Flexible design in airports essential for courting low-cost airlines

Professor Richard de Neufville of MIT's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering said that airport planners have been slow to grasp the reality that the business model of their largest customers has changed dramatically. Low-cost airlines require terminals half the size of legacy airlines, because they use space more intensively -- for instance, several gates share a single waiting area -- and the terminals contain few or no retail shops and restaurants. The reduced commercial activity results in fewer airport employees going through security checks, which provides the additional benefit of cutting passenger turnaround time in half.

Despite this, airport planners continue to design airports as grand public spaces.

"Airport planners are still building airports with fancy architecture and lots of retail space, but the low-cost airlines often won't use them. And the low-cost airlines are not necessarily small anymore; they are a growing sector that represents the future. They want smaller, cheaper airports that increase efficiency," said de Neufville, who added that, in general, smaller airports also have the advantage of fewer ground and air traffic control delays.

In a recent issue of the journal Transportation Planning and Technology, de Neufville states that the largest carriers in the U.S. domestic and European markets are now low-cost airlines (Southwest Airlines in the U.S. and Ryan Air in Europe) that have outpaced the traditional large legacy airlines, such as American and Delta, in terms of market capitalization, airplanes owned (as opposed to leased), and newness of aircraft. To meet the needs of these new industry leaders, airport planners should rely on flexible design, so that a terminal's shape can be altered, say by building and tearing down walls, or expanding up or out.

De Neufville recommends flexible design that encourages airport planners to recognize that major airlines may go out of business, air traffic patterns and distribution may change or move to another airport, and incoming airlines may well reject the facility vacated by a previous customer. The solution is to think through the likely possible scenarios, anticipate responses to those, and incorporate maneuverability into design and operations. This may prevent business failures, such as expensive new terminals designed specifically for legacy airlines that later declare bankruptcy, leaving empty space that low-cost airlines won't use.

"The traditional airport design process is based on a 'most-likely forecast' that ignores uncertainties. These forecasts are always wrong, in that the actual level of traffic in five, 10 or 20 years and the types of traffic occurring are routinely very far off from original predictions," he said. "This can lead to some very embarrassing situations and expensive failures for airport owners."

According to de Neufville, the new JetBlue terminal at New York's JFK Airport will serve twice the number of passengers (20 million) as the recently built international terminal, using just half the space. The new building will cost about the same as Delta's new terminal at Logan Airport (roughly half a billion dollars), but it will serve four times as many passengers. At Logan, JetBlue processes about 0.5 million passengers per gate annually, about twice the number of its neighbor, Delta.

Source: MIT

Low-cost airlines are now the new major players
Leading low-cost airlines with a preference for small, inexpensive airports are now the largest airlines in the United States and Europe, according to an MIT expert on airport design and operations, who said that airport planners in major metropolitan areas need to accept this paradigm shift and build flexibility into airport design.
Quieter, cleaner airplane landings on the way
An experimental procedure that substantially reduces the noise of descending aircraft is one step closer to availability for commercial air carriers, thanks to the continuing efforts of a research team led by Professor John-Paul Clarke of MIT's Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
In addition to improving the lives of people living and working along airport approach routes, the new procedure reduces aircraft engine emissions and fuel consumption.

Expect 'sticker shock' when booking holiday flights, professor says
Record-high fuel prices and new fees added by many air carriers will make the cost of flying home for the holidays significantly higher than last year, says a Purdue University professor.
Toting a laptop? Relief's in store at airport checkpoints
Travelers heading through airport security soon may be spending less time in line, thanks to new rules that allow laptop computers in "checkpoint-friendly" bags to pass through X-ray machines without being pulled out for inspection.
The M2-F1: 'Look Ma! No Wings!'
(PhysOrg.com) -- The planned retirement of the space shuttle fleet in 2010 will bring to a close an era that opened in the Antelope Valley nearly a half century ago.
GOCE prepares for shipment to Russia
Launching in just two months' time, GOCE – now fully reconfigured for launch in September, is currently being prepared for shipment on 29 July 2008 from ESA's test facilities in the Netherlands to the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia.
Research yields pricey chemicals from biodiesel waste
In a move that promises to change the economics of biodiesel refining, chemical engineers at Rice University have unveiled a set of techniques for cleanly converting problematic biofuels waste into chemicals that fetch a profit.
Online service lets blind surf the Internet from any computer, anywhere
Visions of future technology don't involve being chained to a desktop machine. People move from home computers to work computers to mobile devices; public kiosks pop up in libraries, schools and hotels; and people increasingly store everything from e-mail to spreadsheets on the Web.

Flexible design in airports essential for courting low-cost airlines

Related stories:

News discussion: