Transport Planning& Technonogy P1.6

This article was downloaded by: [2008-2009 LungHwa University of Science and Technology]
On: 25 February 2009

Access details: Access Details: [subscription number 789302507]
Publisher Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House,
37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
Transportation Planning and Technology

Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713653693
The Future Development of Airports: A Multidimensional Examination

Milan Janic a
a
OTB Research Institute, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands
Online Publication Date: 01 February 2008
To cite this Article Janic, Milan(2008)'The Future Development of Airports: A Multidimensional Examination',Transportation Planning
and Technology,31:1,113 134

To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/03081060701835803
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03081060701835803
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdf
This article may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or
systematic reproduction, re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or
distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden.
The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents
will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug doses
should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss,
actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly
or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.
Transportation Planning and Technology, February 2008

Vol. 31, No. 1, pp. 113134
Downloaded By: [2008-2009 LungHwa University of Science and Technology] At: 11:22 25 February 2009
ARTICLE
The Future Development of

Airports: A Multidimensional
Examination
MILAN JANIC
OTB Research Institute, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands
(Received 31 August 2007; Revised 8 November 2007;
In final form 29 November 2007)
ABSTRACT The development of airports as the main component of air transport

system infrastructure is influenced by direct external developments (such as the
globalisation and privatisation of the airline industry, deregulation of domestic
and liberalisation of international markets, increased airline competition and
volatile prices of the major airlines) and indirect external developments (such as
socio-economic forces and political events influencing the growth of air transport
demand). This paper examines the past, current and future development of
airports through four dimensions: (i) operational, sizing, and design of the airside
and landside infrastructure; (ii) economic; (iii) environmental; and (iv) social.
The prospective future development of airports through these dimensions is
synthesised using cases from the European and the US air transport systems.
KEY WORDS: Airports; future development; airline trends; multidimensional
analysis
Introduction
Airports have played an important role as the air transport infrastructure and service providers for their main users airlines,
passengers, and freight. In general, most have grown steadily during
Correspondence Address: OTB Research Institute, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The
Netherlands. Email: janic@otb.tudelft.nl
ISSN 0308-1060 print: ISSN 1029-0354 online # 2008 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/03081060701835803
114 Milan Janic

the past two decades. However, their role has been changing,
particularly after deregulation/liberalisation of air transport markets.
The most visible changes have been to become the hub in an airlines
hub-and-spoke network or to remain the base of an airlines point-topoint network. Their role has been dictated by the pattern, volumes,
and structure of their traffic: relatively frequent and repetitive, high
intensity in short periods of time during the day with a substantive
transfer component in the former case, and relatively voluminous more
concentrated during few peaks during the day with a predominant
origin/destination (O/D) component in the latter case. In addition, the
changes have taken place in combination with external demand-driven
forces, in terms of the weakening of the previously high airport
dependency on dominant airlines, developments of airports as partially
or fully privatised entrepreneurships emphasising efficiency, effectiveness, and profitability, and strengthening of the different environmental
constraints. Under such circumstances, we examine the past, present,
and future development of airports in four dimensions: (i) operational,
sizing, and design of the airside and landside infrastructure; (ii)
economic; (iii) environmental; and (iv) social.
This paper presents the authors view on the future development of
airports based on the analysis of past and current trends in the air
transport industry and on other global trends. This paper consists of
four sections: section Some Past and Current Trends in Airport
Development briefly summarises some past and current developments
through the four dimensions, mainly referring to large airports in
Europe and the US; section Prospective External Trends describes the
main factors influencing future airport development; section Implications of Prospective External Trends elaborates the implications of
these factors for future airport development through the four dimensions; and the final section presents some conclusions.
Some Past and Current Trends in Airport Development
Scope of the Approach
Development of airports has inherently been a multidimensional issue.
However, particular dimensions have not always been of equal
importance, explicit consideration, and/or explicit transparency. In
this paper, four dimensions of airport development are examined as
directly influenced by airline industry trends and indirectly by global
trends. In this context, global trends are assumed to directly influence
airline industry trends, and vice versa. These dimensions are: (i)
operational, sizing and design of the airside and landside infrastructure;
The Future Development of Airports 115

External developments
Global trends
Airline trends
Development of (future) airports

Dimensions for examination
Operational, sizing,
and design
Airside and
landside
infrastructure
capacity;
Security.
Economic
Dependency on
single airline;
Costs, revenues;
and profitability;
Privatisation;
Allocation of
scarce capacity.
Environmental
Noise;
Air pollution;
Land use;
Other external
impacts.
Social
Employment;
Direct & indirect
contribution to the
regional GDP.
Equal and simultaneous consideration

Figure 1. Schema for examining airport development
(ii) economic; (iii) environmental; and (iv) social. Figure 1 shows the
schema.
The operational dimension implies utilisation of existing airside and
landside capacity. Sizing and design imply provision of existing and
new capacity of adequate size, function, and flexibility in terms of
adapting to the volatility of traffic demand in the broadest sense, and
effectiveness of operations. In addition, the security recently influencing
the effectiveness and efficiency of the demand-serving processes is
included as a part of this dimension. The economic dimension embraces
dependency of a given airport on the number of (dominant) airlines,
costs and revenues (i.e. the overall profitability), privatisation, and
allocation of the scarce capacity (slots). The environmental dimension
includes managing growth while maintaining the impacts of externalities, such as noise, air pollution, and land use under control. Finally,
116 Milan Janic

the social dimension considers a given airport as an important factor in
the regional (and in many cases national) economy.
Overview of the Literature

The literature dealing with the analysis and evaluation of the past,
current, and particularly future development of airports is generally
scarce. This is particularly visible if general trends are considered
instead of individual airport cases. There is, however, an exception: the
study of future airport developments by the Boston Consultancy Group
(BCG, 2004). In addition, some other studies have dealt with the
development of the entire air transport system in given regions and
tackled the problem of airports in a given context (DETR, 2002; EC,
2003; FAA, 2003).
On the other hand, studies dealing with development of the
individual airports by emphasising only particular dimensions of the
problem have been relatively numerous (ACI, 2002, 2005; BAA, 2005;
CAA, 2001, 2002; Fraport, 2001; GAO, 1996; Ott, 2003; SH&E,
2002).
The academic literature dealing with the development of airports in
multiple dimensions, and particularly with the airports of the future, is
also scarce. An exception has been with respect to future airport design
and security issues (Goerling, 2002). This literature is generally
dedicated to individual dimensions of airport development. Some
examples are: airport planning and design (Horonjeff & McKelvey,
2004); analysing the efficiency in planning the airport airside and
landside capacity (Laborie, 2003; Kaiser & Zografos, 2006; Boatright,
2001); flexibility of use of existing capacity and impacts of changes of
airline behaviour (Kraus & Koch, 2005; Ott, 2003); and charging the
airport services including the scarce capacity (Brueckner, 2002; Janic,
2005; Nilsson, 2003; Yamanaka et al., 2005).
Therefore, this paper should be considered as an attempt to integrate
different dimensions of the past, current and future airport development, indicating their interrelationships, and synthesising general
prospective trends.
Global Trends and Airline Industry Developments
Airports have been mostly dependent on their main users airlines and
their passengers and freight shippers. In turn, the airline industry and
individual airlines have been influenced by global, and in some cases
localregional, economic and political developments. Thus, the analysis
of airport developments should include some overview of these
influencing trends.

The main global and regional economic developments have been
Gross Domestic Product (GDP), international trade and investments,
and generally diminishing airfares as the main driving forces of air
transport demand. The political crises, economic and social instability
and stagnation, terrorism, regional wars, and some diseases (SARS)
have always acted as deterring forces on air transport demand.
Consequently, airport traffic has grown or stagnated, respectively.
The most important forces driving the development of the airline
industry have been the deregulation/liberalisation of air transport
markets, open sky agreements removing barriers in international
markets (the most recent is the open sky agreement between the EU
and the US), airline privatisation, and generally diminishing airfares
(Janic, 1997). In Europe and the US, these and other factors have led to
the emergence and consolidation of two broad categories of airline
the full cost (legacy) airlines and low cost carriers (LCCs). Consolidation of full cost (legacy) airlines and their alliances, mainly operating
hub-and-spoke networks and some of them point-to-point networks,
has resulted in developing hub airports and the consolidation of some
important base airports (BTS, 2007). In both Europe and the US, these
airports have been exposed to new operational, sizing and design,
economic, and environmental requirements in accommodating growing
demand of the changed structure and time pattern efficiently and
effectively.
The emergence of LCCs operating point-to-point networks has
generally influenced airports through: (i) generating substantive demand in the short- to medium-term mainly at smaller regional airports;
(ii) affecting the market share of large airports in the multi-airport
system; (iii) affecting the incumbent full cost (legacy) airlines at their
hub airports; and (iv) developing specific relationships with host
airports (CAA, 2006; DETR, 2002).
Airport Development
Operations, sizing, design dimension. The operational, sizing, and design
dimension embraces provision of adequate airport airside and landside

capacity and security. Airports hosting airlines operating point-to-point
networks have continued to operate their single and/or multiple
runways and their linear or transporter configuration of passenger
terminal(s). When it has been necessary, these terminals have been
modularly expanded to accommodate growing demand, usually concentrated in a few daily (shorter or longer) peak periods (Boatright,
2001; FAA, 2003; Horonjeff & McKelvey, 1994).
Airports becoming airline hubs have usually operated one or a few
pairs of parallel runways and passenger terminals of the satellite and/or
hybrid configuration designed to accommodate almost simultaneously
118 Milan Janic

the relatively large volumes of the O/D and transfer traffic during the
short but relatively frequent peak periods created by the airlines
complexes of flights (FAA, 2004, 2007).
The peak periods in either case have implied congestion and flight
delays, usually with two general implications for the operation and
sizing of the airport capacity. On the one hand, they have indicated the
attractiveness of a given airport and high utilisation of its capacity. On
the other, they have indicated the scarcity of existing capacity,
implicitly lowered quality of service, and increased delay costs for
users airlines and passengers. Consequently, the persistent and high
congestion and delays have been considered as an important sign for
increasing the airport capacity and/or introducing market-led mechanisms for their proper balancing (FAA, 2004).
Security has become of growing importance after 11 September
2001. The procedures have been strengthened at most airports both in
Europe and the US, which has prolonged the average time for passenger
and baggage security processing. Consequently, this has slowed down
the entire processing procedure throughout the terminal. As well,
additional facilities, equipment, space, and related staff have been
required. At many airports, the previously centralised security facilities
have moved from the central locations in terminals (usually behind the
passport control counters) to the departure gates, thus also requiring
their redesign.
Economic dimension. The economic dimension implies dependency of a
given airport on the dominant airline(s), the cost, revenues, and

profitability, the airport privatisation, and allocation of the scarce
airport capacity.
In Europe, three large alliances have consolidated positions at their
main hubs with rather modest market shares at each others hubs. This
has increased the mutual dependency of these hub airports on given
airlines (EC, 2002, 2003). In the US, most major airlines have operated
more than one hub airport, with substantive market shares at these, but
also at other non-hub airports. Consequently, each airport has a
relatively modest market share from an individual (single) airline,
which has generally implied its lower dependency on the dominant few
airlines (BTS, 2007).
The volume of traffic has mainly influenced airport revenues, costs
and profitability. The costs have been generally dependent on the
efficiency of spending and the price of resources (capital, energy, and
labour). These costs have consisted of capital, operational, and labour
cost, with generally different average proportions at European and US
airports (CAA, 2001; Doganis, 1992; EE, 2001; GAO, 1996). Airport
revenues have usually been obtained from charging for services

provided for the aircraft, passenger and freight, as well as other
commercial activities. The former have been aeronautical and the latter
non-aeronautical revenues. In most cases, the revenues have provided
break-even profitability (ACI, 2002; CAA, 2001; Doganis, 1992; EE,
2001; Nilsson, 2003).
Privatisation of airports, started in the 1990s in more than 50
countries, has enabled the private sector to be involved mainly in
airport operations and financing (GAO, 1996). In particular, the
private sector has operated the airport value-added chain (BCG,
2004; SH&E, 2002). This has strengthened competition and diminished average charges. The evidence across EU airports indicates such
decreases while the quality of service has been rather unchanged. In
addition, there has been some indication that airports have been
partially losing control over the quality of service (SH&E, 2002).
Airport charges set up to cover costs, such as those of landing slots,
have not automatically been at a level to clear the market. Thus, they
have been considered as one of the causes of congestion and delays at
busy airports (Nilsson, 2003). The other main cause behind this has
been that the airlines and not the airport(s) have actually decided on the
quantity (i.e. quota), distribution, and price of the (scarce) airport
capacity (slots). That has also implied that these airlines have already
internalised their cost of congestion and delays (Brueckner, 2002;
Nilsson, 2003).
Environmental dimension. Noise, local direct and indirect air pollution,
and land use have become the most important externalities at many
large congested airports. In particular, noise has become a matter of
concern with traffic growth. In order to protect the affected population,
noise quotas have been imposed and converted into allowed annual,
daily, and hourly numbers of aircraft operations (BAA, 2005; Schiphol
Group, 2006). Air pollution has been of increasing concern as the local
contribution to the cumulative volumes of emitted air pollutants (CO2).
Land use has been emerging as a more serious problem when particular
airports have needed expansion of both airside and landside infrastructure. Construction of new infrastructure has most often been a
matter of long public inquiries, taking on average at many airports
more than 10 years (DETR, 2002; Fraport, 2001).
Social dimension. The social dimension of the airport development
problem has usually related to employment in the broadest context. In
general, larger airports have employed more staff and thus been
considered as the greater contributors to the local and national GDP
and overall welfare. In general, the number of employees has been
positively correlated with the volumes of airport traffic. Typically, each
120 Milan Janic

million of passengers accommodated at a given airport has generated
more than one thousand employees (ACI, 1998).
Prospective External Trends
Global Trends
The future medium- to long-term global trends expected to influence
development of most airports, particularly those in Europe and the US,
are identified as follows:
. socio-economic growth, embracing growth of GDP, national and
international trade as the main driving forces of the air transport and
consequently the airport demand, will continue. In addition, new
markets, such as those of India, China, and entire Southeast Asia,
will continue to grow and spread their global (demand growing)
influence. Some regional crises and wars will temporarily affect
growth of the air transport demand. Terrorist threats will remain a
matter of the highest concern. Further actualisation of the impacts of
air transport on the environment in combination with introducing
different eco-taxes for air travellers will likely slow down growth of
the generally price-sensitive air transport demand;
. many large airports will be faced with the requirements to be fully
included in integrated systems consisting of different transport
modes (surface and air) providing seamless door-to-door services
for the end users passengers and freight shipments. They are
expected to be the integrative (network) nodes of such system(s)
network(s), intermodal interfaces, and service providers as well;
. growing airports will continue to be considered as very important
economic-driving forces of the regions they serve.
Airline Trends
The airline industry and individual airlines will continue to be
influenced as usual by global economic and political trends. According
to this author, their development is expected to influence airports in
both Europe and the US as follows:
i. The European airline industry is going to experience further removal
and/or significantly relaxation of the nationality rules (barriers) on
airline ownership, which will further stimulate cross-border mergers
and acquisitions, first between European and later between European and non-European airlines. This process will additionally
consolidate existing airline alliances, which will also develop from a
strategy of reducing costs, in addition to the current strategy of

generating revenues. This will be possible through joint ventures of
particular activities and services. In addition, such consolidation will
result in decreasing the number of large airlines in the market, which
in turn may have implications for the further development of the
airline hub-and-spoke networks as follows:
. the mega-airlines together with their non-European partners will
tend to develop a rather smaller number of mega-hubs conveniently located over the continent and serving mainly the longhaul profitable routes/markets;
. the hubs of most previously national airlines will become either
the secondary hubs of the associated alliances or their spokes,
which will generally imply decreasing of their importance as
compared to the past and present; and
. the non-hub airports having ambitions to become hubs will have
to fulfil a complex set of requirements, including: (i) central
geographical location as compared to the location of particular
spoke airports in the airline network; (ii) sizeable airside and
landside capacity particularly respecting the great proportion of
transfer passengers; (iii) large economically powerful catchment
area generating and attracting the voluminous O&D passenger
demand; (iv) sufficient number and convenient daily-time
distribution of slots; and (v) the economic/financial stability of
provided by an incumbent airline or its alliance (Doganis, 2002).
ii. The US airline industry will continue to consolidate with further
mergers among the major airlines, implying the following:
. particular airlines will continue to operate a multi-hub system
but with a smaller number of more concentrated hubs; some of
them, particularly those on the East and West Coasts of the US,
will be developed into internationalintercontinental mega-hubs;
and
. the conventional complexes of flights at existing and forthcoming hubs will continue to be modified in terms of the size and
flight interconnection times, mainly because of the need for
constant reductions in airline costs.
iii. Strengthening of the LCCs, particularly in Europe, will continue to
be a real threat to eroding of the economics of hub-and-spoke
networks of the full cost (legacy) airlines in their hub and
particularly spoke airports, which may cause some instability in
their growth. In addition, the LCCs will continue to stimulate
growth of passenger demand throughout their networks, continuing to connect mostly the small- and medium-sized regional
airports with prevailing O/D passengers. The innovative LCCs
economic/business models will be developed in the long distance
122 Milan Janic

markets, which will strengthen airline competition and very likely
bring more traffic to the airports involved.
Implications of Prospective External Trends

The above-mentioned global and airline development trends will have
implications for the future development of many, but particularly large
either growing and/or stagnating airports, through all four dimensions.
Generally, the components of particular dimensions will become
increasingly interrelated, and thus need to be considered simultaneously
with equal importance.
Operational, Sizing, and Design Dimension
The operational, sizing, and design dimension embraces operating,
sizing and design of existing airports and providing new airport airside
and landside infrastructure, including the nature of its planning and
implementation, and security.
Operations. In general, the growth of a given hub airport requiring a
capacity increase is perceived to be as follows:

. the volumes, structure, and growth rates of demand will be essential
for efficient utilisation of existing airport capacity on the one hand
and its further feasible sizing and design on the other; and
. the discrepancies between demand and capacity will continue to
produce congestion and delays during peak periods on the one side
and underutilisation of airport capacity during non-peak periods on
the other until the market-led mechanisms establish their balance.
Sizing and design. The sizing and design of the airport infrastructure to
cope with growing demand will generally contain the following

elements related to the airport airside and landside area, including
the ground access systems.
. In the airport airside area, new parallel runway(s) will usually be
added to the existing ones. For example, most US airports already
have plans for constructing new runways, usually parallel to existing
ones. In addition, new technologies based on better understanding of
the aircraft wake vortices will increase runway capacity through
decreasing the present separation minima and diminishing dependency of closely spaced parallel runways (28 pairs at 31 US busiest
airports and one pair at Frankfurt main airport) (FAA, 2004;
Fraport, 2001);
. The apron/gate complex will be widened by new aircraft parking
stands/gates enabling flexible use, i.e. handling different aircraft

types in case of changing the size of particular complexes of flights;
at European hubs, the increasing of the size of particular complexes
will be more likely (e.g. the super-large A380 aircraft will contribute
to the further consolidation of existing hub-and-spoke networks on
the one hand and require a dedicated runwaytaxiway system, and
apron parking stands/gates in combination with passenger terminal
complex on the other (Laborie, 2003)); at the US hubs, the number
of the smaller but less expensive complexes of flights will likely
increase;
. In the airport landside area, the existing passenger terminals will be
extended and eventually new ones built. Regarding flexibility of
expansion and use, the satellite concept will continue to be
preferable. In addition, the two-level terminal for the vertical
distribution of passenger flows will become the rule rather than
the exception. As well, further expansion of the already sizeable
terminals will require increased efficiency and effectiveness of
passenger processing and particularly movement along the long
distances within and between satellites (or particular fingers or
piers). This will require more automation moving walkways inside
the terminal as well as the airport-internal road and/or rail-based
systems connecting distant terminals. Specifically, at the US large
hubs aiming at developing as intercontinental gateways, there will be
a challenge in providing adequate capacity of the passenger
terminal(s) in order to accommodate relatively large volumes of
transfer passengers connecting between the incoming and outgoing
international (and national) flights, or vice versa. Such rather
voluminous transfers will have to be carried out during relatively
short connecting times under increasingly rigorous security control.
Such requirements will certainly initiate developing innovative
security systems in order to maintain both operational and security
performance at the required level. In addition, since in many cases
the available land for expansion will become an increasing problem,
considerable parts of terminals will have to be underground
constructions, which will certainly increase investment costs; and
. Further development of airport ground access systems will continue
to be of the greatest importance, particularly for the (hub) airports
surrounded by large catchment areas. More environmentally friendly
rail-based systems operating within the local, national, or international rail networks will become a common airport access mode. In
particular, connecting the mega-hubs to the international HighSpeed Rail network (Europe) might have two types of implications
for airport passenger demand: (i) eroding some short-haul air
services, either if competing or co-operating with the airlines; and
(ii) widening of the airport catchment area thanks to access by high
124 Milan Janic

speed, which is particularly important for the growing volumes of O/
D passenger demand. In turn, this will contribute to building
integrated transport systems (networks), in which airports will play
a key role.
capacity expansion projects will be carried out according to different
(usually optimistic and pessimistic) scenarios of volumes of demand,
both implying growth but at different rates in the following steps:
. forecasting the economic/financial strength of the dominant airline(s)
and/or alliance and own role in their networks;
. forecasting the volumes and structure of demand by other airlines
expected to operate at given airport;
. aggregating the volumes and structure of demand;
. determining the size and timing of the capacity expansion;
. using operational/planning/economic-business decision support
tool(s) for increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of the planning
process, consistency and efficiency of the investments (Kaiser &
Zografos, 2006); and
. determining the time and modules (increments) of the planned
capacity expansion.
For example, in the airside area, the minimum increment of the
capacity increase is a new runway, taxiway, and/or the apron parking
gate/stand. In the landside area, this can be a new satellite, finger or
pier, or entire passenger terminal. Figure 2 shows an example of three
solutions for expansion of the passenger terminal capacity at London
Heathrow Airport based on the long-term scenarios of growing
demand.
T erminal p ass enger s - mil lion/ y ear
The nature of the capacity increase. The planning and implementation of
135
Demand - Past: +4.2%

Demand - "Optimistic
Demand - "Pessimistic"
115
Solution 1
Terminal 5: 85M
95
75
Solution 2
Terminal 6: 125M
Solution 0
Terminals 1-4: 58M
55
35
1990
1995
2000
2005
2010
2015
2020
Figure 2. Matching airport passenger terminal capacity to demand at London

Heathrow Airport (compiled from BAA, 2005)

As can be seen, the new capacity would be constructed in relatively
large modules (increments) at the times when demand is either well
below or just at the level of existing capacity. On the one hand, this
leaves additional time and space for demand to grow without
significant deterioration of the quality of service. On the other,
utilisation of the installed capacity is lower, which might increase the
operational costs. However, due to the nature of adding the airport
capacity, this cannot be avoided. In the given case, the period between
two investment cycles will be from the year 2008 to 2014.
Security. Further globalisation and inherent political and economic
instability around the world will continue to strengthen requirements

for security at large (international) airports. This has already slowed
down processing traffic and increased costs. For example, during the
period 20002002 the security-related investments and other costs rose
from t457 million (US$675 million) to t743 million (US$1097 million)
at 34 European airports with 43% of the European air passenger
throughput (ACI, 2005). In order to prevent further deterioration of the
vital airport-servicing processes, innovative security systems will have
to be developed and implemented. The total security area concept,
which would replace the current security check point concept, seems
to be one of such possible solutions (Goerling, 2002). The new concept
(system) would enable constant monitoring of the entire airport airside
and landside area, i.e. all persons (passengers and airport employees)
who are there, automatically. For example, passengers would be
monitored continuously from entering the airside area at car parking
or station of public transport access mode (rail, bus) until boarding the
aircraft, and vice versa. In the airside area, the aircraft-servicing staff,
including about 12 aircraft-servicing vehicles, would be continuously
monitored, too. For such a purpose, developing comprehensive security
scanners as parts of this complex monitoring system hidden from eyes
of those being monitored will have to be developed and installed within
the airport airside and landside area.
Economic Dimension
The economic dimension embraces diminishing dependency on the
dominant (few) airlines, management of profitability (costs, revenues),
continuation of privatisation, and allocation of scarce capacity by
innovative market-led mechanisms.
Diminishing dependency on dominant (main) airline(s). Current and likely
future dependence of hub airports on the dominant (main) airline or

an airline alliance will represent both advantages and disadvantages
for a given airport medium- to long-term development. Generally, the
126 Milan Janic

obvious advantage will be a rather simple managing of the relationship(s) with airline(s) while gaining relatively stable volumes of traffic,
at least until the airline is prosperous and financially solid. The
disadvantage will be: (i) sizing, operation and design mainly patronised by the dominant airline(s), thus often being insufficiently
convenient for others; and (ii) the inherent risk of losing substantive
demand in cases of weakening or even collapsing of the dominant
airline(s). Therefore, in the long-term, given airports will have to
consider reducing such high dependency by spreading the empty slots
and thus the market shares to several instead of one or a few airlines.
However, since the airlines will likely continue to own the slots, any
significant redistribution seems rather unlikely to take place soon.
Such redistribution will, however, be possible with the slots obtained
from expansion of the airport capacity and after eventual implementation of the market-led mechanisms of allocation of the scarce airport
capacity (slots).
Specifically, the evidence so far in Europe and the US shows that the
current pattern of dependency of an airport on airlines will likely
continue. In Europe, the airline alliances will seemingly continue to
consolidate their positions at the large hubs, thus increasing the megaairline/hub mutual interdependency. In the US, dispersion of the market
share among several (at least five) airlines will seemingly continue, thus
diminishing the airport dependency on a single or just few airlines
(BTS, 2007; EC, 2003).
Managing costs, revenues, and profitability. The existing endeavours for
further reducing operational costs through increased efficiency and

effectiveness of using resources after partial or full privatisation will
continue at most airports. In addition, competition within privatised
and deregulated value-added chain(s) will likely intensify. In turn, such
cost reduction will enable reducing the airport charges and airline
operating costs on the one hand and improving the quality of services
on the other (CAA, 2001). Consequently, airports, that can do this, will
become more attractive for airlines and thus more competitive to other
airports. Nevertheless, the charges bringing the revenues to the airports,
despite being based mainly on the above-mentioned lower costs, will be
also set up according to the free market rules, and very likely remain the
substantive portion of airline operating costs. For example, the
passenger taxes in the US amount to about 16% (i.e. 15.4% at the
full cost legacy airlines, and 18.2% at LCC Southwest Airlines
although the latter charges the airfare of only 56% of the airfare of
full cost carriers). In the EU, the average passenger taxes are about
12.5% of the average airfare for the range of route lengths (Yamanaka
et al., 2005).

In addition, the airport will likely retain an integrative role over the
value-added chains or leave it to the dominant airline(s). The
deregulated and presumably more effective value-added chains will
also contribute to speeding up passenger service processes, which in
turn will require less space in the passenger terminals. On the other
hand, the faster processing of passengers will leave them with less time
for shopping, thus reducing the airports non-aeronautical revenues.
However, more actors involved in the value-added chain might require
more accommodating space, which will increase the size and cost of
passenger terminals. Therefore, it seems complex to predict the actual
influence.
Decreasing the volumes of demand will affect the airports aeronautical revenues and make them inherently volatile. In order to
mitigate such developments, respond positively to the requirements for
diminishing airline and passenger charges, and still achieve profitability, many airports already have, are, and will have to develop a
range of commercial activities and services not directly related to air
traffic. The content of these will be very diverse at different airports,
but certainly will increase proportions of the non-aeronautical revenues
even at the smaller regional airports. Thus, they will also be able to
reduce charges and thus contribute to the airline economic/financial
health on the one hand and reduce dependability of given airports on
the volatile and uncertain airline behaviour on the other. At some
airports, there will be some increased uncertainty in growth of demand,
mainly due to the increased volatility of the external and internal
demand-driving forces and particularly of the unpredictable behaviour
of the incumbent airlines (local impact). In general, this will be
conditioned by the economic/financial strength/weakness of the full
cost (legacy) airlines and the ambitions for profitability of the LCCs,
which may easily come to an airport but also easily leave it.
Privatisation. Privatisation of airports will continue according to
different privatisation models. As compared to current trends, three

additional developments in the privatisation processes may be expected: (i) spreading to airport airside infrastructure; (ii) involvement of
more non-aviation-related firms; and (iii) freedom in disposal of
revenues by airport ownersstakeholders. These will enable airports
to transform into real economic/business entities operating according to
market principles, including freedom in setting up the prices of their
services according to actual costs, thus fighting for profitability. Such a
structure will make airports more attractive for external (also nonaviation) investors. In addition, as economic/business entities, they
themselves will have easier access to financial markets while looking for
investments. However, obligations of such fully private airports as still
128 Milan Janic
the assets of regional and national public interest will have to be agreed,
as happened after privatisation of the national Air Traffic Control
(ATC) services in some European countries.
Allocation of scarce capacity. Improvement of utilisation of existing and
construction of new capacity will remain the principal measures for
diminishing airport congestion and delays. However, in cases where
their application will not be possible, other measures will need to be
applied. They will mostly imply efficient allocation of scarce runway
capacity (i.e. landing slots), which will be possible with market-led
mechanisms, such as peak-period pricing or congestion charging and
slot auction. At these airports, they will replace present slot quotas
(Brueckner, 2002; Janic, 2005; Nilsson, 2003). Peak-period pricing or
congestion charging will essentially include a charge for a slot the
aircraft will have to pay if arriving during the congestion period. The
charge would be based on the marginal costs that a given aircraft/flight
imposes on all succeeding aircraft/flights during the congestion period.
As such, it might make a given flight unprofitable and force it to arrive
sometimes during the non-congestion time. The main advantage of this
market-led mechanism is rescheduling the additional flights, thereby
reducing congestion and delays, and providing more uniform (improved) utilisation of the available slots (capacity) (Nilsson, 2003). The
principal disadvantage is that this mechanism seems to still favour the
airlines with already high market share using larger aircraft, and
disfavours the markedly weaker airlines using smaller aircraft to serve
small communities (Brueckner, 2002). However, it seems difficult to
perceive when airlines will be prepared to accept this mechanism,
since it actually will take away from them their current power and
influence in the slot-allocation procedure.
The auction of slots will be another (maybe alternative) market-led
mechanism, seemingly more attractive for airlines. In this case, again
the airlines and not the administrator will be asked to set up prices on
slots during congestion period. The advantage of the mechanism is that
the slots will be actually in the market with different prices (i.e. the
market values) for different periods of time, and thus differentially
attractive for particular airlines. The principal disadvantage is again
that the large airlines will be in a position to dictate prices using their
market and financial power originating from inherited rights. Regarding disadvantages, protective measures for the smaller airlines will need
to be found for either mechanism. Presumably, this will be categorisation and separation of slots for particular airline and market categories.
These current and prospective developments suggest that, for
example, the US airports with the market shares dispersed among
several airlines will seemingly be more convenient and prepared for
Environmental Dimension
The environmental dimension embraces noise, air pollution, and land
use at and around airports. The environmental constraints these pose
will continue to affect provision of adequate capacity and its utilisation
at many large hub airports in both Europe and the US. In particular,
noise will remain a problem despite improved Air Traffic Management
(ATM) procedures and aircraft guidance in the vicinity of airports and
the introduction of aircraft that are quieter. Most important, the
population exposed to given noise quota(s) will have to be kept under
control or even diminished. Figure 3 shows the example of the past,
current, and prospective developments at London Heathrow Airport.
As can be seen, during the observed period the population exposed to
a given daily nose quota has continuously decreased despite a
continuous increase in the annual number of aircraft operations.
Construction of a new runway will increase the population exposed
to noise, thus worsening the long-term declining trend.
Air pollution will continue to be an issue of concern, despite
decreasing of the aircraft fuel consumption and related emissions of
Population within given noise quota - 00 0
introducing the above-mentioned market-led mechanisms. At their

European large (hub) counterparts, where airline alliances will continue
to consolidate their already strong market power, the opportunities (i.e.
readiness and convenience) for such changes will be much lower.
Nevertheless, generally it seems that implementation of these mechanisms will become easier after full privatisation of airports and operating
them as the full-scale economic/business entities.
650
Two parallel runways

Three parallel runways (after 2015)
550
Noise quota: 35 NNI and 57 dB(A) L eq

Period: 1988-2020
450
350
250
150
300
350
400
450
500
550
600
Annual number of atm - 000
650
700
750
Figure 3. Population exposed to given noise quota vs the number of air transport
movements London Heathrow Airport (compiled from BA, 2004; CAA, 2002;
DETR, 2002)
130 Milan Janic

air pollutants in relative terms. The concern will come from an absolute
increase in the volumes of aircraft operations and non-aviation-related
ground-based activities.
Existing airports will continue to have a problem of scarcity of land
for expansion of the airside and landside infrastructure. In almost all
cases, building new runway and/or terminal will require long public
inquiry, not only due to the scarcity of land but also due to concerns on
the other mutually related externalities. The cases of Frankfurt Main
and London Heathrow each demanding a new runway for a long time
are illustrative examples in Europe (BAA, 2005; Fraport, 2001).
New airports will be constructed using the experience on constraints
mainly in terms of providing sufficient airside and landside capacity
and conditions (land) for the airports long-term unconstrained
development.
Social Dimension
The social dimension implies employment in the broadest sense. In
general, it may be expected that both direct and indirect employment at
airports as their most important social-economic dimension will
continue to grow with growth of the air traffic. In particular, the
indirect employment will seemingly increase faster after these airports
become real economic/business engines of the regions they serve, i.e.
when converted into pure service providers, intermodal integrators and
attractive locations for other mainly high-tech non-aviation-related
businesses. Such increased employment will certainly contribute to a
greater local and national GDP and overall welfare (ACI, 1998).
Stagnating and Declining (Hub) Airports(s)
Stagnation and decline of the (hub) airport will likely take place under
the following conditions:
. collapse of the incumbent airline, causing immediate falling of the
substantive volumes of demand (the collapses at Zurich (Swissair)
and Brussels (Sabena) airports are illustrative examples; in addition,
after building a new passenger terminal at the Euro Airport Basel
MulhouseFreiburg airport, the airline Eurocross did not come (ACI,
2005)); after receiving the airline, the role and position of given
airport can be changed, thus questioning the current investments and
their content based on the requirements of the collapsed incumbent;
. abandonment of the airport by the incumbent airline, with an almost
equivalent impact on declining of the volumes of airport demand as
in cases of airline collapse;

. substantive modification or complete change of the networks of the
incumbent airline and its alliance partners, thus causing changes in
the pattern, volumes, and structure of demand and consequently
leaving substantive free capacity (an example of such changes is BA
at London Heathrow focusing more on the long-haul O/D markets
while abandoning some of the short-haul national and European
markets (BAA, 2005));
. undermining existing hub-and-spoke network(s) of the incumbent
airline and its alliance partners by the LCCs, which has already taken
place at some large hub airports in Europe and the US;
. strengthening of environmental constraints, mostly in terms of noise
and land use, which may constrain the airports growth (e.g. London
Heathrow Airport has experienced the long-term public inquiry
before getting its new Terminal 5 (BAA, 2005) and Amsterdams
Schiphol Airport has a cap of 460,000 ATMs per year because of the
noise burden (Schiphol Group, 2006).
The measures for handling these situations may include: (i) indefinitely
abandoning or temporarily freezing current and prospective capacity
expansion plans; (ii) reconfiguring the passenger terminal complex in
order to make it more effective and efficient for accommodating the
changed volumes and structure of passenger demand, i.e. proportions
of O/D and transfer passengers; (iii) conserving and/or squeezing parts
of the airports airside and landside infrastructure; (iv) reducing airport
staff in order to maintain acceptable productivity and costs; and (v)
closing the airport.
Conclusions
This paper has elaborated the future development of airports based on
an examination of some past and current trends in the US and
European air transport systems along four dimensions: (i) operational,
sizing, and design of landside and airside infrastructure capacity; (ii)
economic; (iii) environmental; and (iv) social. The findings can be
summarised as follows:
. The behaviour and economic/financial strength of the airline
industry and individual large airlines will continue to play a crucial
role in the future development of large airports. In turn, these will be
closely related to the external airline demand-driving forces, i.e.
global economic and political developments.
. Many existing large airports will continue to experience the problem
of providing sufficient airside and landside capacity. This will be
achieved by new technologies and building new (usually parallel)
132 Milan Janic
runways, which will in turn expand the airport area and eventually
generate new noise burdens. The midfield satellite passenger terminal
concepts will continue to be the most attractive and flexible
configuration for the airlines operating hub-and-spoke networks.
The linear concepts will continue to be the most convenient for
airlines operating point-to-point networks. The hybrid concept will
remain equally flexible for combinations of both types of airline
networks. The airport ground access systems with a rail-based
component will continue to gain in importance due to increasing
of the volumes of demand, requirements for reducing the environmental impacts, and forces driving some airports to transform into
the nodes of global transport network(s) offering integrated air and
surface seamless door-to-door transport services. Security will
continue to gain in importance and will likely require development
of new more efficient and effective systems covering the entire
airport area.
New airports will be designed and constructed by using the lessons
learned from the past and current experience. Securing sufficient
land for provision of adequate airside and landside capacity for the
ultimately unconstrained growth will be crucial.
Management of costs, revenues, and profitability will be of growing
importance, particularly for the fully privatised airports. Privatisation will likely spread to the landside and airside infrastructure by
involvement also of non-aviation companies. This will increase the
airport economic/business entrepreneurship and create the opportunity for introduction of market-led mechanisms for allocation of
scarce airport capacity.
The environmental impacts, such as noise and air pollution, will
continue to be a matter of concern, mainly due to an absolute
increase in the volumes of operations. The chronic scarcity of land at
existing locations will likely constrain growth of particular airports.
Limited expansion will be carried out by putting more construction
in the landside area underground (more expensive).
The partially and fully privatised airports will continue to be
important direct employers and economic/business drivers generating indirect employment and other welfare effects in the regions they
serve.
The stagnating and/or declining airports will have to evaluate their
perspectives carefully, including identifying the causes and eventually
finding remedies for their problems, including temporal or even
permanent closure.
References
ACI (1998) Creating Employment and Prosperity in Europe, A Study of the Social and Economic
Impacts of Airports. Airport Council International Europe, Geneva.
ACI (2002) Airport Charges in Europe. Airport Council International Europe Report, Geneva.
ACI (2005) Building the Future: Paying for the Airports of Tomorrow. Airport Council
International, Geneva.
BA (2004) Social and Environmental Report. British Airways, London.
BAA (2005) Heathrow Airport Interim Master Plan: Draft for Consultation. British Airport
Authority, London.
BCG (2004) Airports Dawn of New Era: Preparing for One of the Industrys Biggest Shake-Ups
(Munich: Boston Consultancy Group).
Boatright, J. (2001) Aviation Gridlock: Airport Capacity Infrastructure How Do We Expand
Airfields? (Atlanta: Delta Airlines).
Brueckner, J. K. (2002) Internalisation of airport congestion, Journal of Air Transport Management, 8, pp. 141147.
BTS (2007) Air Carrier Market Share at US Airports. Bureau of Transport Statistics, Washington,
DC (www.transtats.bts.gov/airports.asp)
CAA (2001) Quality of Service Issue, Consultation Paper, London: Civil Aviation Authority.
CAA (2002) Noise Trends and Controls at UK Airports. Civil Aviation Authority, London.
CAA (2006) UK Airport Statistics. Civil Aviation Authority, Economic Regulation Group,
London.
DETR (2002) The Future Development of Air Transport in the United Kingdom: South East, A
National Consultation Document, London: Department for Transport and the Regions.
Doganis, R. (1992) The Airport Business (London and New York: Routledge).
Doganis, R. (2002) The Future of Hubbing in London (London: Rigas Doganis & Associates).
EC (2002) Study on Competition between Airports and the Application of State Aid Rules:
Volume II (Brussels: Air Transport Group, Cranfield University for European Commission
DG VII-F).
EC (2003) Analysis of the European Transport Industry. European Commission DG TREN,
Final Report, Brussels.
EE (2001) Airport Cost Allocation. Report for the CAA by European Economics, European
Economics, London.
FAA (2003) Aviation Policy and Plans (APO). FAA OPSNET and ASPM, Federal Aviation
Administration, Washington, DC.
FAA (2004) Airport Capacity Benchmark Report 2004. Department of Transportation, Federal
Aviation Administration, Washington, DC.
FAA (2007) FAA Operations & Performance Data. Department of Transportation, Federal
Aviation Administration, Washington, DC (http://www.apo.data.faa.gov/).
Fraport (2001) Frankfurt Airport: Environment Noise Reduction (Frankfurt: Fraport AG).
GAO (1996) Airport Privatisation: Issues Related to the Sale or Lease if US Commercial Airports.
GAO RCED/97-3, US General Accounting Office, Washington DC.
Goerling, H. K. (2002) The Airports of Tomorrow: A 20/20 Look at Meeting 2020 Requirements.
Memo, Washington, DC.
Horonjeff, R. & McKelvey, X. F. (1994) Planning and Design of Airports (3rd edn) (New York:
McGraw-Hill).
Janic, M. (1997) Liberalisation of the European aviation: Analysis and modelling of the airline
behaviour, Journal of Air Transport Management, 3(4), pp. 167180.
134 Milan Janic

Janic, M. (2005) Modelling charges for congestion at an airport, Transportation Planning and
Technology, 28(1), pp. 127.
Kaiser, J. & Zografos, G. K. (2006) SPADE Supporting platform for airport decision making and
efficiency analysis, in: 10th ATRS (Air Transport Research Society) Conference, Nagoya.
Kraus, A. & Koch, B. (2005) On the disadvantages and risks of turning airports into hubs, in: 9th
ATRS (Air Transport Research Society) Conference, Rio de Janeiro.
Laborie, P. (2003) A 380 accommodation at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport, Airports de Paris,
Passenger Terminal Expo 2003, 28th February, Hamburg.
Nilsson, J. E. (2003) Marginal Cost Pricing of Airport Use: The Case for Using Market
Mechanisms for Slot Pricing. VTI-Notat- 2A-2003, MC-ECAM project, Swedish National
Road and Transport Research Institute, Stockholm.
Ott, J. (2003) De-Peaking American hubs provides network benefits, Aviation Week and Space
Technology, February, pp. 1315.
Schiphol Group (2006) Annual Statistical Review (19992004). ZG Schiphol, Amsterdam.
SH&E (2002) Study on the Quality and Efficiency of Ground Handling Services at the EU
Airports as a Result of the Implementation of Council Directive 96/67/EC. Report to the
European Commission, International Air Transport Consultancy, London.
Yamanaka, S., Karlsson, J. & Odoni, A. (2005) Aviation infrastructure taxes and fees in the
United States and the European Union, 85th TRB (Transportation Research Board) Annual
Conference, Washington, DC.

Transport Planning&amp; Technonogy P1.6

Încărcat de

Informații document

Drepturi de autor

Formate disponibile

Partajați acest document

Partajați sau inserați document

Opțiuni de partajare

Vi se pare util acest document?

Este necorespunzător acest conținut?

Drepturi de autor:

Formate disponibile

Transport Planning&amp; Technonogy P1.6

Încărcat de

Drepturi de autor:

Formate disponibile

This article was downloaded by: [2008-2009 LungHwa University of Science and Technology]

On: 25 February 2009

Transportation Planning and Technology

The Future Development of Airports: A Multidimensional Examination

and Technology,31:1,113 134

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Transportation Planning and Technology, February 2008

The Future Development of

ABSTRACT The development of airports as the main component of air transport

114 Milan Janic

The Future Development of Airports 115

Development of (future) airports

Equal and simultaneous consideration

116 Milan Janic

Overview of the Literature

The Future Development of Airports 117

dimension embraces provision of adequate airport airside and landside

118 Milan Janic

given airport on the dominant airline(s), the cost, revenues, and

The Future Development of Airports 119

120 Milan Janic

The Future Development of Airports 121

122 Milan Janic

Implications of Prospective External Trends

capacity increase is perceived to be as follows:

cope with growing demand will generally contain the following

The Future Development of Airports 123

124 Milan Janic

T erminal p ass enger s - mil lion/ y ear

The nature of the capacity increase. The planning and implementation of

Demand - Past: +4.2%

Figure 2. Matching airport passenger terminal capacity to demand at London

The Future Development of Airports 125

instability around the world will continue to strengthen requirements

future dependence of hub airports on the dominant (main) airline or

126 Milan Janic

further reducing operational costs through increased efficiency and

The Future Development of Airports 127

different privatisation models. As compared to current trends, three

128 Milan Janic

The Future Development of Airports 129

introducing the above-mentioned market-led mechanisms. At their

Two parallel runways

Noise quota: 35 NNI and 57 dB(A) L eq

130 Milan Janic

The Future Development of Airports 131

132 Milan Janic

The Future Development of Airports 133

134 Milan Janic

S-ar putea să vă placă și

Transport Planning& Technonogy P1.6

Transport Planning& Technonogy P1.6