1. THE SUSTAINABILITY OF AIRPORTS
Dr Milan Janic Senior Researcher Delft University of Technology The Netherlands

2. Contents 1 Introduction
2 Concept of the airport sustainable development
3 The indicator system for assessing the airport sustainability
4 Trading-off between the effects and impacts using the indicator system
5 Conclusions

3. 1 Introduction (1)
The air transportation is expected to grow at an average annual rate of 5% in passenger and 6.5% in freight volumes over the next two decades;
The system has created positive effects and negative impacts for the society and environment;
Full awareness of the air transport system’s negative impacts on the society and the environment.

4. 2 A concept of the airport sustainable development (1)
The airport as the system
The main principles for achieving the airport sustainability
Analysis of effects – benefits
Analysis of impacts – externalities

5. 2 A concept of the airport sustainable development (2)
An airport as the system
Landside area:
Ground access systems,
Passenger (& freight) terminal complex;
Interfaces, supporting facilities.
Airside area:
Terminal airspace; airport zone;
Runways, taxiways, apron/gate complex.

6. 2 A concept of the airport sustainable development (3)
The main principles
Continuously diminishing the negative impacts
Constraining the airport growth
Continuously widening the positive gap between the positive effects and negative impacts
Managing the sustainable growth.

7. 2 A concept of the airport sustainable development (4)
The main actors
The airport operator;
Airlines;
The access transport mode operators;
Users – passengers and freight shippers;
Local population;
Local (& national) authorities (policy makers)

8. 2 A concept of the airport sustainable development (5)
Benefits
Costs
Traffic
Traffic/Benefits/Costs
Time
Figure 1 A simplified scheme of managing possible (desirable) unconstrained sustainable growth of a given airport

9. 2 A concept of the airport sustainable development (6)
Analysis of effects – benefits:
Users – air passengers welfare;
Important regional economic driving
forces – direct and indirect employment;
Contribution to the regional GDP.

10. 2 A concept of the airport sustainable development (7)
Analysis of impacts – externalities:
Noise;
Air pollution;
Congestion and delays;
Land use (take);
Waste;
Aircraft incidents and accidents.

11. 3 The indicator system for assessing the airport sustainability (1)
Principles and requirements:
Multidimensionality of performance;
Complexity of setting up the sustainability
targets;
Complexity of the assessment of
the marginal and global contributions
of particular policies.

12. 3 The indicator system for assessing the airport sustainability (2)
Dimensions of performance:
Infrastructural;
Technical/technological;
Operational;
Economic;
Social;
Environmental;
Institutional/policy.

13. 3 The indicator system for assessing the airport sustainability (3)
Assumptions:
Reflecting preferences of actors involved;
Facilitating the airport’s dimensions of performance;
Measuring the airport benefits and impacts in both absolute and relative terms;
Defining the “target” value for particular indicators as “benchmarks” for assessing the achievements;
Including inter dependency of particular indicators and their measures.

14. 3 The indicator system for assessing the airport sustainability (4)
Operational indicator:
Figure 2 Typical relationships between demand, ultimate capacity, and the average aircraft/flight delay at London Heathrow airport (UK) (Compiled from: ACL, 2007)

15. 3 The indicator system for assessing the airport sustainability (5)
Economic indicators:
Figure 3 Example of profitability of Amsterdam Schiphol airport: the period (Compiled from: Schiphol Airport 2004)
Figure 4 An example of the labor productivity at Amsterdam Schiphol airport for the period (Compiled from Schiphol Airport 2004)

16. 3 The indicator system for assessing the airport sustainability (6)
Social indicators:
Direct employment: 1.4 thousand employees per 1 million accommodated passengers (European airports)
Total employment: Increases more than proportionally with increasing the number
of passengers

17. 3 The indicator system for assessing the airport sustainability (7)
Environmental indicators:
Figure 5 An example of the efficiency of land use at Amsterdam Schiphol airport (Compiled from Schiphol Airport 2004; Janic, 2007)
Figure 6 Examples of the waste efficiency at European airports (Compiled from: Fraport 2001; BAA 2004; Janic, 2007)

18. 4 Trading-off between the effects and impacts using the indicator system (1)
The operational capacity vs noise cap quota):
Noise cap (quota)
Leq = 70 dB(A)
Leq – Noise cap (quota) - dB(A)
The airport operational capacity – arrivals
The airport operational capacity – departures
Leq = 50 dB(A)
Leq = 60 dB(A)
Figure 7 Relationships between the airport operational capacity, the noise cap (quota) and the average noise per individual noise event – aircraft movement

19. 4 Trading-off between the effects and impacts using the indicator system (2)
The generic inter-relationships between
the effects and impacts;
Setting up the caps (quotas) on particular
impacts constraints them but also constrains
the related benefits.

20. 5 Conclusions
Achieving sustainability of a given airport is a complex process
Permanent trading-off between benefits and impacts is needed respecting particular often confronting interests of actors involved;
The proposed indicator system could be of some value for designing the monitoring system.