Thornton Tomasetti’s senior resilience consultant, Richard Look

The very concept of airports and how we interact with them will change. Despite this era of uncertainty, we need our airports to continue to develop at an ever-increasing pace. Failure to do so risks future economic growth and international competitiveness.

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How can airports continue to develop with any measure of confidence in the face of the very real risk that some investments could be obsolete in as little as 10 years?

The context

Airports are the interface between ground and air mobility systems that allow business and private relationships to extend over great distances.

They are vital to maintaining international relationships and allowing the rapid transit of high-value goods. As such, airports play a key role as enablers for the world’s economies.

At the same time, they are communities of business aligned around the air/ground interface. They are micro-cities providing opportunities, jobs and economic activity to underpin the local society. 

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It is vital that the communities and business partners work effectively together to ensure common outcomes are delivered. These business and social communities also need to develop together to remain relevant within the developing business context.

At a macro level, the need for airports comes from the highly controlled and safety conscious nature of air mobility. To state the obvious, we need aircraft to be safe and therefore highly regulated. 

This has driven the airport model that exists today, with highly complex concentrations of assets, people and a host of other interdependencies.

The aviation industry supports 29 million jobs globally (directly and indirectly), amounting to a global economic impact of USD 2,960 billion (2018). When this sector is disrupted, the economic impact is significant.

This was evident through incidents such as the eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland in 2010, which caused an estimated impact of £1.1 billion to the airline industry.

The December 2018 drone incident at Gatwick Airport in the UK affected approximately 140,000 passengers and 1,000 flights over a particularly busy period, with an estimated cost of £50-70 million to the airport and airlines.

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Shock factors like those outlined above, and stress factors such as climate change and new technologies, are likely to disrupt existing airport operations in the medium term.

The introduction of self-drive cars is on the horizon, which means airports need to be aware of certain elements, such as a reduction in parking revenue at airports and increasingly more congested road networks as they have to deal with the added burden of empty vehicles.

The drive to be carbon neutral by 2050 will also have implications on the future-proofing of airports, from the heating of terminals to the structural design of buildings. 

The increasing use of electric cars means airports will need to evaluate and update the number of charging points and supporting infrastructure. Looking further ahead, the introduction of electric planes will put even greater demand on the power infrastructure.

Furthermore, housing pressures on the green belt, growing urbanisation, land scarcity and increased land prices all put greater limits on airport footprints and can confine the scope for future expansion.