Special Report Airport Terminals: The shape of things to come

What can airlines expect from the passenger terminals in future and how much of a say will they have in their creation? Joe Bates investigates Such supersize terminals as Beijing Capital’s Terminal 3, Hong Kong’s Terminal 1 and Incheon International Airport’s Terminal 1 seem to have set the tone for the airports of tomorrow in terms of bigger and better.

It certainly cannot be disputed that as commercial aviation has become more popular and aircraft have become bigger, so have passenger terminals. The trend continues today with the opening of Doha’s Hamad International Airport and planned 2017/18 openings of New Istanbul Airport and Beijing Daxing International Airport, the latter set to have a 700,000m2 Terminal 1 with a 5km-long fa?ade from day one. Many others have plans to supersize.   Indeed, so big are today’s passenger complexes compared with the past that Beijing Capital International Airport’s gigantic 986,000m2 Terminal 3 is more than seven times larger than the world’s first iconic terminal, the former TWA Flight Center at New York’s John F Kennedy International.   Attractive, functional, and efficient The aviation industry is constantly evolving, however, and the adoption of new technology over the next 20 or 30 years will change even the face of these airport terminal behemoths. Many of the passenger facilities we take for granted today may no longer be necessary.   American Airlines agrees that times are changing and that the design of the passenger facilities will have to be more flexible, sustainable, and more experience-focused than ever before. Greater attention must be paid to often overlooked airside facilities such as holdrooms, which today, for the most part, are bland and dull.   The carrier’s Managing Director Government and Airport Affairs, Rhett Workman, is also adamant that airport operators must work in collaboration with the world’s airlines to avoid creating facilities that are inefficient, overly expensive and difficult to maintain going forward.   He says: “We just want facilities that are attractive, functional, efficient and work for us from an employee and customer perspective— Taj Mahal-type buildings with waterfalls aren't the number one priority as they are expensive to build and maintain.  “The design of passenger terminals also needs to be flexible so that facilities can easily be reconfigured to adapt to change,” he continues. “As we all know, the aviation industry is not static and change is constant. For these reasons, it is very important for us to have a seat at the table from day one when new facilities are being planned, designed, and constructed.” Workman—who until recently was chairman of the IATA Airport Working Group which looks into global best practices at airports— adds: “We work hard to involve ourselves in the airport planning process as nobody wants to see millions of dollars spent on facilities that are inadequate for our current and future needs.” “If airport X in city Z tells us that they are building a new terminal, that’s great. If it is needed, we will support it. However, American serves over 330 airports across the globe. We have a lot of experience and we know what our customers want, so we would like to bring that knowledge to the table during the planning and design process.” In terms of passenger facilities going forward, Workman says that American expects that new technology and changing passenger habits will impact heavily on what the future brings. Technology over the next several years will rapidly change how passengers experience airports. He reports that American is working hard with its airport partners to create facilities for today’s passengers. Check-in areas will get smaller as passengers essentially bypass them, and holdrooms will become much more interesting and exciting places than they are today.  “They need to be, as this is where passengers traditionally spend most of their time at airports,” notes Workman. “We are already beginning to make changes where we can by installing new restaurant/lounge-style seating, each of which is equipped with an iPad, power ports, and a credit card swipe that allows customers to come in and order food and shopping and have them delivered to the gate.  “We are doing this in collaboration with food and beverage operator, OTG, and it is already transforming the passenger experience and how people use airports.” Game changing new technology The traditional airport Departures Hall is another area ripe for improvement. It is unlikely they will be necessary in their current format in a decade’s time, let alone in 30 years.   The increased adoption of self-service technology, utilizing kiosks at the airport and mobile technology, is having a transformative eff ect on airport terminal design. IATA has played a leading role in this process through its Fast Travel program, creating the standards which provides selfservice options in six areas giving more choice and control to passengers, and lower costs for the industry. The ability to check-in and print bag tags at home means that things are already beginning to change.   Indeed, easyJet recently installed the world’s biggest bag-drop area at Gatwick. Meanwhile, planned self-service terminals at Singapore Changi and Québec City Jean Lesage International Airport, to name but a few, means that traditional check-in desks could shortly begin to disappear altogether. Explaining Québec’s decision, its Vice President of IT, Marc-André Bédard, notes: “The initiative will help increase the airport’s capacity and is being driven by our desire to offer better services to passengers who want to go through the airport quickly and easily.   Other advantages of self-service technology include greater efficiency, more space, and more flexibility.  “For us, future terminal facilities should be fully automated and passengers would be able to go through the airport process in a simple and efficient manner using a single biometric identity token that would be valid at every airport they go through,” he continues. “This will bring the passenger experience to another level. Fluidity, speed, and simplicity have to be the essence of it.” Chris Hope, easyJet’s head at Gatwick, also insists that meeting passenger expectations was the primary motivation behind its decision to support the airport’s decision to invest ￡36 million on 48 self-service bag drop machines across a 5,000m2 area.  “The new self-service kiosks provide a glimpse into the design of future check-in halls and enable our customers flying from London Gatwick to have unique use of the most innovative state-of-the-art facilities,” he enthuses.   Unisys’ VP of transportation for North America, Terry Hartmann, agrees that IT will play a huge role in the future. He believes new passenger facilities will be radically different to the US airports of the 1960s. “They will be green; convey a sense of space; offer calm and tranquility; have unobtrusive security screening; be a fun place to go, with a variety of shops and retail offerings and quality dining; boast reception lobbies that are spacious; have self-bag drop and roving assistants; be terrorist and cyber secure; and, above all, fully support the mobile passenger experience with seamless Wi-Fi and wayfinding.” Back to front Many of the world’s leading airport architects believe that the disappearance of grandiose Departure Halls will be one of the first noticeable big changes to happen in airport design.   Ben Lao, Managing Director at Ben Lao and Associates, says: “The technology-driven transformation of the airport check-in process means that it is time to re-think the philosophy of concentrating so much on the front-end of the terminal and focus more on making concourses less confining and more inspiring places.” He suggests that future passenger facilities will have double-deck concourses and enlarged holdrooms, and also believes that space-intensive procedures and processes, such as baggage handling, might be handled in separate buildings. This would free up huge areas for other activities or simply mean that terminals can become smaller.  “Resizing the terminal lobby footprint for the outbound function and relocating the baggage sorting areas will reduce the overall passenger terminal building by as much as 20%, if not more,” he adds. “Furthermore, scanning luggage away from the terminal will heighten the safety index of those who at one point or another occupy the building.” Another architect, Stantec’s Executive Vice President, Stanis Smith, also believes that passenger terminals will contain very different facilities than they do today with more airside space needed for facilitating and entertaining passengers and less landside for processing travelers.  “Technology is enabling the processing functions within an airport terminal to be completed more efficiently using less space,” he says. “This is arguably the single biggest paradigm shift in airport design to have happened in decades and means that the era of the grand check-in hall is over.” He adds that technology will also decrease the space needs for customs and immigration processes, as automated passport readers become commonplace.   However, he doesn’t necessarily think that terminals will become smaller, instead believing that airside areas will become bigger as gateways concentrate on enhancing the post security airport experience.  “Over the past few years, many airlines have increased the number of seats on their aircraft, and have increased their load factors. Low-cost carriers in particular have reduced on-board services. All of this has put pressure on terminals to provide more space for passengers who are waiting for their flights, and has increased the need for airports to provide better and more comprehensive service offerings, particularly food, beverage, and retail,” says Smith.  “The terminal of the future will therefore celebrate the passenger experience functions first, and while it will also provide appropriate accommodation for the passenger processing functions, those will be treated as transient spaces rather than ceremonial ones.” He points to the recent relocation of the entire pre-security retail/food and beverage program in Toronto Pearson’s Terminal 3 to post security as an example of what he believes is the shape of things to come.   The introduction of virtual reality and gaming technologies are just two of the things Smith says Stantec are discussing with airports that want to create new airport experiences.   The future is now Arguably, the passenger terminal of the future is being built today at Dubai World Central–Al Maktoum International Airport (DWC). According to operator Dubai Airports, it will be developed as 12 medium-size terminals on one site rather than as one giant hub ultimately capable of accommodating 200 million passengers.   Under its blueprint, DWC will comprise 12 nodes, built across the airport’s vast 140km2 site. Each of the nodes will be equipped to handle 20 million passengers per annum and act as identical, self-contained, independent facilities, effectively creating 12 different airports.   Dubai Airports CEO, Paul Griffiths, says that this format will make DWC one of the most “customer centric” airports on the planet. Nobody will have to walk more than 400 meters to a connecting flight.  “In my view, we are heading in the wrong direction by building ever-bigger terminal buildings because bigger is not necessarily better,” says Griffiths. “It inevitably means longer walking distances, less intimate experiences, and greater difficulties for customers making connections. And, let’s face it, there’s hardly any statistic that’s more important at a connecting hub than the ability for passengers to conveniently and easily connect between flights.  “We will be creating something that is manageable, navigable, and easy to use at Dubai World Central and it is all being enabled by technology,” he adds.   With a maximum 8km distance between hubs, Griffiths says the onus will be on Dubai Airports and the airlines to ensure that inbound passengers enjoy swift and hassle-free journeys through DWC by assessing operations on a daily basis and directing flights to the best connecting nodes for the bulk of its passengers.   He adds that airports have to learn to treat every customer as an individual, and every individual differently, as no people are the same. “All travelers have different needs, and IT will prove key in helping airports achieve greater personalization,” he concludes.   Read more: https://airlines.iata.org/analysis/the-shape-of-things-to-come