January 26, 2023 • 22 mins
As airport operators contemplate modernization and development of major programs, they face the challenge of improving the experience for travelers. How can airports create an environment that enhances travel for passengers, while still meeting their core needs? In this expert roundtable discussion led by transportation industry leader Rick Pilgrim, three of HDR’s top aviation minds sit down to discuss practical solutions already being deployed and the global trends that will transform air travel in the near future.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
What gets me excited about aviation is we're
now moving into a place where we recognize
that customers are our core business. And so
we're developing solutions
that are designed
to solve problems for our customers, to deliver
that exceptional
experience and to transform travel.
I'm John Torrick, and I'm Danny Sullivan. And
(00:22):
you're listening to Speaking of Design,
bringing you the stories of the engineers and
architects who are transforming
the world one project at a time. Picture
the last time you landed after a long
day of air travel. You're ready to get
to your hotel,
but first you have to wait to deplane,
take the long walk through an unfamiliar airport,
locate the baggage claim as well as your
(00:44):
bags, and then find your ride. It's not
exactly anyone's favorite part of the journey.
Now imagine the relief of starting that vacation
or business trip after a smooth journey without
major delays, difficulty knowing where to go, confusion,
or surprises.
Everything happened
just the way it's supposed to. Today, we
(01:04):
have a different type of episode for you
featuring a conversation with three aviation experts
with a passion for improving the airport passenger
experience.
This roundtable discussion is moderated by Rick Pilgrim.
Rick is a principal transportation consultant at HDR
and an industry leader for decades.
Rick served at some of the highest levels
(01:25):
of transportation organizations
and is the former mayor of Beaumont, Colorado.
Rick will be speaking with Bill Peduzzi,
aviation director and civil engineer,
with more than thirty years of experience advising
airports on design and improvements.
Esther Chitsinde,
a senior environmental planner who worked for a
decade at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport. She
(01:48):
now applies that experience
to help airports develop streamlined NEPA processes,
transform travel, and develop both responsibly
and sustainably.
And finally, Robert Fotanu, aviation lead in Canada.
Robert uses his decades of experience on terminal
projects from Abu Dhabi to Singapore
to understand and anticipate trends in the global
(02:11):
aviation industry.
And now, their conversation with Rick Pilgrim.
Today, we're gonna talk about aviation and the
process here,
for designing for passenger optimization.
We all know that air travel is changing,
and there are big changes on the horizon.
So we've got three subject matter experts with
us today to talk about the ways that
(02:33):
we are approaching
design from a pragmatic and a rational standpoint.
That often, there are some great ideas about
providing iconic
architecture,
designs that really reflect what a community or
a city is expressing and improving the passenger
experience.
(02:53):
Bill, on a broad level, what are some
of the biggest challenges
that airport operators are facing? Certainly, across the
the world, there are a number of capacity
constraints,
growth constraints.
But the item in the area, the dynamic
that I've noticed has become a particular challenge
for our aviation clients is the expectation
(03:14):
that technology has created in the passengers' lives.
And so if you think about your daily
life where you're not flying and all the
things you can do off of your smartphone
where you can order the most obscure
item, pay for it with click of a
button or a swipe,
and the next day it shows up at
your house. And you don't see all that
logistical
(03:35):
brilliance that goes on behind there, almost a
miracle in this
environment. But at the same time, we expect
everything to work that way seamlessly. Well, that's
a massive challenge when it comes to processing
people through an airport facility, and sometimes that
can lead to frustrations. And I think that
it's very hard for our industry
to
match the pace of progress
(03:56):
where, you know, the newest app and the
newest
technology and and advancement can get us to
a place where it's seamless to the user.
We've gotta put up construction barriers and cones
and divert and slow things down at times
to make improvements. They don't all just happen
when your app updates while you're sleeping. Esther,
you had the opportunity to work for DFW,
(04:16):
One of the busiest airports in the world,
actually. And maybe you could share some of
the issues that airport or airports of that
size are dealing with. Yeah. To Bill's point,
changing customer and employee
expectations
are
really a challenge for airports in addition to
the challenges presented by climate change, aging infrastructure,
(04:38):
and the need to deliver safe and efficient
operations.
So when you think of changing
customer experience, think of things like delayed flights,
delayed or lost luggage.
Those cause a lot of uncertainty for customers,
and different airports across the world have gone
through this process of developing customer journey maps
(04:59):
to identify customer core needs
and
what happens when those core needs are not
met. I had not heard the term customer
core needs before, but you're, right on with
that because the customer is the person that
is in a different environment than what they
see on a daily basis. And these core
needs include things like time, so wait times,
(05:21):
congestion,
access to early backdrop,
touchless journey throughout the airport. Things like control.
Controls a core need because a
customer wants to be able to use, like
Bill said, an app to understand how do
they map out their journey within the airport
environment and how do they make it as
comfortable and as efficient,
(05:42):
as easy as possible for themselves. If you
look at DFW
recently, they deployed an innovative
artificial intelligence
assistance within the terminal so that those people
that don't want to interact with a human
being, which is something that research during COVID
showed that people were now concerned about those
direct interactions, but they still need help. They
(06:04):
still need something that provides that support.
So leveraging that technology to start delivering
and supporting these core needs
is very imperative to success of of an
airport. So things like knowledge, airport awareness,
things like visibility and understanding where they are.
So providing wayfinding support, especially
(06:25):
within an app that a customer can control,
as well as finding ways to reduce stress
levels. So things like an airport that allows
me to order food on my way to
the airport such that I can pick it
up or it's delivered at the gate. That's
giving me options. That's giving me flexibility
that is meeting my expectations as a customer.
(06:46):
That's quite a perspective, Esther. So helping them
to navigate
what can be at times a very large
and unfamiliar
location
with people traveling so frequently
and doing that around the globe. So, Robert,
what have you seen as far as challenges
and serving the core needs of the customer?
(07:06):
So I I would like to pick up
on Esther about the passengers and the their
behavior. So we we have to understand that
there are different types of passenger, and they
all have different priorities and expectation.
Business passenger versus low cost passenger versus charter,
you know, vacation, family travel, they all want
something else in our airport.
As Esther said, the most common issue is
(07:26):
related to the long queues and wait time
faced by passenger with secondary issues being retail
offering and dwell area amenities.
But why we are having these problems? The
biggest challenge is the increasing demand. The focus
is that air traffic will double in the
next twenty five years while the infrastructure cannot
keep up with such a growth rate.
The biggest challenge and constraint for our aviation
(07:48):
system in the years to come will be
related to terminal buildings and passenger processing
areas.
That's fascinating. Twenty five years.
But many times, the queuing space and throughput
for processing facilities are sized for certain demand
and level of service standard based on the
planning they fly schedules.
So we cannot design for Thanksgiving
(08:09):
or for Christmas days or, you know, March
breaks and so on. So we know that
the best we can get will accommodate ninety
fifth of the percent of the demand. So
the required capacity sometime
has to look at it in what we
call capacity demand analysis of advanced passenger flow
simulation to understand
how to integrate all processor from curb
(08:32):
to the gate and back.
Any disruption in an upstream process will greatly
affect the all the downstream facilities.
Similarly, improvements in a certain area of the
airport may negatively impact facilities elsewhere unless the
entire system is resized.
So capacity demand analysis is a critical
we built at HDR simulation models to allow
(08:53):
us what if scenarios to evaluate the impact
of technology, changes in legislation,
or changes in passenger behavior.
All these elements will determine the moment when
the facility upgrades are required,
and we can visualize performance of the future
facility while under design.
At the end of the day, what's the
biggest asset of an airport? It's the runway.
(09:14):
It's the only element that allows an airport
to exist, to have planes taking off and
landing.
After that, all the other boxes that are
terminals, logistics subs,
everything else can be rearranged, reorganized, and so
on as long as we have the runway
system in place and can deal with the
peak demand.
What you said is that the airfield
has the capacity
(09:35):
to get us twenty five years ahead,
but the terminals and and the boxes,
that's the real challenge. Robert, let's stay with
you. And can you tell us a little
bit about the capacity demand analysis that you've
mentioned
and how that maximizes
the terminal resources? Yeah. So the capacity demand
analysis,
(09:56):
fundamentally
starts from where we are right now. What's
the forecast for the future, and how we're
gonna deal with that forecast? So the part
of my job that what I really love
about my job is that I I live
in the future. I'm always twenty five, thirty
years in advance to to the current times.
And, obviously, the future,
as everybody knows, forecast is always wrong. So
(10:17):
the future is always with a certain
interval of errors, standard deviation.
So we try to develop the moderate, the
most probable, and the highest
demand levels.
We look at what happens in the status
quo, and then we build simulation models,
and we determine things like how the future
(10:37):
will build. That leads me to the question
of how do you develop a vision for
airport improvements?
Bill, you've just been finishing the work for
the new Pittsburgh Terminal,
which was a wholesale change of that airport.
How do we work with a city or
a governing agency
in an airport to help them with their
(10:59):
aesthetic vision? We've talked about passenger expectations,
and why doesn't my airport work like my
app, essentially. Right? Our incredibly talented architecture teams
talk about empathetic design, and that's really what
it is. It's having empathy for the passenger
and thinking about they're not just a simulation
dot on a computer program. Right? These are
(11:19):
families. These are people that that may be
rushing to get to where they need to
be that have anxiety.
The passenger experience part is where I think
there's some real fertile ground. And Esther and
Robert talked about technological applications
to help with that, and I think that's
always gonna be at the core
of how we address those challenges. On the
experience side, a lot of it can be
little things. And what this comes down to,
(11:42):
for example,
curb experience, even at airport terminals that are
generally regarded as the better ones, can sometimes
be a pretty tough experience. They're loud. Sometimes
they're dark. They're crowded.
There's a lot of vehicles moving with people
that aren't unfamiliar at times with where they
need to go, and that's not always a
great mix. We believe that you can the
passenger experience really starts on the roadway, on
(12:05):
the way in to the airport. So that's
one of those things where I think that
we can make a big difference. Quick example.
We're working with some clients right now on
some new terminal programs where we're developing some
seating
on the arrivals curve level. You've got people
that have just picked up their bags, perhaps
have had a long day, a long flight,
maybe a long couple of days, and they
just wanna wait to get picked up. Well,
(12:26):
in most places, where there is seating, it's
kind of an afterthought. It's stuck in a
way that is out of the way. One
of the things we've been able to do
is integrate furniture
into the bollards that that protect the facility
from the vehicles. And so by doing that
and creating that structure, you're now putting the
seating in a prominent location, so it's much
easier for people that are picking up to
(12:47):
find their rides. That's very interesting, Bill. I'm
gonna look for seating at the arrival level.
And then the second thing is if you
think about it, when you're sitting there, when
there is furniture on a curb, it typically
is facing straight out from the building while
all the traffic is coming from the left.
So why not orient that to the left
and just make that one little change
(13:07):
for waiting passengers who might have a bit
of anxiety about the curb and everything else
and take that away from them. And it's
something you probably wouldn't even notice, but now
they're facing a little bit oriented towards the
traffic coming, much easier to see, much more
visible to the people picking them up, and
really no difference in cost. But, again, more
of that user experience where they don't even
(13:27):
realize that, hey. That was easy, or that
was a little bit less stressful than it
normally would be. Esther, could I ask you
to revisit DFW again? The airport has been
going through quite a renovation or remodeling over
the last five years. What are your observations
about how the airport approaches
setting a vision? I wanted to add to
Bill's ones
(13:47):
because I just thought about the importance of
light
lighting, intentionality, and empathetic design. And at DFW,
we actually had a great example where we're
leveraging
technology
to improve comfort, reduce stress for the passenger.
And what we did was
we deployed dynamic glass, which is electrochromatic
glass that auto tints, reduces the amount of
(14:09):
lighting entering a building, and also reduces the
heat loading into the building. And we noticed
that customers were more comfortable
and light sitting in those areas.
But a co benefit that was exciting was
we also noticed that the concession years in
those areas
started getting higher sales. So their sales increased
by a 1%.
(14:30):
So that intentionality
not only improves the customer experience, but has
a direct business
correlation and business benefit for an airport. So
at DFW, they ended up deciding to invest
in dynamic glass for all the terminals
and program that into the renovation and rehabilitation
(14:50):
programs as well as new buildings.
So now back to your other question with
regards to the importance of aid
and vision.
At DFW,
when that vision was being developed, it was
developed from a perspective
of wanting to transform travel.
So prioritizing
customer experience and delivering
exceptional experience,
(15:12):
leveraging innovation,
sustainability,
and leveraging technology to improve efficiency, be it
on the land side or air side, reduce
operating cost,
future proof assets, and build resilience.
And so
what we noticed that that vision was imperative
because it created a shared mental picture for
the future
(15:32):
that we as an airport desired.
It was that unifying, inspiring, and creative
vision that created infectious energy and enthusiasm
within
the airport employees, the consulting partners, and all
the other business partners that are participating. And
then it also served as this guiding light
and something that was being used to
(15:52):
inform strategic decisions. A very comprehensive
vision plan and and then converting that into
implementation.
And so, Robert, when you have been working
with different airports and especially some of the
newer ones that are coming online in, as
you mentioned, The Middle East or across the
globe, what's the dynamic that you see that's
most important? So we we are talking generally
(16:16):
about the fact that there is no integrated
experience in aviation for passenger from origin to
destination.
Each element has different standards and expectation.
Transfer to and from airport, you know, outside
land side experience is separate from the what's
happening in the airport, on the ground experience,
and definitely different than what's happening in the
(16:38):
air as an experience. Even inside the airport,
this area related to passenger flow has different
level of service standard, and they are controlled
by different stakeholders.
Checking an aircraft boarding experience is airline domain.
Security and immigration is government.
Retail concession, dwelling area, baggage system, and others
are under airport
(16:59):
influence. So all these stakeholders have to come
to the table and try the common ground.
However, they have different priorities,
legislation, and objectives. And I've heard you often
say that airports are like small cities. They
require
everything that engineers and architects can offer. The
overarching connector is passenger experience, and that is
(17:19):
different
defined by all those stakeholders.
And, yeah, we have the new development in
technology and digitalization
combined with data sharing between stakeholders that start
to create clear benefit and opportunities
for collaboration between them. So there are many,
many, many aspect. But I try to understand
for the fact that airports will become more
crowded.
(17:39):
And one way to improve passenger satisfaction is
to create an aesthetically attractive environment for dwelling
areas. If terminal must stay within the existing
footprint, we can expect more vertical development inside
the building. So it is particularly important for
hub airports where the most people remain in
the airport
to capture somehow the city,
(18:00):
what the city has to offer
on the local style. So sometimes we can
see the city coming inside the airport so
they cater to these transit passengers that in
return, hopefully, one day will come to actually
visit the city and that they will be
really attractive from a tourist perspective.
We have to change the concept.
Airport should be a destination
(18:20):
rather than a processor.
I've seen this while working on Changi in
Singapore
where they build things like the Jewel or
so on, some real malls, something to attract
passenger,
not only passenger, local communities to come to
the front of the airport
and enjoy being close to the airport. It's
amazing to be in a hotel or some
(18:41):
kind of commercial
venue close to an airport and watch those
planes
taking off and landing. And people around the
world love airplanes. That's the bottom line, and
they love traveling. Thanks, Robert. That is an
important function of an airport is to give
a sense of where am I. And even
if I'm not gonna go out into the
city, it's important to be able to convey
(19:01):
what that city is all about. I also
think that over the next twenty five, thirty
years, we're gonna see a lot of that
integration
of the airport more than just as a
destination, not a processor.
Esther, what comments do you have about the
future? I truly enjoyed hearing Robert share those
insights, and it made me think of something
that we used to talk about, especially during
(19:22):
the early days of the pandemic when we
realized that airports are mission critical facilities,
not just a place that things pass through,
but they're critical to the economies.
For example, DFW Airport is responsible for about
37,000,000,000
of the North Texas economy. That is huge.
Dallas Love Field contributes about maybe $5,000,000,000
(19:44):
to the North Texas economy. That's a lot
of money being contributed by our airports. And
in terms of the mission criticality,
we have to find ways to, as I
said earlier,
design for flexibility,
adapt policies, and adopt policies that are favorable
to transformative
capital programs.
Considering the need for
(20:06):
new infrastructure and future proofing and addressing aging
infrastructure,
we also have to leverage
digital technology. So things like digital twins that
allow us to run what if scenarios and
understand
what happens if we try
to implement different solutions.
Can we run those
potential solutions in a digital replica that
(20:28):
incorporates our physical operations and our dynamic operations?
So live and historic data, can we integrate
those things so that we gain situational awareness
and start making decisions within the virtual environment?
Understand the implications
for the airport ecosystem, understanding
what a decision on the ground does to
(20:48):
the airspace, what a decision on the ground
does to the passengers,
what a decision on the ground does to
the surrounding communities,
and then
developing
machine learning and
artificial intelligence algorithms
that can help us
predict
based on historic data and then eventually prescribe
solutions. And in twenty five years, we need
(21:11):
to have an airport
that, like Robert said, is a destination, but
it also operates as a multimodal system
that has even more
complexity to it. If we can evaluate those
solutions in a virtual environment, then we can
get to understand what the implications are and
what things to toggle so that we can
get the best customer experience from whatever solution
(21:34):
we're trying to implement. To conclude with your
comments just now about the different technological
solutions
and
wrapping that up into a digital technology
decision making process,
I think that is a key part of
our future.
I'd like to thank you all for your
terrific conversation today and the different perspectives.
(21:57):
I've learned
an immense amount, and I have a much
broader appreciation for the true understanding that each
of you have about what our clients and
and airport customers
are looking for in the future.
For more information on this podcast, visit hdrinc.com/speakingofdesign.
(22:19):
You'll find links to pictures, articles, and more
information.
If you like what you heard, be sure
to rate us or leave feedback on iTunes,
Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.
What gets me excited about aviation is we're
now moving into a place where we recognize
that customers are our core business. And so
we're developing solutions
that are designed
to solve problems for our customers, to deliver
that exceptional
experience and to transform travel.
I'm John Torrick, and I'm Danny Sullivan. And
(00:22):
you're listening to Speaking of Design,
bringing you the stories of the engineers and
architects who are transforming
the world one project at a time. Picture
the last time you landed after a long
day of air travel. You're ready to get
to your hotel,
but first you have to wait to deplane,
take the long walk through an unfamiliar airport,
locate the baggage claim as well as your
(00:44):
bags, and then find your ride. It's not
exactly anyone's favorite part of the journey.
Now imagine the relief of starting that vacation
or business trip after a smooth journey without
major delays, difficulty knowing where to go, confusion,
or surprises.
Everything happened
just the way it's supposed to. Today, we
(01:04):
have a different type of episode for you
featuring a conversation with three aviation experts
with a passion for improving the airport passenger
experience.
This roundtable discussion is moderated by Rick Pilgrim.
Rick is a principal transportation consultant at HDR
and an industry leader for decades.
Rick served at some of the highest levels
(01:25):
of transportation organizations
and is the former mayor of Beaumont, Colorado.
Rick will be speaking with Bill Peduzzi,
aviation director and civil engineer,
with more than thirty years of experience advising
airports on design and improvements.
Esther Chitsinde,
a senior environmental planner who worked for a
decade at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport. She
(01:48):
now applies that experience
to help airports develop streamlined NEPA processes,
transform travel, and develop both responsibly
and sustainably.
And finally, Robert Fotanu, aviation lead in Canada.
Robert uses his decades of experience on terminal
projects from Abu Dhabi to Singapore
to understand and anticipate trends in the global
(02:11):
aviation industry.
And now, their conversation with Rick Pilgrim.
Today, we're gonna talk about aviation and the
process here,
for designing for passenger optimization.
We all know that air travel is changing,
and there are big changes on the horizon.
So we've got three subject matter experts with
us today to talk about the ways that
(02:33):
we are approaching
design from a pragmatic and a rational standpoint.
That often, there are some great ideas about
providing iconic
architecture,
designs that really reflect what a community or
a city is expressing and improving the passenger
experience.
(02:53):
Bill, on a broad level, what are some
of the biggest challenges
that airport operators are facing? Certainly, across the
the world, there are a number of capacity
constraints,
growth constraints.
But the item in the area, the dynamic
that I've noticed has become a particular challenge
for our aviation clients is the expectation
(03:14):
that technology has created in the passengers' lives.
And so if you think about your daily
life where you're not flying and all the
things you can do off of your smartphone
where you can order the most obscure
item, pay for it with click of a
button or a swipe,
and the next day it shows up at
your house. And you don't see all that
logistical
(03:35):
brilliance that goes on behind there, almost a
miracle in this
environment. But at the same time, we expect
everything to work that way seamlessly. Well, that's
a massive challenge when it comes to processing
people through an airport facility, and sometimes that
can lead to frustrations. And I think that
it's very hard for our industry
to
match the pace of progress
(03:56):
where, you know, the newest app and the
newest
technology and and advancement can get us to
a place where it's seamless to the user.
We've gotta put up construction barriers and cones
and divert and slow things down at times
to make improvements. They don't all just happen
when your app updates while you're sleeping. Esther,
you had the opportunity to work for DFW,
(04:16):
One of the busiest airports in the world,
actually. And maybe you could share some of
the issues that airport or airports of that
size are dealing with. Yeah. To Bill's point,
changing customer and employee
expectations
are
really a challenge for airports in addition to
the challenges presented by climate change, aging infrastructure,
(04:38):
and the need to deliver safe and efficient
operations.
So when you think of changing
customer experience, think of things like delayed flights,
delayed or lost luggage.
Those cause a lot of uncertainty for customers,
and different airports across the world have gone
through this process of developing customer journey maps
(04:59):
to identify customer core needs
and
what happens when those core needs are not
met. I had not heard the term customer
core needs before, but you're, right on with
that because the customer is the person that
is in a different environment than what they
see on a daily basis. And these core
needs include things like time, so wait times,
(05:21):
congestion,
access to early backdrop,
touchless journey throughout the airport. Things like control.
Controls a core need because a
customer wants to be able to use, like
Bill said, an app to understand how do
they map out their journey within the airport
environment and how do they make it as
comfortable and as efficient,
(05:42):
as easy as possible for themselves. If you
look at DFW
recently, they deployed an innovative
artificial intelligence
assistance within the terminal so that those people
that don't want to interact with a human
being, which is something that research during COVID
showed that people were now concerned about those
direct interactions, but they still need help. They
(06:04):
still need something that provides that support.
So leveraging that technology to start delivering
and supporting these core needs
is very imperative to success of of an
airport. So things like knowledge, airport awareness,
things like visibility and understanding where they are.
So providing wayfinding support, especially
(06:25):
within an app that a customer can control,
as well as finding ways to reduce stress
levels. So things like an airport that allows
me to order food on my way to
the airport such that I can pick it
up or it's delivered at the gate. That's
giving me options. That's giving me flexibility
that is meeting my expectations as a customer.
(06:46):
That's quite a perspective, Esther. So helping them
to navigate
what can be at times a very large
and unfamiliar
location
with people traveling so frequently
and doing that around the globe. So, Robert,
what have you seen as far as challenges
and serving the core needs of the customer?
(07:06):
So I I would like to pick up
on Esther about the passengers and the their
behavior. So we we have to understand that
there are different types of passenger, and they
all have different priorities and expectation.
Business passenger versus low cost passenger versus charter,
you know, vacation, family travel, they all want
something else in our airport.
As Esther said, the most common issue is
(07:26):
related to the long queues and wait time
faced by passenger with secondary issues being retail
offering and dwell area amenities.
But why we are having these problems? The
biggest challenge is the increasing demand. The focus
is that air traffic will double in the
next twenty five years while the infrastructure cannot
keep up with such a growth rate.
The biggest challenge and constraint for our aviation
(07:48):
system in the years to come will be
related to terminal buildings and passenger processing
areas.
That's fascinating. Twenty five years.
But many times, the queuing space and throughput
for processing facilities are sized for certain demand
and level of service standard based on the
planning they fly schedules.
So we cannot design for Thanksgiving
(08:09):
or for Christmas days or, you know, March
breaks and so on. So we know that
the best we can get will accommodate ninety
fifth of the percent of the demand. So
the required capacity sometime
has to look at it in what we
call capacity demand analysis of advanced passenger flow
simulation to understand
how to integrate all processor from curb
(08:32):
to the gate and back.
Any disruption in an upstream process will greatly
affect the all the downstream facilities.
Similarly, improvements in a certain area of the
airport may negatively impact facilities elsewhere unless the
entire system is resized.
So capacity demand analysis is a critical
we built at HDR simulation models to allow
(08:53):
us what if scenarios to evaluate the impact
of technology, changes in legislation,
or changes in passenger behavior.
All these elements will determine the moment when
the facility upgrades are required,
and we can visualize performance of the future
facility while under design.
At the end of the day, what's the
biggest asset of an airport? It's the runway.
(09:14):
It's the only element that allows an airport
to exist, to have planes taking off and
landing.
After that, all the other boxes that are
terminals, logistics subs,
everything else can be rearranged, reorganized, and so
on as long as we have the runway
system in place and can deal with the
peak demand.
What you said is that the airfield
has the capacity
(09:35):
to get us twenty five years ahead,
but the terminals and and the boxes,
that's the real challenge. Robert, let's stay with
you. And can you tell us a little
bit about the capacity demand analysis that you've
mentioned
and how that maximizes
the terminal resources? Yeah. So the capacity demand
analysis,
(09:56):
fundamentally
starts from where we are right now. What's
the forecast for the future, and how we're
gonna deal with that forecast? So the part
of my job that what I really love
about my job is that I I live
in the future. I'm always twenty five, thirty
years in advance to to the current times.
And, obviously, the future,
as everybody knows, forecast is always wrong. So
(10:17):
the future is always with a certain
interval of errors, standard deviation.
So we try to develop the moderate, the
most probable, and the highest
demand levels.
We look at what happens in the status
quo, and then we build simulation models,
and we determine things like how the future
(10:37):
will build. That leads me to the question
of how do you develop a vision for
airport improvements?
Bill, you've just been finishing the work for
the new Pittsburgh Terminal,
which was a wholesale change of that airport.
How do we work with a city or
a governing agency
in an airport to help them with their
(10:59):
aesthetic vision? We've talked about passenger expectations,
and why doesn't my airport work like my
app, essentially. Right? Our incredibly talented architecture teams
talk about empathetic design, and that's really what
it is. It's having empathy for the passenger
and thinking about they're not just a simulation
dot on a computer program. Right? These are
(11:19):
families. These are people that that may be
rushing to get to where they need to
be that have anxiety.
The passenger experience part is where I think
there's some real fertile ground. And Esther and
Robert talked about technological applications
to help with that, and I think that's
always gonna be at the core
of how we address those challenges. On the
experience side, a lot of it can be
little things. And what this comes down to,
(11:42):
for example,
curb experience, even at airport terminals that are
generally regarded as the better ones, can sometimes
be a pretty tough experience. They're loud. Sometimes
they're dark. They're crowded.
There's a lot of vehicles moving with people
that aren't unfamiliar at times with where they
need to go, and that's not always a
great mix. We believe that you can the
passenger experience really starts on the roadway, on
(12:05):
the way in to the airport. So that's
one of those things where I think that
we can make a big difference. Quick example.
We're working with some clients right now on
some new terminal programs where we're developing some
seating
on the arrivals curve level. You've got people
that have just picked up their bags, perhaps
have had a long day, a long flight,
maybe a long couple of days, and they
just wanna wait to get picked up. Well,
(12:26):
in most places, where there is seating, it's
kind of an afterthought. It's stuck in a
way that is out of the way. One
of the things we've been able to do
is integrate furniture
into the bollards that that protect the facility
from the vehicles. And so by doing that
and creating that structure, you're now putting the
seating in a prominent location, so it's much
easier for people that are picking up to
(12:47):
find their rides. That's very interesting, Bill. I'm
gonna look for seating at the arrival level.
And then the second thing is if you
think about it, when you're sitting there, when
there is furniture on a curb, it typically
is facing straight out from the building while
all the traffic is coming from the left.
So why not orient that to the left
and just make that one little change
(13:07):
for waiting passengers who might have a bit
of anxiety about the curb and everything else
and take that away from them. And it's
something you probably wouldn't even notice, but now
they're facing a little bit oriented towards the
traffic coming, much easier to see, much more
visible to the people picking them up, and
really no difference in cost. But, again, more
of that user experience where they don't even
(13:27):
realize that, hey. That was easy, or that
was a little bit less stressful than it
normally would be. Esther, could I ask you
to revisit DFW again? The airport has been
going through quite a renovation or remodeling over
the last five years. What are your observations
about how the airport approaches
setting a vision? I wanted to add to
Bill's ones
(13:47):
because I just thought about the importance of
light
lighting, intentionality, and empathetic design. And at DFW,
we actually had a great example where we're
leveraging
technology
to improve comfort, reduce stress for the passenger.
And what we did was
we deployed dynamic glass, which is electrochromatic
glass that auto tints, reduces the amount of
(14:09):
lighting entering a building, and also reduces the
heat loading into the building. And we noticed
that customers were more comfortable
and light sitting in those areas.
But a co benefit that was exciting was
we also noticed that the concession years in
those areas
started getting higher sales. So their sales increased
by a 1%.
(14:30):
So that intentionality
not only improves the customer experience, but has
a direct business
correlation and business benefit for an airport. So
at DFW, they ended up deciding to invest
in dynamic glass for all the terminals
and program that into the renovation and rehabilitation
(14:50):
programs as well as new buildings.
So now back to your other question with
regards to the importance of aid
and vision.
At DFW,
when that vision was being developed, it was
developed from a perspective
of wanting to transform travel.
So prioritizing
customer experience and delivering
exceptional experience,
(15:12):
leveraging innovation,
sustainability,
and leveraging technology to improve efficiency, be it
on the land side or air side, reduce
operating cost,
future proof assets, and build resilience.
And so
what we noticed that that vision was imperative
because it created a shared mental picture for
the future
(15:32):
that we as an airport desired.
It was that unifying, inspiring, and creative
vision that created infectious energy and enthusiasm
within
the airport employees, the consulting partners, and all
the other business partners that are participating. And
then it also served as this guiding light
and something that was being used to
(15:52):
inform strategic decisions. A very comprehensive
vision plan and and then converting that into
implementation.
And so, Robert, when you have been working
with different airports and especially some of the
newer ones that are coming online in, as
you mentioned, The Middle East or across the
globe, what's the dynamic that you see that's
most important? So we we are talking generally
(16:16):
about the fact that there is no integrated
experience in aviation for passenger from origin to
destination.
Each element has different standards and expectation.
Transfer to and from airport, you know, outside
land side experience is separate from the what's
happening in the airport, on the ground experience,
and definitely different than what's happening in the
(16:38):
air as an experience. Even inside the airport,
this area related to passenger flow has different
level of service standard, and they are controlled
by different stakeholders.
Checking an aircraft boarding experience is airline domain.
Security and immigration is government.
Retail concession, dwelling area, baggage system, and others
are under airport
(16:59):
influence. So all these stakeholders have to come
to the table and try the common ground.
However, they have different priorities,
legislation, and objectives. And I've heard you often
say that airports are like small cities. They
require
everything that engineers and architects can offer. The
overarching connector is passenger experience, and that is
(17:19):
different
defined by all those stakeholders.
And, yeah, we have the new development in
technology and digitalization
combined with data sharing between stakeholders that start
to create clear benefit and opportunities
for collaboration between them. So there are many,
many, many aspect. But I try to understand
for the fact that airports will become more
crowded.
(17:39):
And one way to improve passenger satisfaction is
to create an aesthetically attractive environment for dwelling
areas. If terminal must stay within the existing
footprint, we can expect more vertical development inside
the building. So it is particularly important for
hub airports where the most people remain in
the airport
to capture somehow the city,
(18:00):
what the city has to offer
on the local style. So sometimes we can
see the city coming inside the airport so
they cater to these transit passengers that in
return, hopefully, one day will come to actually
visit the city and that they will be
really attractive from a tourist perspective.
We have to change the concept.
Airport should be a destination
(18:20):
rather than a processor.
I've seen this while working on Changi in
Singapore
where they build things like the Jewel or
so on, some real malls, something to attract
passenger,
not only passenger, local communities to come to
the front of the airport
and enjoy being close to the airport. It's
amazing to be in a hotel or some
(18:41):
kind of commercial
venue close to an airport and watch those
planes
taking off and landing. And people around the
world love airplanes. That's the bottom line, and
they love traveling. Thanks, Robert. That is an
important function of an airport is to give
a sense of where am I. And even
if I'm not gonna go out into the
city, it's important to be able to convey
(19:01):
what that city is all about. I also
think that over the next twenty five, thirty
years, we're gonna see a lot of that
integration
of the airport more than just as a
destination, not a processor.
Esther, what comments do you have about the
future? I truly enjoyed hearing Robert share those
insights, and it made me think of something
that we used to talk about, especially during
(19:22):
the early days of the pandemic when we
realized that airports are mission critical facilities,
not just a place that things pass through,
but they're critical to the economies.
For example, DFW Airport is responsible for about
37,000,000,000
of the North Texas economy. That is huge.
Dallas Love Field contributes about maybe $5,000,000,000
(19:44):
to the North Texas economy. That's a lot
of money being contributed by our airports. And
in terms of the mission criticality,
we have to find ways to, as I
said earlier,
design for flexibility,
adapt policies, and adopt policies that are favorable
to transformative
capital programs.
Considering the need for
(20:06):
new infrastructure and future proofing and addressing aging
infrastructure,
we also have to leverage
digital technology. So things like digital twins that
allow us to run what if scenarios and
understand
what happens if we try
to implement different solutions.
Can we run those
potential solutions in a digital replica that
(20:28):
incorporates our physical operations and our dynamic operations?
So live and historic data, can we integrate
those things so that we gain situational awareness
and start making decisions within the virtual environment?
Understand the implications
for the airport ecosystem, understanding
what a decision on the ground does to
(20:48):
the airspace, what a decision on the ground
does to the passengers,
what a decision on the ground does to
the surrounding communities,
and then
developing
machine learning and
artificial intelligence algorithms
that can help us
predict
based on historic data and then eventually prescribe
solutions. And in twenty five years, we need
(21:11):
to have an airport
that, like Robert said, is a destination, but
it also operates as a multimodal system
that has even more
complexity to it. If we can evaluate those
solutions in a virtual environment, then we can
get to understand what the implications are and
what things to toggle so that we can
get the best customer experience from whatever solution
(21:34):
we're trying to implement. To conclude with your
comments just now about the different technological
solutions
and
wrapping that up into a digital technology
decision making process,
I think that is a key part of
our future.
I'd like to thank you all for your
terrific conversation today and the different perspectives.
(21:57):
I've learned
an immense amount, and I have a much
broader appreciation for the true understanding that each
of you have about what our clients and
and airport customers
are looking for in the future.
For more information on this podcast, visit hdrinc.com/speakingofdesign.
(22:19):
You'll find links to pictures, articles, and more
information.
If you like what you heard, be sure
to rate us or leave feedback on iTunes,
Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!