An airport is one of the most prestigious entity of any country and it should be revered and accorded the utmost attention it requires (Curcio et al., 2007). The first reason that justifies an airport as one of the most prestigious facilities of a country is that efficient international travels and interactions cannot happen between the people of two foreign countries without the existence of well-coordinated air transport. The other issue is the shipment of business and cargo carriage to other countries across the globe that rail or other means of transportation cannot access. These examples, among other reasons highlight the unmatched importance of air transport and airports. Despite their important role in globalization, there is a wide range of issues, recurring problems, and challenges that airports in face especially regarding passengers and bags (enplanements and displacements). A recent research conducted by various transport and safety bodies across the globe identified the issues mentioned above as the most challenging and emerging issues in the air transport and the airports. These challenges need to be addressed more critically to offer a chance for growth, expansion and to create a robust wave of competition between various airports and air transport of multiple countries.
Many people who have had an experience with most airports did highlight some of these challenges as most disturbing and demanded an immediate action. The most worrisome issue was the notion of terminals that created congestion in most airports and the aspect of underground airport transport systems. The other emerging problem was the aspect of security at the airport and how most passengers and airport users complained of the safety of their bags and belongings while at the airport.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Passengers at the airport
In most cases, this airline industry experiences some problems on the issues of updates and the using of well-structured platforms of relaying update and information to clients and customers. In most recent cases most passengers have found themselves in wrong terminals, wrong airports or wrong airplanes. On such a scenario the situation causes traffic at the airport at the terminals and may lead to delays and cancellation of some flights and this could lead to a new program or rescheduling the program to suit the delays caused by such incidents. The technique of modeling and simulation enabled the establishment of the specific system performances. The emerging subcategories on this platform include runway capacity, ramps management, passenger flows, parking area location and size, cargo hub development, management and baggage handling. The terminal seems to cause the most challenges in an airport compared to other departments in the airport. On the aspect of passengers, there is always a reduction in passenger flow due to overcrowding, the long queues at the SSCP and check-ins piss off the passengers ( Haghani & Chen, 1998). The passengers also incur signage issues on the pathways, because the signage is lost in the background and the convolution of way finding. This leads to confusion and most importantly, passengers have different expectations depending on their individual levels of experience with different airports or in the air transport industry.
Solutions
The team working in the airport should familiarize with the passengers who buy their tickets either through online platforms or manually to keep checking on updated flight information to inform them of the departure and the specific terminals before departure. The passengers should also stay updated on the issues of air ticketing, transfers, terminals and any delays regarding the separation or change of schedule to avoid any inconveniences and confusion at the airport. The airport management should also device technological methods that will allow passengers in the check-in terminals to comfortably see and read the signs at the airport without any difficulty or failure. In this regard, the airport is mandated to come up with technological and well-designed signs for everyone to view, read and understand them in simpler ways ( Gupta et al, 2013). The issue of overcrowding in the airport can only be solved by coming up with alternative pathways for passengers to allow free flow of the passengers and airport users to various destinations and also incorporate the use of technology on matters of security checking and scrutiny that will ease the work and reduce on the crowding of passengers. The other aspect is the use of technology and machines to perform various functions such as ticketing, offering directions to significantly automate the whole process at the terminal to fasten the process and avoid overcrowding of passengers. Due to the diversity of passengers in regards to their experience with airports and .air transport the airport management should understand their clientele and device methods that will aim at creating services, packages, and products that are entirely designed to satisfy the customers to the fullest maximally. The initiative of .coming up with customer based services, packages and products at the airport will increase efficiency, attract more potential customers and reduce on the pull out of customers due to dissatisfaction or poor services.
The terminals
The old terminals designs differ with new designs in the aspect of issue of technology. Technology is one main issue that will allow solving most of the problems and challenges affecting the airport in the modern air transport world. The difference occurs in the aspect of the use of technology to build the airport structures and make the buildings, and technology will also oversee the process of making the airport processes more customer friendly and more efficient. Some of the issues are the size of some facilities that some passengers have to walk long distances to access one point to the other, mostly offices. Some facilities are located in places where it gets cumbersome for passengers to access the intermodal facilities and terminals. There is always a desire by passengers to have many options of check-ins to avoid the long queues at the specific check-ins categorically.
Solutions
The private developers and the airport management should work together in ensuring that the transport system linking to the terminal facility is efficient enough to allow passengers to access the terminal and the specific intermodal facilities in a relaxed and quick manner
Due to the fact that the traditional ticketing options do not provide solutions to reduction of the long queues and congestion at the check-ins, the system should be automated to allow the customers to access the ticketing services online. Alternatively, the ticketing service can be outsourced to another technology company that will manage the services more efficiently through online platforms. The automation process will reduce the long queues at the check-ins and the agents. The other issue is for the engineers to structure the facility in the sense that the shell of the designed terminal structure to be a whole total different structure from other facilities inside ( Jarvis, 2017). This will improve on the flexibility for in most cases it is difficult and hard to predict the needs and requirements of customers, and the separation will offer a chance for the airport to keep adapting to the ever-changing needs of clients and passengers.
References
Gupta, G., Malik, W., Tobias, L., Jung, Y., Hoang, T., & Hayashi, M. Tenth USA/Europe Air Traffic Management Research and Development Seminar (ATM2013) Performance Evaluation of Individual Aircraft Based Advisory Concept for Surface Management.
Haghani, A., & Chen, M. C. (1998). Optimizing gate assignments at airport terminals. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice , 32 (6), 437-454.
Jarvis, C. (2017). Airport infrastructure. In Airline Operations (pp. 74-101). Routledge.
Curcio, D., Longo, F., Mirabelli, G., & Pappoff, E. (2007, June). Passengers’ flow analysis and security issues in airport terminals using modeling & simulation. In European Conference on Modeling & Simulation, Praga-Repubblica Ceca (pp. 4-6).
