PTExpoConf Recap — Populous Presents to Industry on Key APAC and Americas Aviation Projects

This year’s Passenger Terminal Expo (PTExpoConf) in Frankfurt brought together aviation leaders from all over the world, including Populous’ Ben Dawson , Geoffrey Ax and Mark Wolfe , who presented on a wide range of topics, including terminal planning and design, AAM and vertiports and airport rejuvenation.

Dawson presented the work that Populous is doing at Kansai International Airport alongside Mathieu Boutitie. Populous is unlocking the potential of the existing building by repurposing existing spaces to increase capacity from 19MAP to 30MAP and improve operational efficiencies by consolidating processing areas. The passenger experience is enhanced through the introduction of a sense of place referencing local, vernacular design and materials. This is coupled with a new strategy for the retail and F&B offering, which aims to showcase the best of local cuisine and culture. Kansai Airport has encouraged local business participation in this renovation journey, creating four mood-based distinguishable retail experiences that cater to a broad range of passenger profiles. The ambition is to bring what is best about the local region into the airport to create a journey that is very much of its place and unique to Kansai Airport. The project is currently in Phase 3 of a phased construction, which aims to minimize disruptions to ongoing operations.

A second Populous presentation was delivered by Geoffrey Ax and Brian Cobb, who discussed planning for AAMs Meta-Precursor. They provided an overview of how Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport (CVG) is leading discussions around its development and early implementation.

The CVG Vertiport Masterplan Study focuses on educating stakeholders about reality indexing, understanding barriers to entry and complexities to existing operations, identifying opportunities to engage, accelerate and close learning gaps, understanding implications to existing and future regulations and strategizing use-cases and socializing deployment planning needs.

AAM will enable consumers to access air mobility, goods delivery and emergency services through an integrated and connected multimodal transportation network. Ax and Cobb discussed the details of the potential use cases, with three main applications being medical, cargo and passenger. They also described how the development of AAM can generate economic, social and environmental benefits by creating new investment opportunities, providing more equity in connecting communities, especially to underserved or less accessible areas and achieving zero operating emissions with lower operating costs, while reducing noise impact and road traffic.

Finally, they explained how universal design, modularity, regulatory standardization and model of implementation will be key factors to make AAM a scalable model.

Mark Wolfe from Populous chaired the conference’s track on airport design planning and development, which had a high attendance and included presentations from various major international airports, including the new Terminal 1 at JFK, as well as LAX, Melbourne, Heathrow and Frankfurt. Additionally, there were notable projects showcased from airports in Riga (Latvia) and Keflavik (Iceland), alongside impressive contributions from Italian airports such as Rome, Naples and Salerno. Passenger experience and sustainability emerged as recurring themes throughout these presentations, highlighting their significance within the industry.

The #PTExpoConf was informative and inspiring, showcasing the incredible potential of the aviation industry and the innovative ideas that are shaping its future — a future that Populous is proud to be part of.

If you wish to find out more about our aviation work, or would like to discuss a project, please contact our design team at [email protected].