Strategic Airport Planning and Development: Key Challenges, Features, and Approval Challenges

This report discusses the key challenges, stages, and elements in development strategies for Heathrow Airport. It covers the airport's key features, challenges, and business environment, as well as traffic forecasts, economic growth, and environmental challenges. The report also highlights the consultation and approval challenges faced by the airport in its expansion plans.

STRATEGIC AIRPORT
PLANNING AND
DEVELOPMENT

TABLE OF CONTENT
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Key challenges, stages and elements in development strategies-................................................3
Key features, challenges and business environment of the airport-.............................................4
Traffic forecasts of the airport-....................................................................................................4
Economic growth of the development of the airport-..................................................................5
Key environmental challenges for the airport- ...........................................................................5
Consultation and approval challenges faced by the airport-........................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Strategic planning process involves in determining the vision or goals by the leaders of the
organization (Hamurcu and Eren, 2020). Strategy development is the process which involves
identification of the strategic options and allocating the resources in effective manner. Heathrow
Airport is located in London and is the biggest and the busiest airport of UK. This report will
discuss the key challenges faced by this airport as well as on the traffic forecasts of the airport
development. Along with this, it will also discuss the economic growth and the approval
challenges faced by the airport while development.
MAIN BODY
Key challenges, stages and elements in development strategies-
The key stages involved while development strategies for the airport are-
 The first stage is the idea generation
 The next is the idea screening which is generated.
 Concept Testing and the development
 Then conducting the market strategies
 Product development
 Deployment
 Then the last stage is the entering into the market
The key elements which are involved in the development of the strategy of the airport are-
 Setting the vision
 Mission in which stating about the airport
 The major values of the airport
 Conducting swot analysis
 Setting the long term objectives
 Setting the annual targets
 Establishment of the action plan.
Challenges faced while development of the strategies of the airport are-
 Poor setting of the goals and objectives
 Lack of alignment
 Employees are not effectively connected with the strategies

 Not measuring the performance for the improvement
These all challenges faced during the development of the strategies impacts the efficiency of the
strategies and has effect on the overall performance of the airport operations.
Key features, challenges and business environment of the airport-
Key Features-
Heathrow airport is the leading airport in the world with the number of the passengers' and
flights. The key features of this airport are as it provides special facilities to its customers like
they have different runways for the domestic and international flights. This airport adopts the
sustainability as they use solar panels for the energy consumption, and they handle large number
of the passengers and the flights. The ambience of the airport is very attractive that the
passengers or visitors feel very comfortable and good.
Challenges-
The major challenges faced by the airport are-
Climate change: This is the major challenge which is faced by every airport in the world.
Heathrow airport also faces this challenge as because of this, the airport have to delay the flights
by which the passengers have to wait for the flights. Many times the airport is covered with the
snow when there is very high winter temperature in the country.
Technological advancements- The technology is getting very advanced day by day so it is very
important for the airline industries to adopt these changes. In spite of the largest airport this also
faces challenges while adopting the advanced technology in the airport operations.
Business environment-
The business of the airports is becoming competitive as nowadays many airports are constructed
at very location. The airport business needs high investment as these are the service provider
companies, and they have to construct very attractive ambience. The business environment of the
airline industries is very dynamic and for growth it is very important for them to develop the
airport (Avanzi and Zerjav, 2020).
Traffic forecasts of the airport-
The traffic is the major problems of the airline industry as when the tourists arrive by the airlines
then the roads of the city blocked and because of this, the local people suffer. Heathrow airport is
the largest airport as well as the most the busiest airport of the world so because of this, many
passengers and many flights arrives at the airport without the expansion causes the traffic

congestion in the city. Traffic congestion is hindering the expansion of the company because it
has been evaluated that increasing the runway would lead to increase in the traffic as by this
more and more people will be incoming.
As expansion of the runway will lead to more traffic on the roads and this will have
impact on the environment as well. So, for this reason also the expansion of this airport is not
happening. It is very important for the countries to take care of the traffic because it causes much
harm to the environment as noise pollution and air pollution and to the those people also which
are suffering from the heart diseases (Zheng, Peng and Hu, 2020). So this airport is not getting
the permission of expanding the airport that is the third runway.
Economic growth of the development of the airport-
Airports are contributing much to the economy of the country as this is the major means of
transportation of the tourists and the visitors. Heathrow airport is the biggest airport of the UK as
well as in the whole world so this attracts the large number of people from different countries
which directly contributes to the economy of the country which leads to the economic growth of
the country. It helps in providing the improved quality and high Standard of living to the people.
Airport along with boosting the economic growth of the country it also helps in eliminating the
poverty of the country.
As Heathrow airport is the biggest airport of the world, it also helps in creation of
employment which also contributes to the growth of the economy. Having large number of
commercial flights helps the companies in speedy economic flows of the goods from one place
to another. There is highly advantage of growing the Heathrow airports for the economy of the
country (Wang and et.al. 2020). Expansion of the Heathrow airports will provide the country to
attract more of the international passengers and it will become smoother and speedy economical
work. It can also evaluate that expanding third runway will help to provide more number of jobs
to the people and it will directly impact the living standard of the people.
Key environmental challenges for the airport-
The expansion of the Heathrow airport can affect the environment. The most major challenge
faced in expanding the Heathrow airport is that it will create more pollution in the environment.
This pollution can be such as the air and the noise pollution. Heathrow airport is considered as
the biggest carbon emissions in the UK and contrary with this, the country has announced the net
zero emissions greenhouse gas by the year 2050. This airport attracts much tourist from other

country which creates much traffic in the city which highly contributes to the pollution from the
vehicles.
The noise pollution is increasing much because of the traffic congestion as large number of
passengers arrive by this airport. Expansion of the airport will lead to more badly affecting the
noise pollution and because this, the local aged people may also get affected by this which are
suffering from the diseases of the heart can lose their lives. It is very important for the airport
also to take measures to eliminate these issues. The airports is also going towards using the solar
panels but because of the passengers and flights the environment is badly affected (Lassen and
Larsen, 2020).
Consultation and approval challenges faced by the airport-
The Heathrow airport is not getting proper approval from the government because of its severe
impacts on the environment and the local people of the city. The consultation on Heathrow
airport launched the consultation for the public, but they are The Heathrow airport expansion is
facing many problems because the parliament group of the country has found many severe risks
which can impact the lives of the local people as well as to the environment as these are delaying
the expansion of the airport as for the third runway (Sandberg and et.al., 2020). The Heathrow
airport has been approved by the government and the runway of this airport will come into
operations by the year 2026.
The challenges were faced by this airport as the government thinks that expanding will
hinders their target for achieving the target of net zero emissions by 2050. Many people are
against the expansion of the Heathrow airport because it will create more of noise and air
pollution as well as it will contribute more to the carbon emissions of the UK as the number of
flight is also increased with the construction of the third runway because of this also the airport
was facing problem in expansion. The Heathrow airport has decided to become sustainable by
2030 as the journeys of the public will be reduced to the 50% and the sustainable transport will
be used that is by not supporting the airport polluted vehicles on the road.
CONCLUSION
This report has discussed the key features and the key challenges faced by the airports as well as
the business environment. Along with this, it has also considered the traffic congestions
impacted by the development of the airport and the contribution to the economy of the country.

Further, it has discussed the environmental challenges faced by the airports and the approval
challenges faced while deciding for the expansion.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Hamurcu, M. and Eren, T., 2020. Strategic planning based on sustainability for urban
transportation: An application to decision-making. Sustainability. 12(9), p.3589.
Avanzi, P. and Zerjav, V., 2020. Caught in a crossfire: Front-end decision-making in airport
expansion programmes. Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives, 8,
p.100222.
Sandberg, J., and et.al., 2020, June. The integral bridge design concept for the third runway at
Heathrow, UK. In Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers-Bridge Engineering
(Vol. 173, No. 2, pp. 112-120). Thomas Telford Ltd.
Lassen, C. and Larsen, G.R., 2020. The airport city. In Handbook of Urban Mobilities (pp. 325-
334). London: Routledge.
Wang, D., and et.al. 2020. Industry choice for an airport economic zone by multi-objective
optimization. Journal of Air Transport Management. 88, p.101872.
Zheng, X., Peng, W. and Hu, M., 2020. Airport noise and house prices: A quasi-experimental
design study. Land Use Policy. 90, p.104287.
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