Aviation Support Group director Stuart Matheson talks to AGS about the growing problem of airport congestion
UK-based Aviation Support Group (ASG) provides bespoke management support to the aviation industry, among others, in a number of areas such as strategy, planning and delivery, assessment and training, and auditing.
An International Air Transport Association (IATA) preferred partner, the company works with airlines, airports, third party suppliers and governments around the world. As such, its director Stuart Matheson is well placed to reflect on how congestion is putting more and more pressure on airports, their customers and suppliers.
What is causing airport congestion to increase – is the problem simply due to more passengers, or are there other factors?
According to the most recent figures from IATA (for August), by any measure we’re seeing growth year on year. Whether you look at revenue per kilometre or physical passenger growth, or at capacity growth, they’re all up by 6 to 8% – even higher in some cases.
Cargo is up 12.1%; demand is actually higher than capacity. That’s not just because of big consignments. I have a background at UPS, where I used to see lots of mail order shipments. In today’s global market, there’s lots of little stuff and that’s going up and up. In the old days, you’d see a big 747 parked by a cargo shed and it would get filled up and fly off. Now, freight is being decanted onto passenger jets.
With the low-cost carriers, for instance, fewer passengers are checking bags into the hold so there is space in the belly and the airlines are taking cargo to fill it.
So, you already have a short timeframe for turning passenger aircraft around, and now you also have to load fish from Iceland, or whatever it might be. Plus, we have that year-on-year capacity growth with more aircraft as well as larger aircraft; plus, the airlines want stand parking so airports are investing in passenger boarding bridges (which are the most likely of all airside equipment to damage aircraft…).
All this contrives to make aprons busier, with more ‘stuff’ to do in a short time and a restricted space. Also, everyone talks about new runways to ease congestion, but the service areas and ramps etc don’t tend to get extended.
The question is often, where do you expand to? Many airports are constricted by their neighbours. For somewhere like Heathrow the question is always going to be how you travel to it because the airport terminal is in the middle with runways all around it. This worked well when it was first built but any expansion is twice the cost, because you have to create a tunnel to get to Terminal 4, for instance.
At Toronto, which is the third-largest airport in Canada and I think the fifth-largest in North America, they’ve built more stands. If you look at the UK, at Birmingham, Heathrow and Gatwick, they’ve got multi-role stands that can take a widebody or two narrowbodies. So they’re forcing aircraft in – but then, you end up with less space to clean aircraft or to park GSE and so on while you service the planes.
What do you think is driving the industry to take practical steps to deal with the problem?
The figures show that 82% of all damage to aircraft occurs while they are on the ground. It is very expensive for aircraft to be grounded, firstly because there is more chance of them being damaged there than in the air and secondly because of course they are not earning any money for the airline.
This is driving everyone to look at ways to improve operations. Airports are thinking about their reputation and on-time performance, airlines are looking at cost, and handlers are always trying to find better ways of doing things. We are seeing more collaboration; one example is equipment pooling, placing equipment permanently on stands so that it’s not moving around a lot and to reduce duplication of equipment. This means there is less GSE on the ramp.
The aircraft manufacturers are doing a manful job, installing winglets and reducing fuel burn for instance (18% of aircraft now fly with biofuel). But there are unintended consequences. With winglets, the wing of an aircraft is now two to three feet longer and it has something hanging down or pointing up – so there is more chance of it being hit in a restricted area and the handlers have more to think about.
The problem is that we can’t stop and think about things because of that 8% year-on-year growth! We need to find the best solution as an industry (although that might not necessarily be the ideal solution for everyone), whether that’s through master planning or collaboration. As our skies get busier, it’s not just about getting a slot: it’s about hitting your slot on time.
Another issue is something that came up at IGHC a few months ago: North American handlers are reporting 120 to 160% staff turnover. So you have lots of people fresh from the classroom on the ramp; they are in fact less likely to make mistakes because they are doing things right, but the people who were mentoring them often don’t have much experience. They’re not used to the environment they are working in.
Presumably it’s mature markets like North America where we find the highest levels of airport congestion?
There are a lot of congested airports in North America, yes; historically, the terminals over there have been owned by airlines and managed by real estate companies (the airport authorities), so lots of terminals have been built. You can understand it: they are a capital asset.
But there’s also a lot of congestion in Europe, and the Indian subcontinent is becoming the same, as is Bangkok. Brazil has the highest-growing domestic aviation market – that’s a lot to do with the growing middle class but also the Olympics [held in Rio in 2016] have had an effect.
Overall hubs are moving eastward and the people who are building new airports are learning from our mistakes. For instance, just recently, Turkey announced that Ataturk airport is to be expanded even more. That investment is happening because they can see what will happen in eight or nine years’ time. Also, it’s worth remembering that Ataturk airport is government-owned, so it’s quicker to get things approved and done.
Talking about those Far East markets, China is one country that has been building a lot of new airports. Any thoughts on that?
Well again, like Turkey, it’s a directly government-sponsored environment. Also, China has been able to attract the very best people from Europe and the US to help in designing new airports. This is because things take 15 to 20 years to come to fruition in the West, whereas they could happen in five years in China, so that’s really where the immediate work is. New airports are being constructed quickly in China because (a) they want to do it and (b) they have the available knowledge and assets to do it.
Hubs are generally moving further East, as I said before. Within that 6 to 7% growth, Latin America is growing massively and the next one is Asia Pacific. The Middle East has reached its capacity for the moment. So we are seeing a move to China and the Far East, where governments are more directly invested and where (although we are talking about populous countries) there is an awful lot of land available.
So how do you see things panning out in the future?
I think there is more understanding now of the requirement to work together. People are realising that it might be someone else’s remit to look after a particular part of the business, but it affects them too so they should do something about it as well.
Handlers need space to work and airlines need to land and not be held on the centre line while they wait for a stand to be ready. IATA is working more with airports, including large international ones that are constrained by real estate issues. More people are pooling equipment now.
Technology is a massive help, for example in immigration: it’s easier to move around because passports can be scanned and we’ve moved to a ticketless model. This means you can reduce the size of the immigration hall and use that space in other ways.
Looking at the outbound side, technology means we can have fewer check-in desks as people check themselves in at home and just need to use the bag drop facilities at the airport. Qantas over in Australia have grasped the self-check-in idea right down to having passengers drop their own bags as well. Westjet at one terminal over there has 5% normal check-in desks and the rest are all bag drop. We’ve seen the benefits of this approach at Heathrow too; it gets passengers through much quicker.
However we still need people to load and unload the aircraft – that part of the process isn’t going to change.
Should it really all be down to the airports, or do we need a collaborative approach to cope with congestion?
The industry is guilty of being fragmented; however, from a ground handling perspective, it’s become a lot less fragmented. Over the last 15 years or so, the smaller airlines and the tendency for self-handling have changed. With big international companies comes the opportunity for more centrally steered policy: it can be easier to talk and make things happen. But there’s still the issue of cost and who should pay for those changes.
Airports’ capital expenditure is covered by landing fees and terminal service fees, which are reinvested. Certainly in the UK this is all regulated and airports have to say how they intend to spend that money.
Costs could be lowered by using technology; for example, getting passengers through security faster, or reducing the size of terminals.
In the end you can build as many runways as you like but you have to work together to sort out what happens on the ground.
IATA is very keen to see airlines, airports and all other stakeholders working together on these issues of safety and staff retention. You can make things work in a restricted area and ASG is helping airports to do this; we will be working with a couple more over the Winter.
