No matter how well-regarded a particular airport happens to be, the slog from curb to cabin is pretty much the same wherever you go. A decades-old paradigm of lines, security screens, snack vendors and gate-waiting prevails — the only difference is the level of stress. Transiting a modern hub, such as Munich, Germany, or Seoul, is more easily endured than threading your way through the perpetual construction zones that pass for airports around New York.
However, the sky portal of the 2040s is likely to be free of such delights. Many of us will be driven to the terminal by autonomous cars; our eyes, faces and fingers will be scanned; and our bags will have a permanent ID that allows them to be whisked from our homes before we even set out. Some of these airports will no longer be relegated to the outskirts of town — they will merge with city centers, becoming new destination “cities” within a city for people without travel plans. Shall we get dinner, watch a movie, see a concert, shop? People will choose to go to the airport. Your employer might even relocate there.
These are the types of infrastructure investments and technologies that will, in theory, allow airports to largely eradicate the dreaded waiting. Travelers will migrate around the terminal faster and see fewer walls and physical barriers thanks to the abundance of sophisticated sensors, Dallas-based architecture and design firm Corgan predicts.
Illustration: Yusha
The company has assembled its concepts of how airports will evolve, based on extensive research of passenger experiences at various airports and the greater role technology might play.
One day, the airport will know “everything about everyone moving in the airport,” Ohio State University Center for Aviation Studies director Seth Young said.
The goal will be to deploy “a security infrastructure that’s constantly screening people from the door to the gate and not having this toll-booth mentality,” he said. “We know that 99.9 percent of the passengers are clean, so why are we wasting time screening all of those?”
Much of this technology is likely to be seen outside the US first, given the advanced age of most US airports and the more robust infrastructure funding available in Asia, the Middle East and Europe.
In this year’s Skytrax awards, only 14 airports in the US even made the top 100.
One can look to Singapore for a glimpse of how airports might change over the next 20 years. Singapore Changi Airport, a pioneer of the industry, recently opened a “living lab” to pursue further innovation. In March, it was named the world’s best airport for the fifth consecutive year by Skytrax.
One reason airports tend to look and function remarkably alike is that they are designed to accommodate air travel infrastructure — security, passenger ticketing, baggage, ground transport — with the primary concerns being safety and minimal overhead for their tenant airlines.
“Today it’s what you call a transient space — it’s not a space to be in, it’s a space for you to move through,” said Jonathan Massey, the aviation leader for Corgan, which has overseen the design of major terminals worldwide, including Atlanta, Dallas, Shanghai, Dalian, China and Los Angeles. “We need to evolve the terminals into being little cities.”
As part of the research, Corgan designers measured anxiety levels for different passenger types. The greatest offender among all groups was the security checkpoint, that confined space of shoe-doffing, laptop-extraction and frisky government agents barking orders.
“A lot of the stress in an airport is perceived, it’s spatial,” Corgan associate Samantha Flores said.
However, when it comes to the biggest infrastructure burden, one aspect of today’s airports stands out.
“The big, big issue is luggage,” Skanska USA national director of aviation Dwight Pullen said.
Skanska USA is a construction firm with numerous airport projects, including the renovation of New York’s infamous LaGuardia Airport.
“Think about how much infrastructure and technology and time is spent on bags. It’s a huge issue. It’s not one that has been figured out,” Pullen said.
Changi airport’s new Terminal 4, which is to open later this year, is to feature an array of “fast and seamless travel” (FAST) technologies to speed people-processing without the need for human supervision, from face-recognition software to automated bag-tagging and checking.
Two US carriers, Delta Air Lines Inc and JetBlue Airways Corp, have begun trials of biometrics data to speed your way.
JetBlue is testing facial recognition equipment in Boston to match travelers with their passports and visa photographs, while Delta just began trials of a similar system for bag drops at its Minneapolis-St Paul hub.
Delta is also trying out fingerprints as a potential replacement for boarding passes and ID and, via its mobile app, offers customers real-time maps showing their checked bags’ location.
“We’re rapidly moving toward a day when your fingerprint, iris, or face will become the only ID you’ll need for any number of transactions throughout a given day,” Delta chief operating officer Gil West said.
Amid all this increased efficiency, airports are also keen to have people linger so they will buy more stuff — and that means a continuous focus on more upscale retail options.
“The number of passengers that flow through airports really rivals any other mechanism out there that can congregate that many customers in one place,” said Ken Buchanan, executive vice president of revenue management for Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, the fourth-largest US airport by passenger numbers. “It’s like having a Super Bowl worth of people every single day.”
However, while technology helps make the airport experience more pleasant, the size of that captive audience might begin shrinking due to, well, technology.
One thing that might thin out the terminal crowds is cars. Young and others see a day when autonomous vehicles — and air taxis of the sort Uber envisions — will siphon off a chunk of shorter flights that are 800km or less. For US airports, the ascension of self-driving cars would create a costly conundrum: How to replace parking revenue, which typically represents a quarter of annual airport budgets.
To find new revenue, airport executives need to attract money in other ways, via dining, shopping and entertainment. Since that might not be enough, new business models will be needed for ground transportation and commercial office space; perhaps new revenue might accrue from baggage delivery service.
Amenities in an airport — movies, bowling, butterfly gardens and virtual-reality golf — are becoming de rigueur for many Asian and Middle Eastern hubs. Singapore’s Jewel Changi extension at Terminal 1, set to open in early 2019, is to offer a five-story garden with thousands of trees and plants, along with a 40m “rain vortex” lighted water display.
At Changi, concession revenues last year rose 5 percent to a record S$2.16 billion (US$1.6 billion), while the world’s busiest airport, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, topped US$1 billion in concession sales last year, also a record.
“Our efforts to grow Changi’s commercial business and provide an enjoyable shopping and dining experience is part and parcel of enhancing the overall airport experience for our passengers and will continue in the years to come,” the airport said in an e-mailed statement.
“No matter what, airports want to make it efficient,” Young said.
That means getting through quickly — be it arriving, departing, or transferring.
“But they love it when people are at the airport because of the opportunities to spend money,” Young said.
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