Airport Operations

What is an airport?
According to the International Civil Aviation Organization, an aerodrome is a defined
area on land or water (including buildings, installations, and equipment) that is
intended to be used either wholly or in part for the arrival, departure, and surface
movement of aircraft.
Aerodrome is now largely a technical term and is no longer in common use. More
usually the terms airport and airfield are employed, although there is some lack of
precision in their meanings.
Airport is used particularly to denote areas where air-transport passengers are carried,
especially where movement occurs on a considerable scale and always where full-time
customs facilities are available.
Airfield commonly refers to small aerodromes (often without paved runways) or
facilities for handling air-transport aircraft or their passengers and cargo.
In addition, at large airports the term often designate the operational areas for aircraft,
including the runways, taxiways, aprons, and strips.
Evolution of airports
The requirements for aerodromes, or airports, have increased in complexity and scale
since the earliest days of flying. Before World War II the landing and takeoff distance
of most passenger-transport aircraft was at most 650 yards (600 meters). Additional
clear areas were provided for blind landings or bad-weather runs but the total area
involved rarely exceeded 500 acres (200 hectares).
It was not until the general introduction of heavy monoplanes for transport, such as
the Douglas DC-3, during the late 1930s that extensive takeoff and landing distances
were needed. Even then, the prewar airfields at New York City (La Guardia), London
(Croydon), Paris (Le Bourget), and Berlin (Tempelhof) were laid out on sites close to
the city centres. Because even transport aircraft of the period were relatively light,
paved runways were a rarity. Croydon, Tempelhof, and Le Bourget, for example, all operated from grass strips only. Early airports were also major centres of leisure
activity, often attracting more visitors than passengers.
In 1939 La Guardia Airport attracted almost a quarter-million visitors per month,
reaching a peak of 7,000 in one day, compared with a maximum daily throughput of
only 3,000 passengers. In 1929 Berlin's airport reported 750,000 visitors and boasted a
restaurant that could seat 3,000 people on the roof of the passenger terminal.
The status of prewar airports as major social centres was reflected in their design,
especially where the requirements of catering, observation decks, and parking were
paramount. Indeed, the requirements of aircraft and passengers were not at all
dominant at early airfields.
Much long-distance air transport was handled by the large seaplanes known as flying
boats or clippers. These aircraft though slow and of limited range, offered a level of
comfort that was necessary for long-distance travel. Air terminal facilities were
necessarily constructed close to large, open stretches of water. La Guardia Airport and
Santos Dumont Airport in Rio de Janeiro are examples of airports that still operate on
sites originally chosen for their ability to handle large seaplanes. The large facilities
at Southampton Water in the United Kingdom have now disappeared, but the artificial
lake at Linate Airport near Milan, Italy, is still to be found close to the present
administration facilities.
The vast majority of airfields throughout the world are still relatively simple facilities.
Even now, many have unpaved runways or at most lightly paved runways with tiny
terminal or administration buildings, a rudimentary control tower, and crude landing
aids. Such facilities can deal only with light aircraft and a negligible flow of
passengers or freight.
Heavy air traffic, on the other hand, is now almost entirely handled by sophisticated
airport facilities that can accommodate the needs of crew, passengers, and freight and
the great range of aircraft types that have evolved to meet the needs of modern air
transport and general aviation.
Approximately 50 airports around the world now handle more than 10 million
passengers per year; half of these are in the United States. Six airports regularly move
30 million passengers on a yearly basis -- Chicago's O'Hare International Airport
alone handling 60 million. In order to meet the increasing demand for air travel, large
transport aircraft powered by multiple jet and turboprop engines have been built.
Such aircraft require extensive ground facilities, runways, taxiways, fire-fighting and
rescue services, passenger- and cargo-handling facilities, access to car parking and
public transport, lighting, navigational and approach aids, and various support
facilities such as catering, meteorology, and governmental inspection.
In order to be attractively convenient, the complex of activities and facilities that
make up a modern airport must be located sufficiently close to the main centres of
world population. At the same time, they must be adequately distant, so that the
environmental problems associated with the noise of large aircraft and the activities of
large numbers of passengers, workers, and visitors do not become intolerable to the
cities that are served.
(Ref: 1994-1998 Encyclopedia Britannica)

Modern n airports
The largest airports in the world employ more than 100,000 workers each. They are
immensely complex entities with regard to the physical facilities that they comprise,
the organizations that are active within their boundaries, and the services that are
provided in conjunction with their operation.
Physical facilities include runways, taxiways, aprons, and strips, which are used for
the landing and takeoff of aircraft, for the maneuvering and positioning of aircraft on
the ground, and for the parking of aircraft in order to load and discharge passengers
and cargo. For the safe landing and takeoff of aircraft, lighting and radio navigational
aids are provided. These are supplemented by airfield markings, signs and signals, and
air traffic control facilities. Support facilities on the airside of the field include
meteorology, fire and rescue, power and other utilities, aircraft maintenance, and
airport maintenance. Landside facilities are the passenger and cargo terminals and
the access system, which includes parking, roads, public transport facilities, and
loading and unloading areas.
Many organizations are involved in the operation of a modern airport. Overall
management is usually in the control of an organization, authority, or company that
holds a license to operate the facility. This license is granted subject to a judgment by
the national civil aviation authorities that the managing body is fit and competent to
run an airport within national and, if applicable, international laws governing safety
and operations.
While overall responsibility for efficient, safe, and legal operation lies with the airport
management, many of the individual services at an airport are provided by other
organizations. Such organizations include airlines; air traffic control authorities;
ground handling companies; fixed-base operators; concessionaires; security
organizations; governmental agencies responsible for customs, immigration, health
control, and police; support companies providing flight catering, fueling, aircraft
engineering, and maintenance; aero clubs; and flying schools. Since the early 1980s,
when privatization began to sweep through civil aviation, terminal-operation
companies have also become more frequent, such as those that own terminals in
Birmingham, Eng.; Brussels; and Toronto.
AIR SIDE
Airport services related to the aircraft are frequently referred to as airside. Many of
these services are concentrated on the apron, or ramp, which is that part of the
operational surface adjacent to the terminals where aircraft are maneuvered or parked.
They include the apron handling of aircraft, airside passenger transfer to the aircraft,
the handling of baggage and cargo, aircraft fueling, catering and cabin cleaning,
engine starting, deicing, ground power and air-conditioning, and minor maintenance
engineering. Other airside services are runway inspection, lighting and navigational
aids, fire fighting and rescue, airside maintenance, and air traffic control. Among thelandside services are those related to ground passenger handling; these include checkin,
security, customs and immigration, baggage delivery, information, catering,
cleaning and maintenance, shops and concessionary facilities, automobile rental,
ground transportation, porters, special help for the elderly and handicapped,
automobile parking, and public transportation (including taxis). In addition, because
airports employ such a large number of workers, extensive provision must be made for
their daily requirements.
The process of selection and construction of a New Airport
 

SITE SELECTION
Aeronautical and environmental factors.
Selecting a site for a new airport, or evaluating how well an existing site can be
expanded to provide a new major airport, is a complex process. A balance must be
achieved between aeronautical and air-transport requirements and the impact of the
airport on its environment.
From an aeronautical viewpoint, the basic requirement of an airport is that it have a
relatively flat area of land sufficiently large to accommodate the runways and other
facilities and that this area be in a locality free from such obstructions to air navigation
as mountains and tall buildings.
From the viewpoint of air-transport needs, airport sites must be sufficiently close to
population centres that they are considered reasonably accessible to their users.
Environmental considerations, on the other hand, dictate that the site should be far
enough away from urban centres that noise and other deleterious effects on the
population should be kept to acceptable levels. Furthermore, the airport should
not destroy areas of natural beauty or other significance. These two sets of
requirements, the aeronautical and the environmental, almost inevitably clash, the
conflict becoming more severe as the scale of the envisaged airport increases.
The most modest airport facility--with a single runway, an apron, and a building that
serves simultaneously as terminal, administration area, and control tower--can
comfortably be built on a site as small as 75 acres, since it requires only a flat, welldrained
area sufficient to accommodate a short runway and its surrounding safety
strip.



Larger and more modern airport facilities, on the other hand, require multiple
runways of extended length, extensive terminal apron areas, and large expanses of
land devoted to parking and landside access roads. For such an airport, a minimum
area of 3,000 acres is likely to be required. Several major airports--such as Dallas-Fort
Worth International Airport in Texas, King Abdul Aziz International Airport near
Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and Charles de Gaulle Airport near Paris--are built on sites well
in excess of this figure.

The selection process.
The site-selection process for large airports can take many months; in some notable
cases it has extended over many years. The procedure is complicated by the number of
factors that must be taken into account.
First, the operational capability of the site is assessed, particularly with respect to
weather conditions such as wind, snow, ice, fog, and low visibility and also with
respect to obstructions to air navigation around the airport, particularly on the
approach and takeoff paths.
The location of the facility in relation to air-traffic-controlled airspace is also
operationally important. In addition, there must be an evaluation of the capacity of the
available land to accommodate the expected configuration of runways and other
facilities. Flat or very gently undulating land is necessary, because runways must be
constructed according to restrictions on maximum allowable slopes--which, in turn,
are governed by aircraft performance on landing and takeoff.
Ground access to the airport is also considered. An evaluation is made of the distance
from population centres, the regional highway infrastructure, public transport facilities
(including railways), and the availability of land for parking.
Development costs are also estimated, taking into account the nature of the terrain,
soil and rock conditions, drainage requirements, and local land values.
The environmental consequences of an airport development rank very high in any siteselection
procedure. The impact of aircraft noise on the neighboring population is
often the most significant environmental factor, but in many countries account must
also be taken of the impact on the flora and fauna of the area, pollution through
chemical runoff into local groundwater, the presence of endangered species or
significant cultural sites, and even undesirable changes in land use. Many
governments now require that environmental analyses of airport development projects
include evaluations of population relocation, changes in employment patterns, and
distortion of existing regional land use and transportation planning.
(ref: Encyclopedias Britannica)

PASSENGER TERMINAL LAYOUT AND DESIGN
Passenger requirements.
As passenger’s throughout at airports increases, the passenger terminal becomes a
more important element of the airport, attaining a dominant status in the largest
facilities. The passenger terminal may amount to less than 10 percent of the total
investment in a small airport, but at large airports terminals often account for more
than 70 percent of infrastructural investment. The design that is ultimately adopted
depends principally on the passenger volumes to be served and the type of passenger
involved.
Passengers are frequently classified as business or leisure, scheduled or charter,
originating or destined, and transfer or transit. Business travelers tend to pay
significantly higher fares, and airlines usually wish to provide a high quality of service
in order to attract such traffic. The passenger terminal at Heathrow Airport near
London, for example, was designed to a very high standard of space and decor to
attract just this type of passenger. Scheduled and charter passengers, meanwhile, tend
to have very different needs in the terminal, especially at check-in and in the provision
of ground transportation. Palma Airport, on the Spanish island of Majorca, has a
landside that is designed to accommodate large numbers of charter tourists arriving
and departing the airport by bus.
Some airports have a very high percentage of passengers who are either transiting the
airport (i.e., continuing on the same flight) or transferring to another flight. At
Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport in Georgia and at Chicago's O'Hare
International Airport, for example, two-thirds of all passengers transfer to other flights
and have no wish to visit the cities where the airports are sited. These passengers have
special needs but usually only on the airside of the terminal. There is no need to
provide parking or ground transportation to the city for such passengers; they will,
however, need transit lounges and other areas such as transit check-in desks.
Airports that receive a large number of transferring and transiting passengers are
referred to as hubbing airports. At a hub, aircraft arrive in waves, and passengers
transfer between aircraft during the periods when these waves are on the ground. By
using a "hub-and-spoke" network, airlines are able to increase the load factors on
aircraft and to provide more frequent departures for passengers--at the cost, however,
of inconvenient interchange at the hub
PASSENGER TERMINAL.
The passenger building is obviously the main point of attention to the traveling public.
It is the design of the terminal building which more than often determines the airport
managements’ efficiency and capability in the eyes of the public.
The passenger building is the major connection between airport access and the
aircraft. The purpose of the passenger building is to
1. Interface with the passenger’ mode of aircraft access
2. Process departing and arriving passengers
3. Convey the passenger to and from the aircraft
These three components could be discussed as access interface, processing and flight
interface respectively
What are the considerations which influence the design of the passenger terminal?
Airport Management and airlines agree that the most important person in the terminal
building is the passenger, whether in transit, departing or arriving..
Experience in the use of airport building has made certain overall requirements and
planning principles which should be considered These are:

1. Building should be functional, simple in design and structure, economical to
main and capable of expansion without major structural changes. It is better to
build in progressive stages to that all airport operations many continue to grow
architectural design while the buildings are in use. This is a very important
consideration. It is well known tat in recent years in the oil producing countries,
terminal building have been built as architectural monuments at enormous cost.
What is accepted, no doubt, is the needs to have outstanding architectural
design, which blends harmoniously both the natural/traditional architectural
design and contemporary architecture more suited to passenger services
2. There should be a clear cut functional separation between the airline and other
concerned operational facilities and those elements are directly related thereto.
It is important to maintain a functional separation between the two major types
of facilities in an airport i.e. those for aviation activities and those for nonaviation
activities, and facilities for the general public.
3. Public services/facilities should be closely related to the airport passenger
handling area and should be readily accessible to each of its parts
In large airports with decentralized terminals public services may also have to be
decentralized in order to;
• Reduce the average distance a passenger must walk to reach such services;
• Make more services available to passengers
• Reduce the time interval required to reach and use such services;
• The travel distance between ground transportation and aircraft should be kept
• at minimum distance. The size of the ultimate development of the airport, particularly within the
administrative and terminal building area will determine whether the general plan is to be centralized and decentralized.

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Maani Sharma [ MBA Aviation ]
Manager Aviation NEWS Project

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