Effects Of New Larger Aircraft On Airport Design And Operations

Airport Design and Pavement Replacement

1). The major area, through which larger aircraft impacts the airport management, is its impact on airport design and frequency of airport pavement replacement and repairs. The new larger aircraft makes a contribution to the length requirement of new runway as length need of actual runway. It will make changes in layout and size of taxiways and runways (De Neufville, 2016). To operate new larger aircraft, there will be need for separations of taxiways and runways. On airport design, the effect of new larger aircraft involves that there will be requirement for changes in designs of airfield like; dimensions and configuration of runways, aprons and taxiways. If any airbus manufacturer introduces a new larger aircraft, it will require reviewing the current airport coding systems like; apron design, airport classification method, pavement design and airfield geometric design. In addition to this, it will also have impact on air traffic control and it will enhance the separation requirement between aircrafts, which are approaching an airport. Moreover, there are some design standards, which are not adequate for increased needs of new larger aircrafts. There are several airports, which do not have growth opportunities and they are not able to host New Larger Aircraft without implementing special operational measures. The airports, which are planning to host larger aircrafts, they need to develop and enhance their services and facilities to fulfill the airport design standards of FAA (Fife, & McNerney, 2018).

Moreover, New Larger Aircraft introduction will have considerable effect on frequency of airport pavement replacement and repairs. It will enhance the frequency of airport pavement replacement and repairs. This increased frequency will contribute to changes, which are required for designing pavement. The existing pavement design methods for Boeing 777 aircraft can be used for designing and assessing the new larger aircraft for other airbus manufacturers. For pavement design, the aircraft will require thicker and stronger pavement and some specific design standards, which can increase the size of aircraft. If the pavement designs will not be thicker and stronger, then there will be need of more repairs and replacement as new larger aircraft will be heavier than traditional aircrafts (Gubenko & Ksenofontova, 2015).

2). Apart from the impact on design of airport, New Larger Aircraft will have a significant effect on apron and taxiway separations. Taxiways and runways are needed to be appropriate dimensions on the basis of largest aircraft estimated to utilize them. Introduction of New Larger Aircraft need a taxiway bridge that meets clearance and its width requirements. First, this new aircraft will affect the taxiway design standards due to its larger size. If the existing standards will be followed, the airplane will have adverse impact on safety of neighboring terminal areas, taxiways and runways (Wu, 2016). Thus, effective functioning of new larger aircraft will require broadening and relocating the taxiways and restricting its operations to particular duration of low traffic, so that it can improve the airport safety and develop enough clearance.

Apron and Taxiway Separations

Furthermore, new larger aircraft will need implementation of revised clearance standards in relation to clearances of apron separation. The airports, which are parked at terminal gate needed to maintain some separation clearances between them and terminals or other airbuses (Jarach, 2017). However, current apron separation clearance for gate D will provide enough allowance to new larger aircraft. So, new clearance standards should be created for gate type for accommodating this aircraft. Moreover, impact on apron design includes effects on various components such as; gate construction requirements, gate type recognition and ground services. In this, the attainment of required runways, taxiways and apron isolations will be one of the major threats to airports after introduction of new larger aircraft.

3). It is very important to consider the impact of new larger aircraft on gate capacity and baggage handling operations at airport. It is essential to make changes in gate capacity as current standards and capacity will be unable to lodge larger aircraft. The airports, which will serve new larger aircrafts, need to be large, hub airports, which recently serve wide-body airplanes. Gates are the areas, where the aircraft is parked, loaded and serviced. As mentioned above, new larger aircraft will transport about 500 to 800 passengers, so that gate capacity needs to be increased due to growth of passenger traffic (Le Blond, Budd, & Ison, 2016). Gate capacity will be increased on the basis of gate occupancy time that includes determining the passenger terminal and number of gates. To meet new larger aircraft requirements, airport will need to enhance the number of gates for providing enough minimum boarding time for the travellers and maintain an impactful turnaround time, while introducing new larger aircraft.

With the introduction of new larger aircraft, the number of air travellers will be increased. It will make the baggage handling operations more challenging. This is the area of airport design and planning, which have largest impact of new larger aircraft. To accommodate the 500 to 800 passengers per flight, baggage handling areas will need to be expanded. With the increase in size of aircraft, there will be increase in the number of passengers, who are waiting to gather their baggage at claim facility (Zhang, Ouyang, & He, 2008). Most of the population will be approaching from gate area to baggage claim system. It will need significantly more space than previously offered in traditional baggage system. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)’s existing standards for baggage room must be enough, so that airports may have sufficient space for expanding and meeting these additional necessities. In this way, it will affect the baggage handling operations (Leone, & Liu, 2011).

Gate Capacity and Boarding Time

4). In addition to above effects, introduction of new larger will also affect the airport servicing operations. As discussed above, runways, taxiways and aprons are the major areas in airports, which will need most of the modifications because of new larger aircraft introduction. Moreover, the airport authority needs to consider different services of airport operations. There are various services such as cabin service, customer service, safety and protection, field operation service and catering services, which need to be handled, while launching a larger aircraft. Additionally, it requires fulfilling some ground servicing needs for NLAs. These new aircrafts will use equipment and receptacles, which will be similar to wide body airbuses. All of the components of passenger and airport service will be affected by increased aircraft capacity (Fayez, Kaylani, Cope, Rychlik, & Mollaghasemi, 2008). Primarily, three of these operations can be affected, i.e. arrival and departure lounges, check-in facilities and baggage handling processes. With the increased capacity, number of check-in counters needs to be increased, if a minimum level of service is to be attained. The airport authority needs to evaluate the space offered for queues, so that situation of congestion can be avoided. A recent survey suggested that there should be 10 to 12 check-in counters for larger aircrafts.

Under airport servicing operations, it should be focused on safety and protection of the passengers and staff, while introducing new larger aircraft. The ability of airport to effectively and quickly handle an emergency situation is significant safety issue, which will need an extensive research with the introduction of larger aircraft. With the increase in the size of aircraft, it is essential to revise the FAA’s standards for safety and protection issues. As NLA aircrafts run internationally, so it is very important that passengers are screened appropriately without compromising safety. The airports with larger aircrafts may need to increase their security stations to facilitate the passengers. It can be done by using extra x-ray machines and walk through weapon detectors. FAA will require ensuring that airports can conduct screening processes in most effective manner (Kierzkowski, 2016). The airports, which are expecting to serve new larger aircraft in future, will require enhancing their existing processes for handling aircraft emergencies. It will carry more passengers than regular aircraft, so it will need extra emergency equipment and tools, human resources and supplies. There is a possibility that requirements for longer ladders and ladder style fire trucks should be included in the firefighting tools’ list. It will provide additional training to fire fighting and rescue personnel. These personnel will be serving at the airports, which are expecting to launch new larger aircraft (Kirschenbaum, 2013).

Baggage Handling Operations

For deicing operations for new larger aircraft, it will include a large amount of fluid, application equipment and manpower. This is because of larger size of aircraft and greater surface area, which should preserved with the anti-icing and deicing chemicals. Several airports, which are located in dense metropolitan areas, are sensitive to emissions and pollutants produced by aircraft. Larger aircrafts with highly efficient jet engines should not generate excessive pollutants (Simaiakis, Donaldson, & Balakrishnan, 2011). In this way, introduction of new larger aircraft will impact various airport service operations like ticket counters, baggage handling operations, cueing areas and lounges, terminal design, parking, gate capacity, airport capacity and other services.

5). Airports will need some specific facility improvements to deal with the large aircraft. Most of these changes are required to meet the design characteristics of larger aircrafts. To overcome the adverse impact of introducing newer larger aircraft, the Federal Aviation Authority should revise its standards and policies. It can include more passenger processing facilities. There should be an effective capacity planning and aircraft scheduling, which will increase the profits and gate efficiency. To ignore high passenger volume, the airplane can schedule new larger aircraft to land and take off within lean hours. The Airport Authority needs to develop a pollution reduction policy and effective fuel for larger aircrafts (Stewart, & Mueller, 2014). The airports should implement different strategies for managing the air servicing operations. Primarily, it should focus on managing the arrival and check-in process. By applying these solutions, the airports will be able to avoid the adverse situations due to introduction of new larger aircrafts.

Conclusion:

Thus, it is hereby concluded that introduction of new larger aircraft affects all the facilities and operations of airport. From all, the most affected part is the baggage handling and claim system. This paper discusses the effect of new larger aircraft on different operations and services under operation management. It should focus on these affected areas, so that it can overcome the future situations and issues. The airport planners need to be careful when selecting the aircraft on which design of airport will be based. From above analysis, it can be concluded that new larger aircrafts are generating new requirements for airport planners. The planners should implement effective strategies and approaches to deal and minimize these effects.

With a forecasted development rate of 5% every year, it is estimated to double air traveller traffic in next 15 years and triple in the timeframe of next 20 years. To fulfill the demands and needs of aviation industry, airbus manufacturers have developed a “super jumbo jet” that is known as larger aircraft. This aircraft has capability to carry 555 to 800 travellers. The term “New Large Aircraft” is generally utilized to define the new aircrafts, which are being manufactured by airline industries, which have lengths and wingspans greater than others. First two New Larger aircrafts, which have entered in airbus industry, were Boeing 777 and A380 (Fielding, 2017). With greater capacity, these larger aircrafts have modern technology features also. The first response of management at larger airports was to limit the new large aircraft by allocating them to specific routes, runways and terminals. This also led to air traffic blocking and delays and it has large impact on airport management. This paper has the discussion about the effects of these New Larger Aircraft on different component of airport management.

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