Discussion
Discuss about the Key Challenges Of Airport Management And Operation.
The essay intends to present the three major challenges that airports face or might face in the near future regarding operation and management. As the aviation industry is growing at a rapid Speed, it is necessary for the airport management authorities to address the changes and issues in the operations and management of airport (Hanaoka et al., 2013). Airports across the world are adopting expansion strategy in terms of infrastructure, are and more airlines. At the same time, governments all over the world taking initiatives to build new airports opening up more scope for the aviation industry to generate more revenue as well as contributing to the economy. While expanding the airport authorities must keep the operation management in mind in order to uplift the facilities according to the up gradation (Ryerson & Woodburn, 2014). As majority of the people involved in the aviation sector whether in terms of employees or the passengers, the authorities must assure the human safety. There are other issues and challenges concerning the management of airport which has been discussed in the essay. The study additionally gives possible solution by introducing which airport management authorities might be able to resolve discussed the issue and the challenges (Hanaoka et al., 2013). In the whole course of the discussion, the essay sheds mainly on three essential challenges that most of the airports are currently facing or have the possibilities to face in a near future.
The whole discussion is based on the current scenario of the aviation industry. The operation and management of airport has been considered as the most complex job. Previously, the aviation industry was under depression due to increased fuel price which still having an impact present days (Hanaoka, 2013). This also resulted in price increase of the tickets for which most of the passengers would avoid availing flight services. However the last ten years have witnessed massive growth marking 7% per year. There are a large number of challenges in terms of management and operation that the airports are presently facing across the globe (Adler, Ülk & Yazhemsky, 2013). However different airports faces different issues or challenges, some issues are common for the all the airports which will be discussed in the essay. Thus it has been identified that there are three major challenges which the management authorities of all airports experience. The foremost issue is related to the airport security. Along with that there are other two issues which also deserve mention are the relation between the airport and airlines and the air traffic control.
Safety
After the attack of 9/11 and several other incidents of the flight highjack, airport management authorities primarily focuses on the aspect of safety. The safety main includes the security in the airport premises and in the flights (Kirschenbaum, 2013). These above mentioned incidents of flight highjack rocked the entire aviation industry while pushing them gives immediate attention to the security aspect. It has been found that several loopholes remain in whole process of security from entering the airport terminal to boarding to the flight (Leib & Lu, 2013). There remain a huge crowd throughout the year and especially during the festive season in airport premises. Often it has been seen that due to lack of security personnel, suspicious people get entry to the airport premises (Kirschenbaum, 2013). Luggage scanning machines often do not work properly and the dubious people take advantages of the malefaction of the scanning machine. Some cases event reported, where even after detecting some suspicious things, security personnel in charge allow them (Leib & Lu, 2013). Above all, in most of the cases, few ground staffs or the management staffs join hands with the criminals in such serious nature of crimes like hijack. When such incidents occur, it is not only the passenger suffers from it but all the people related to the industry suffer. The greatest impact is o the airline companies. Most of the Airline service has a tendency to end the contract with the airports where such incidents occur (Kirschenbaum, 2013). Thus it will bright to sate that most of the airport accidents are the result of human error. In this regard the airport management authorities need to be proactive to troubleshoot the safety issues and to take measures according to the requirement. In order to avoid such incidents the management authorities need to plan strategically in order to manage the operations.
Another major issue of airport management is maintaining the relation between the airport and the airline services. Nearly all the airports are owned and the run by government or government run entities or bodies. Unlike other transport mediums, airlines companies do not private airports (D’alfonso & Nastasi, 2014). By paying a certain amount of money yearly or monthly basis as rent the airlines companies use the airport terminals for it operations. It is thus clear that the government or government run bodies generate huge revenue from the airlines services. The airlines services similarly pull large profit by operating its services in the well-known airports. Therefore it is need for both airline services and airports as they are co-related with each other in terms business (Burghouwt, 2016). In this regard, it deserve mention that most of the airlines services prefer such airports where authorities manage the operation smoothly making it hassle free for both the passengers and the staffs of the airlines services (D’alfonso & Nastasi, 2014). In most of the cases, it has been seen that the communication process between airlines services and airports management is poor (Schnell et al., 2014). As a result, the passengers suffer which bring adverse effect on the airlines services. Another major issue causes the problem in the relation between the airport and airlines are the political factor as most of the airports are under ownership of governments. Political influence is a major factor as the airlines companies need to seek permission from government before commencing its services from the concerned airports (Burghouwt, 2016). In order to maintain an effective relation with the airlines services, the airport management authorities must ensure a smooth communication between them.
Relation between airports and airlines
Traffic control has been securing g its place in the headlines over the past few years. Many accidents have been reported which have been caused by mismanagement of the traffic control (Strohmeier et al., 2014). In this regard, it needs to be mentioned that because of the huge expansion of the aviation industry, air traffic control has become a major concern for airport management authorities. The air traffic controllers face several issues while controlling the air traffic. Several incidents reported ineffectiveness of the staffs that are in charge of traffic control (Hopkin, 2017). Many serious accidents are occurred due to the inefficiency of the controllers. Some incidents even lead to the death of efficient pilots as well as passengers (Ball, 2013). In most of the cases it has been found that one second of distraction led to the death of thousands of people’s lives inclosing pilots and other crew members (Hopkin, 2017). Along with that, often problems arise while communicating with the pilots. Due to signal problem, controllers misinterpret the information conveyed by the pilots and vice versa (Schnell et al., 2014). Apart from these issues, weather plays a major role in creating challenges for the both the pilots as well as the controllers. Most of the cases of accidents which are caused by the ineffective traffic control mainly occur due to bad weather. Till date the traffic controlling system is not well equipped with the latest technology which can troubleshoot the problems of traffic control (Hopkin, 2017). Shortage of efficient staffs in the traffic control is another major issue that contributes to emerging challenges of airport management. Due to recession and lack of recruitment of the efficient staffs create a vacuum which is why the existing employees of traffic control remain overburdened with heavy workload. This in turn leads to their poor performance. Naturally, the staffs are to take more responsibility out of their assigned responsibilities and as a result, poor performance leads to serious nature of accidents (Strohmeier et al., 2014). Thus it has been seen that traffic control has been emerged as one of the major concern of the airport management and operation.
Apart from these three major challenges, there are other secondary challenges which also need immediate attention along with the major challenges. The challenges include cargo problems, privatization and most importantly environment friendly infrastructure (Hanaoka et al., 2013). Cargo problem is considered to be one of the major challenges that the airport management authorities are presently facing. It also can be a future threat to the airports if not addressed immediately. These days, government is stepping ahead towards the privatization in order reduce expense as well as the quality improvement of the services that the airport authorities offer. Finally the other major concern is regarding the management of environment friendly operations (Malvini Redden, 2013). Mostly all the airport management authorities in today’s world focus on the how to manage the aviation operations keeping the environmental aspect in mind.
Traffic control
Beside identifying the challenges and discussing them, some possible measures has been given in order to eliminate the challenges or issues which airport management authorities are currently struggling with.
In order to assure the safety issue, several programs like BASIS can be introduced as this model will be best for risk management in case of any unpleasant situation like hijack occur. The security personnel must be well trained in order to avoid negligence for the purpose of security. The security process needs to be highly strict to assure safety (Ryerson & Woodburn, 2014). While training programs can be provided to the existing security personnel, security agencies can be hired for better service. In accordance with the government rules and regulation, the security personnel strictly adhere to them.
The airport management authorities can resolve the issues concerning the challenges of the relation between the airline services and the airport by improving the communication strategies. A collaboration approach from both the end; airport authorities and the airlines companies must be implemented (Schier et al., 2016). More over both of them must join their hands in order to provide best service to the passengers. In order to improve the communication between airports and airlines companies, special communication officers appointed.
As air traffic control is one of the major challenges for the airport management authorities, the air traffic control systems must be well equipped with the modern technologies in order to avoid accidents occurred by mismanagement (Ball, 2013). As staff shortage identified earlier, more employees need to be appointed in the controlling system so that the existing staffs does not overburdened with excessive workload. The employees of the controlling system needs to be trained in order to communicate with the pilots as well troubleshoot the challenges. Technologies must be incorporated so that the air traffic controller can able to interact with the pilots in case of bad, unfavourable weather.
Conclusion
Thus it can be concluded by stating that the aviation industry growing at a rapid speed and governments all over the world taking initiatives to build new airports opening up more scope for the aviation industry to generate more revenue as well as contributing to the economy. Thus the airport management authorities must address the key challenges as well take measures accordingly. The essay identified safety, air traffic and airport-airlines connection relation as the three most challenging factors affecting the aviation industry. Along with that, several other secondary issues have also been identifies in the course of the discussion that are also attention worthy. The secondary challenging factors include cargo problems, privatization and most importantly environment friendly infrastructure. Besides mentioning the challenges, the essay also stated some possible measures by applying which the airport authority management will be able to address the three major challenges or the issues.
References
Adler, N., Ülkü, T., & Yazhemsky, E. (2013). Small regional airport sustainability: Lessons from benchmarking. Journal of Air Transport Management, 33, 22-31.
Ball, M. (2013). Air Traffic Management. In Encyclopedia of Operations Research and Management Science (pp. 25-36). Springer US.
Burghouwt, G. (2016). Airline network development in Europe and its implications for airport planning. Routledge.
D’alfonso, T., & Nastasi, A. (2014). Airport–Airline interaction: some food for thought. Transport Reviews, 34(6), 730-748.
Hanaoka, S., Indo, Y., Hirata, T., Todoroki, T., Aratani, T., & Osada, T. (2013).Lessons and challenges in airport operation during a disaster: case studies on iwate hanamaki airport, yamagata airport, and fukushima airport during the great east japan earthquake. Journal of jsce
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Hopkin, V. D. (2017). Human factors in air traffic control. CRC Press.
Kirschenbaum, A. A. (2013). The cost of airport security: The passenger dilemma. Journal of Air Transport Management, 30, 39-45.
Leib, S., & Lu, C. T. (2013). A gap analysis of airport safety using ICAO SMS perspectives: A field study of Taiwan. Journal of Aviation Technology and Engineering, 2(2), 7.
Malvini Redden, S. (2013). How Lines Organize Compulsory Interaction, Emotion Management, and “Emotional Taxes” The Implications of Passenger Emotion and Expression in Airport Security Lines. Management Communication Quarterly, 27(1), 121-149.
Ryerson, M. S., & Woodburn, A. (2014). Build airport capacity or manage flight demand? How regional planners can lead american aviation into a new frontier of demand management. Journal of the American Planning Association, 80(2), 138-152.
Schier, S., Pett, T., Mohr, O., & Yeo, S. J. (2016). Design and evaluation of user interfaces for an airport management simulation. In AIAA Modeling and Simulation Technologies Conference (p. 3519).
Schnell, M., Epple, U., Shutin, D., & Schneckenburger, N. (2014). LDACS: future aeronautical communications for air-traffic management. IEEE Communications Magazine, 52(5), 104-110.
Strohmeier, M., Scha?fer, M., Lenders, V., & Martinovic, I. (2014). Realities and challenges of nextgen air traffic management: the case of ADS-B. IEEE Communications Magazine, 52(5), 111-118.
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