Published Articles

How Industry and Media Drive U.S. Aviation Debate
Politics, United States Greg Principato Politics, United States Greg Principato

How Industry and Media Drive U.S. Aviation Debate

When I was President of Airports Council International – North America (ACI-NA) from 2005-2013, I spent a great deal of time trying to interest the media and policy makers in the issues of how airports were funded and financed, how they were run and so on. It was a constant struggle. The funding and financing structure was out of date and inadequate to modern times? Who cares! Too hard to explain! Boring!

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Beijing New Airports
Airlines, Airports, Growth Markets Guillaume Dupont Airlines, Airports, Growth Markets Guillaume Dupont

Beijing New Airports

China is now renowned for building hundreds of airports throughout the country. Having 90% of the Chinese population living less than 100 km from an airport by 2020 is one of the many ambitious targets found in the government's five-year plan. We covered these in our first article China Airports Build. Also mentioned are China's three megalopolis of Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Beijing which account for one third of the country's air passenger traffic. These cities already have well-developed air transport systems serving roughly the three cities' 60 million inhabitants. Yet, Beijing’s Capital Airport (BCIA), the second busiest airport in the world, has exceeded its capacity while handling 83.7 million passengers in 2013.

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Australia Airports Build: Brisbane Airport Under Pressure
Airports, Australia, Politics Dan Parsons Airports, Australia, Politics Dan Parsons

Australia Airports Build: Brisbane Airport Under Pressure

Fuelled by the commencement of the Asian century, Australia's resource sector has experienced a significant boom but with its natural resources often located in regional and remote locations, mining companies had to come up with attractive models for manning their operations.

It has been during this period that FIFO (Fly-In, Fly-Out, pronounced Fye-Foe) has become almost industry standard. FIFO involves all or part of a mine site's workforce flying in from a city to work and live on site for a week or two and then flying home for a week or two before starting the process again (this is often called a swing).

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Incheon Airport South Korea Evaluates European A-CDM
Belgium, Operations, South Korea Kris De Bolle Belgium, Operations, South Korea Kris De Bolle

Incheon Airport South Korea Evaluates European A-CDM

Being an advocate of best practices to implement airport collaborative decision making implies agenda flexibility, and investing ample time to allow A-CDM candidates to grasp the concept of A-CDM as it is practiced in live operations. Be it after business hours for a small party of Romanian air traffic control, on their way back to Bucharest, or for the complete stakeholder group of Stockholm Arlanda airport on a one-day visit, or for a delegation of Single European Sky experts of the European Commission's Directorate General Move - Mobility & Transport.A couple of weeks ago, we had the honour to host a team of 5 from South Korea's Incheon International Airport, on a European A-CDM familiarization trip. ICN/RKSI, South Korea's main airport and among Asia's biggest 6, seems to be securing the 'World's best airport' award by Airports Council International year after year, and is now seriously considering efficiency and capacity optimizing measures by adopting the European airport stakeholder collaboration model. Project horizon is mid 2017, running along yet another dazzling construction project.

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Australia Airports Build: Politics and Sydney Airport No. 2
Australia, Politics Dan Parsons Australia, Politics Dan Parsons

Australia Airports Build: Politics and Sydney Airport No. 2

A couple of the world’s airport hotspots have already been profiled on this blog but this post isn’t about a hotspot, it's probably more of an odd-spot.

While Australia is a big country, it is also a small country. It has a similar land mass to mainland US but only a fraction of the population (around 23 million). This population tends to inhabit the larger coastal cities but a booming resource sector has resulted in a mobile workforce making weekly and fortnightly journeys to mine sites in some extremely remote areas.

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Introduction to Airport Planning: The Master Plan
Airports, Design David Ruiz Airports, Design David Ruiz

Introduction to Airport Planning: The Master Plan

On January 1st, 1914. Abram Pheil became the 1st scheduled passenger in aviation history when he travelled between St. Petersburg and Tampa on a two-seater: Benoist XIV. More than 100 years have passed since, and aviation has bloomed as a whole new industry that connects and globalizes the world. According to ICAO, by 2010 there were more than 25,000,000 aircraft movements around the world transporting around 2.8 billion passengers. Certainly a leap compared to 1914. And it keeps on going.Aviation has constantly grown twofold every 15 years, indicating that by 2030, there will be around 6 billion passengers transported through air in the world. As aircrafts become larger, deregulation worldwide increases, and aircraft numbers climb across; there is a big question mark left to answer: How do airports adapt to all this growth?

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A-CDM Get Together at Heathrow Airport
Operations Kris De Bolle Operations Kris De Bolle

A-CDM Get Together at Heathrow Airport

Upon invitation by Heathrow Airport Ltd., the bulk of European A-CDM airports called at LHR on May 6th 2014 for a de-icing procedures meeting, kindly hosted by the UK's air navigation services provider NATS, in their sleek control tower building at Europe's busiest airport. In fact, we were only missing out on Norway's Oslo Gardermoen Airport, Spain's Madrid Barajas Airport out of the AENA network and Munich Airport, the latter being represented by Steffen and Linda, who also acted as governance members of 'ACDM Germany', the harmonization initiative of the German A-CDM airports.

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Indonesia Airports Build: Overcrowding
Growth Markets, Indonesia Guillaume Dupont Growth Markets, Indonesia Guillaume Dupont

Indonesia Airports Build: Overcrowding

Indonesia’s 230 airports are as active as the ones serving its capital, and sadly busy in the same proportions. The 25 Indonesian airports managed by state-owned company PT Angkasa Pur (which includes the country’s busiest such as Surabaya, Jakarta, Makassar and Bali Denpasar) handled 111 million passengers in 2010, although their combined capacity barely reached 58 million.Bali airport is running at twice its capacity but the in progress-expansion will make it ready to handle 20 million passengers in 2017 – versus 14 in 2012. That would make it ready to cope with the growing traffic until 2017, officials said. The capital of Sumatra North Medan also saw its situation changing for the best in 2013 when its new Kuala Nanu International Airport finally opened. The former Polonia airport closed last July while it was handling 8 million passengers for a capacity limited to 1. Indonesian airlines did not wait long before jumping on it, mainly for its most valuable asset: room.

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