As essential infrastructure providers, airports support aviation’s role as a driver of major economic and social benefits. Runways, terminals, security, baggage systems and other essential facilities must accommodate expected passenger numbers, aircraft movements, and freight volumes.
Airport planners must develop efficient infrastructure that is appropriate, and affordable to build and operate. The facilities must also be flexible enough to adapt to future needs and changes, cost effectively. This includes resilience to external challenges that are often beyond airport control, such as those brought about by environmental changes or geopolitical instability.
To achieve these goals, airport planning and design must assess a set of interrelated considerations that provide the inputs needed for detailed facilities planning. These considerations include reviewing infrastructure plans with key stakeholders, particularly airline users, to assess operational and passenger impacts. A healthy dialogue between airports and airlines will help to ensure that future scenarios are taken into account and that planned infrastructure is functional, fit-for-purpose and adaptable to future changes.
Determining the scale and type of airfields, terminals, and support facilities begins with understanding market requirements and the specific needs of users. Two of the most basic building blocks of airport planning—traffic forecasting and capacity assessment—help define the required facilities as well as their scale and timing.
A traffic forecast creates a best estimate of future passenger and cargo volumes and aircraft activity, and a capacity assessment measures not only capacity but also service and efficiency levels. The difference between a traffic forecast and a capacity assessment identifies which airport facilities need to be upgraded or expanded and helps to determine their size and potential timelines.
Another element that should be considered is the airport’s concept of operations, which describes the desired operational outcomes. The way that a facility is operated, including the adoption of common use and other, innovative technology, can drive different levels of utilization within the planned infrastructure and therefore influence the building program.
Given the length of time needed to bring infrastructure into service, current processes, technology, and operating practices will doubtless change. There is therefore a clear risk that designing future infrastructure based on current operations will result in an airport that is not suitable for emerging needs.
The role of technology is an important factor that must be studied carefully, as its evolution is fundamentally changing many aspects of airport operations. The continued growth in digitalization, such as the rising use of biometrics and contactless self-service solutions for passenger processing, is increasing efficiency and improving the passenger experience. Technology presents an opportunity to utilize infrastructure more efficiently by improving passenger throughput while maintaining optimum levels of customer service. As a result, technology can support a reduction in operational costs and potentially reduce the size of building footprints in processing areas and/or defer capital expenditure.
It should also be noted that technology can play its part in the planning, design, and optimization of infrastructure. Simulation tools, for example, can be used to model different scenarios to better understand the operational impact of new technologies, facilities, or processes. Collaborative decision-making tools can also be employed to improve the efficiency and resilience of operations by coordinating and optimizing the use of resources.
A further consideration for airport planning and design are changes in business and regulatory environments. It is important to think through likely future scenarios. Airline business models or traffic patterns may shift, or changes in security or customs and immigration requirements can require a reconfiguration of terminal space. To meet the needs that changing requirements may bring, airport planners should again employ a flexible design, so that a terminal’s shape can be easily altered by building and tearing down walls or expanding up or out.
Lessons learned from recent crises can also drive assumptions and affect airport development plans. For example, it is now important to identify and incorporate design principles and innovations that can strengthen resilience to future pandemics and promote buildings that support the wellbeing of the people that use them. Touchless self-service passenger solutions and air ventilation and filtration are receiving increased attention for this reason.
Societal priorities must also be examined. As an example, providing everyone with convenient access to airports, regardless of disabilities or other limitations, has become not just a matter of regulatory compliance but a common expectation. Accordingly, the principles of universal design ensuring access for all are important to reference when designing airport facilities.
An even larger emerging issue is environmental sustainability. There is growing awareness among governments, businesses, and the public on this topic. Airport planning and design decisions can have a big influence on environmental performance, and the air transport industry has been under increasing pressure to address such issues as noise, air quality, and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
Airports are particularly exposed to the hazards of climate change such as extreme weather, higher temperatures, and flooding, which can all affect the resiliency of airline and airport operations. Risk management strategies are therefore an essential part of the design process.
The planning and design elements discussed above should be a part of, or tied to, a comprehensive airport master plan. The master plan provides a vision and strategy that balances various elements and guides the long-term development of the airport in a logical, consistent, sustainable, and cost-efficient manner.
Once airport infrastructure projects are planned and designed, they must be constructed, delivered, and placed into operation. So, one further consideration for airport planners is how construction and implementation factors can be integrated into the planning and design process to facilitate the smooth, timely, and efficient delivery of infrastructure. This is critical to ensure that a construction or expansion project does not get mired in wasteful delays and that it functions as designed from day one.
To learn more about airport planning and design considerations as well as specific guidance and recommendations for the detailed planning of airport facilities, please consult the 12th edition of IATA’s Airport Development Reference Manual (ADRM).
IATA's Airport Development & Infrastructure Design training course covers passenger traffic, geographical data, and the positioning of facilities, as well as the identification of political and financial issues in airport planning and evaluation of capacity constraints and developments. The Airport Master Planning course will help you understand the airport master planning process and the key principles for creating a plan that flexibly protects an airport’s operations and development over an extended period-of-time. And the Airport Terminal Planning and Design training course provides a comprehensive overview of airport terminal planning and design and will appeal to those that would like a more in-depth understanding of the subject or build upon existing experience by expanding their knowledge of specific topics.
