“Climate change is the single greatest threat to a sustainable future but, at the same time, addressing the climate challenge presents a golden opportunity to promote prosperity, security and a brighter future for all.”
Ban Ki-Moon, Former Secretary-General of UN
Resilience is about far more than just climate change. To create future-ready airports that are flexible enough to adjust to challenges and maintain business continuity, we need to look at every aspect of airport infrastructure, operations and environmental resilience. After her presentation at ACI’s Airports Innovate 2024, Esther Kromhout, Managing Director of NACO, delved into the key themes shaping resilience in the aviation industry in this ACI World Insights interview.
What do you mean by resilience by design?
Too often, I see resilience being used as a shorthand for climate change preparation. In my view, which I know is shared by many across our industry, resilience goes far beyond this. For a truly flexible, adaptable and future-ready airport, owners and operators must go beyond extreme weather mitigation and prepare for the full spectrum of economic, environmental or sustainability challenges that could disrupt their business. Resilience must be built into every project so that airports are ready to rise to every challenge and seize every opportunity.
How should airports approach designing for resilience?
There are many forms this approach could take but here I am focusing on the three key areas which I believe are fundamental. Infrastructure resilience, operational resilience and environmental resilience. All of which must be underpinned by astute financial modelling to support business cases and investment decisions.
- Infrastructure resilience
At the heart of any airport, the hard infrastructure of runways, taxiways and terminals must be designed for future adaptability, whether that’s through a modular construction approach or through innovative ways to optimize existing assets, manage maintenance and integrate upgrades.
- Operational resilience
Business continuity and improvements in operations are vital to future resilience. Harnessing digital technology, exploring resource efficiency and robust financial modelling are essential to ensure airports fulfil their potential and are well-positioned to take on new opportunities.
- Environmental resilience
Changing expectations from airports and their customers along with the real and growing threat from extreme weather events are driving demand for long term environmental resilience. From e-flights, hydrogen and sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) to drainage and climate scenario modelling, we enable airports to develop adaptation roadmaps and mitigation strategies against climate change.
How can airports use these three pillars to assess and improve their resilience?
As regulations change, airports update their strategic ambitions and passenger expectations evolve, a unique set of circumstances is created for each airport. Link this with existing infrastructure and services, geographical circumstances and the local regulatory or planning landscape, and it’s clear that resilience planning must be embedded into every aspect of airport design.
Whilst the broad pillars of resilience I’ve mentioned do provide a useful framework, they can’t be seen in isolation. For example, environmental concerns have an impact on material usage and infrastructure design, whilst digital technology can optimize maintenance cycles, improve asset usage and support the customer experience.
Stakeholder engagement is therefore essential. By approaching projects in partnership, consultants, engineers and clients can identify opportunities, explore solutions and push boundaries together.
An example from our own recent experience was helping our long-term partner Royal Schiphol Group with the creation of a new security checkpoint. The project had to be designed and delivered in line with Schiphol’s sustainability ambitions around material circularity and in a period where rising materials costs and supply chain disruption were creating significant challenges for construction projects in all sectors.
Using our foundational knowledge of Schiphol’s commitment to sustainability and through further exploration of these ambitions, we brought forward a design which used waste material from an obsolete building. Working together to align Schiphol’s sustainability ambitions with the latest in engineering solutions resulted in a resilient new building that not only met operational needs but was a step change in circular material use and energy-neutral design.
Can airports harness data to improve resilience?
Naturally, getting the hard infrastructure right is a big aspect of resilience preparation, but even once those engineering elements are in place, airports can still adopt new technologies and integrate new systems to improve operations and meet changing demands. New digital tools and new ways of capturing and exploiting the data can have a significant impact on airport operations, financial planning, efficiency and business continuity.
The rate of technological development is impressive, resulting in the proliferation of digital tools and software being offered to airports. Again here, taking a holistic approach to resilience and really examining what an airport needs to address is key to finding the ideal digital solutions. Clients are embracing this for instance in the use of flood simulation and circle tools that help assess and address vulnerabilities at Kansai airport after Typhoon Jebi. The Runway Condition Reporting (RCR) tool is being commissioned at multiple airports to automatically assess runway conditions during changing weather conditions, provide timely decision support and help airports react appropriately and minimize runway downtime.
What are you final thoughts on building a resilient future for airports?
A resilient airport must be prepared to cope with the unexpected. Lessons must be taken from major events such as COVID-19 and a long-term view of climate change, financial planning, current and forecast changes to regulatory compliance and passenger expectation is essential. Airports must harness all the tools at their disposal to help them prepare. As an industry we must begin by approaching every project with the intention of embedding long-term resilience, only then can we ensure our airports are truly future-ready.
This is sponsored content. Sponsored content is provided by third parties including airports, members of ACI, World Business Partners, and others. The views expressed and/or presented by these third parties through sponsored content are their own and may not represent or reflect the views of ACI, its management, Board, or members. Readers should not act on the basis of any information contained in the blog without referring to applicable laws and regulations and/or without appropriate professional advice.
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