Comparative Analysis of Airport Planning and Development: Case Study

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of airport planning and development, using Gatwick Airport and Gibraltar Airport as case studies. It begins with an introduction to the importance of planning and development for successful airport operations, highlighting key considerations such as national and regional plans, land use, and zoning. The report then evaluates the two airports across four key areas: ground access, environmental issues, airport buildings, and financing and marketing. The analysis of ground access examines transportation links, while environmental issues cover pollution, biodiversity impacts, and safety concerns. The section on airport buildings discusses the design and functionality of terminals and related structures. Finally, the report explores the financial aspects, including revenue generation, operating costs, and marketing strategies. The report concludes with a summary of the findings, offering insights into the challenges and opportunities in airport planning and development.

Airport Planning and
Development

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11
ILLUSTRATION INDEX
Illustration 1: Gibraltar Airport........................................................................................................2
Illustration 2: Gatwick Plan proposal .............................................................................................5
Illustration 3: Gatwick Airport operation........................................................................................7
Illustration 4: Financial review of Gatwick.....................................................................................8
Illustration 5: Consolidated cash flow statement of Gatwick..........................................................9

INTRODUCTION
For any airport, there is need of planning and development so that it can be successfully
build and for its operation. It acts as base foundation and growth of airport. There are various
federal requirements are required that too from different department while implementing the
process. Further, there are various requirements, techniques and tools that are very essential at
the time of planning of airport management process. Planning is needed as it provides framework
that helps to make baseline of area or land where airport is going to be build and to forecast
future development or progress. For an aviation system to be effective and efficient there are
various things that needed to be considered such as National Plan of Integrated Airport system,
Regional and state aviation system plan, project design, standards and justification, land use plan,
airport master and layout plan and zoning ordinances (De Neufville, 2016). Similarly, there are
various things needed to be planned before development of Airport. Two airport that are selected
are Gatwick Airport situated in south of London, England which is a pubic type airport and
Gibraltar Airport, a multi-purpose airport that was made at World War II and now used for
military as-well-as for the public purpose. Four areas on which these airports evaluated are,
ground access, environmental issues, airport building and its financing and marketing.
Based on the Ground Access.
Ground access is the transportation links that connects the Airport to other vehicles.
Airport that has facility of land and water are considered as best way for transportation as people
can chose among the suitable think that connects to the airport (Freestone and Wiesel, 2014).
However, there is need to overview about other factors such as security, environment and
availability of resources.
Gatwick Airport, south of London, south-east England, is the 8th-busiest airport in
Europe. It construction was started in year 1920 and in 1933 it was started for commercial
flights. There are two terminals and over 43.1 million passengers passed this airport in year 2016.
The major transportation used by the people are road and rails. People can use public or private
transportation vehicle to access this place. However, Gibraltar Airport was made to serve as a
base for the United Kingdom's Royal Air Force (Magalhães, Reis and Macário, 2017). It is
located between the countries Morocco and Spain sits the tiny British territory of Gibraltar.
However, now it is used for the commercial flights land on daily basis. People can access to the
airport using the road and water transport. One of interesting thing about the Airport is that it cuts
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Winston Churchill Avenue, Gibraltar's busiest road, across the runways. The Airport is made on
the island where one of its side is mountain and to the other side there is main city. This was the
only place where people could have built runway (Ison, Merkert and Mulley, 2014.). It can be
easily viewed that people use road as major transportation to reach these places. However, there
are other sources such as railways that are cheap and affordable areas to reach the Airport and for
the second one that is high-speed yachts.
Illustration 1: Gibraltar Airport
(Sources: Gibraltar International Airport, 2017)
Based on environmental issues
Based on the impacts of airports and aviation on the environment, major impacts are
caused due to Gatwick Airport (Halpern and Graham, 2016.). Being the busiest airport many
flights land there which causes huge pollution. Environmental issues can be subdivided into
various categories such as terminal and ground operations, flights, airport access and associated
projects. These are the high negative impacts of Gatwick Airport due to their flight operations,
they cause air pollution, biodiversity impacts, climate change, heritage, noise and risk to animals
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and public life however, due to Gibraltar Airport there is only air pollution and biodiversity
impact (Suau‐Sanchez, Burghouwt, and Fageda, 2016). There is major risk to people from
Gibraltar Airport as it the airway and main road are on the same place. That can increase the
chances of having accidents. At both the places due to construction and operations of terminal
and ground operations, there is impact on biodiversity, landscape, traffic and water pollution. As
airport is near so there will be easy availability of transportation and other facilities which
increases the population there (Martin, Rice and Lodhia, 2014). There is also impact caused by
these places due to airport access and associated projects, their construction and operations has
impacted on airport, biodiversity impact, heritage, landscape, noise, traffic and water pollution.
The standards derived for the Air Quality in UK is through EU Air Quality Framework
Directive 1996. Due to increase in flights there is rise of NO2 level in the country causing
problems in breathing. However, this can be seen less in Gibraltar Airport as it is situated away
from the populated city and is near to open environmental areas (Meijers, Burger and
Hoogerbrugge, 2016).
Whenever, there is such level of construction there is great impact on the biodiversity as
most of the impact is caused to plants and animals. Road strike, bird strike, disturbances from
light pollution, noise and many more. At Gatwick Airport due to the construction in main city
large areas is required for construction which had left many animals and birds to leave their
personal habitats. However, Gibraltar Airport was built on island where there has already
construction and they are using it for the multi-purpose, they have airway and main road going
through same path. They only cause harm due to noise and bird strike. Due to noise pollution
both the airports are causing harm to people and animals. Gibraltar Airport being situated near to
the water bodies causes huge noise pollution to aquatic animals. However, Gatwick Airport has
been major cause of loss of concentration to people, sleep disturbance, heart and head diseases,
mental health and can also lead people to aggressive behaviour (Koo and et. al., 2016).
Based on Airport buildings:
When an Airport is constructed there is requirement of many other specialised buildings
along with it. These may include airport maintenance buildings, control towers, cargo buildings,
hangars, fire and rescue stations and passenger terminal buildings (Arabali and et. al., 2017).
Moreover, these are only used by main airport authorities, there are other buildings also play an
important part in many airports. These are administrative buildings, car parking areas, catering
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buildings and hotels are some of the other examples of airport related buildings. For such
building, there is need to focus on technological and architecture areas so that they can provide
better function, having effective technology, energy savings devices and sustainable
developments (De Neuville, 2016). The more passengers comforts will be there revenue
generation and flexibility (Sismanidou, and Tarradellas, 2017). It will also provide operational
effectiveness and efficiency and better architectural appearance so that overlook of modern
airport can be shown. They are majorly focusing on the areas how to improve midfield
passenger’s buildings. There is further possibility of expandability for future growth (Freestone,
and Wiesel, 2014).
Gatwick Airport is constructed to the south of London. As it was busiest single-use
runway airport so there was more requirement of buildings. They have 2-terminals that covered
areas over 98,000 m2 and 160,000 m2 (Gelhausen, Berster and Wilken, 2013). The population
that travel through this airport is around 43.1 million (Gelhausen, Berster and Wilken, 2013). All
the facilities that are mentioned above are required by the Airport that to with huge levels.
Moreover, British Airports Authority (BAA) has decided to increase the land space so that more
people and Air-planes can be landed their (Your London Airport, Gatwick. 2017). As they were
facing the capacity issues they increased the size. There are 115 terminals and around 280,666
Aircraft Movements per year. In 2011, for increasing the flexibility, Department of Transport has
decided to begin high-speed rail link between Gatwick and Heathrow they can reach 56-km in 15
minutes (Halpern and Graham, 2016). Other developments were also there are construction of
multi-story parking so that more customer visit can be seen. However, there are no changes made
in the runway it is still the single so there is planning that changes would be made and a new
second runway at Gatwick is starting to be build (Ison, Merkert and Mulley, 2014). The airport is
considered as leading to lower charges and better facilities (Marshall, 2016).
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However, the when it’s about the Gibraltar's, its new terminal building is modern,
dynamic, transparent and airy. The Hight of the airport is 2-storeys high and estimated areas on
which it is situated is 19,600 sqm. However, as 444,336 passengers travel to this place and there
is only 4,100 Aircraft movements so there is no requirement of any other facilities (Jimenez,
Claro and de Sousa, 2014). Moreover, as the airport is near to the road transportation so people
move to the areas where they belong. The construction was itself to be uncomfortable for
operating flights. As per the history channel it is considered as most extreme airports ranked in
the world. Due to lack of space and being an island, there are very less possibility of having more
construction. Hence no building was built after the Airport was developed. However, there is no
future possibility of development or any other plan that can be made to this place (Jimenez, Claro
and de Sousa, 2014).
All this development areas are required so that operational activities can be easily
performed by them. These building helps to maintain other activities taking place at the
aerodrome (Rescue and firefighting services overview, 2017). At time of emergency
organisations can take appropriate decision to respond at the airport and its surrounding areas.
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Along with this, they aid in increasing the effectiveness and satisfactoriness of ground and
instrument handling capacity (Rescue and firefighting services overview, 2017). Besides this,
both the places have heavy storage areas where large air-planes can be landed (Martin, Rice and
Lodhi 2014). These constructions are made so that more people and comfortability can be
achieved (Voltes-Dorta, Rodríguez-Déniz and Suau-Sanchez, 2017).
Based on Airport financing and marketing.
For any airport, budgets are prepared for the fiscal year. During this fiscal year they
consider basic operating expenses and revenues that had occurred in that year. Financing and
marketing of the airport depends on the size, popularity, operation, services and areas where it is
build. For maintaining and developing there is huge amount of money is invested (Abeyratne,
2014). The investment cost includes the government taxes and grants, loans taken from the
organization paid with complete interest rates, extension of credit from contractors and suppliers
and retained earnings (Nahlik, Chester, Ryerson and Fraser, 2016). Airport needed large amount
of funds and revenues so that they can pay for their operating cost. They have to make
investment into electricity, maintenance, manpower salaries and operational cost. All these
amounts are collected from the revenues that are collected from the rents, charges that are
imposed on concessionaires and airlines (Scholl and Nebel, 2014). Under the concessionaires,
there can be car rental, catering and baggage services, car services, newsstands, parking and
restaurants (Yang, Yu and Notteboom, 2016).
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Il
lustration 3: Gatwick Airport operation
(Sources: Your London Airport, Gatwick. 2017)
Further, revenue is generated from the passenger’s service that is facilitates and security
at airports, airline rents, development fees and government subsidies. Revenue can also be
collected from the fuel sale for the aircraft that are halt they’re for refilling on long-haul routes
(Narciso and Piera, 2015). There is airport that charges late fees charge. Some of the airports also
charges renting for taxiway driving courses and for filming commercials (Zaina, Zaina and
Furlan, 2016). Airline financial management is managed through Treasury Management System
(TMS) where they are assisted for handling solutions.
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8
Illustration 4: Financial review of Gatwick
(Sources: Your London Airport, Gatwick, 2017)

Illustration 5: Consolidated cash flow statement of Gatwick
(Sources: Your London Airport, Gatwick. 2017)
Gatwick Airport being the busiest airport has higher rent and revenue collection. They
require higher money for the maintaining and operational cost of the airport. Other than this, they
also require money for promotion and marketing (Arabali and et.nl 2017). For the airport £1.2
billion were invested between 2008 and 2014 with additional £1bn investment now underway. Its
operational cost contributes £2 billion annually (GATWICK FACTS & STATS, 2014).
However, in case of Gibraltar airport, expansion is not possible as the airport has only limited
areas and there are very less staff required for the operation and maintenance. Being small in
size, as it is situated near ocean and has beautiful location people visit there as tourist place
which becomes their source of income (Jimenez, Claro and de Sousa, 2014). As the Airports are
already constructed they require operational cost, that includes fuel cost, employees cost and
labour cost along with Aircraft spares cost (Narayanaswami and Narayanaswami, 2017).
Gatwick Airport does not require much of marketing as the area is near to London which is most
visited place. People would like to visit that place and for foreigner there is need of air and water
transportation so if they do not promote the airport then also they can earn revenue. However,
Gibraltar Airport, people have hardly heard about the place and those who know it visit that
place. Comparing both the airports Gatwick Airport earns more finance and Gibraltar Airport
requires more marketing so they could run effectively.
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CONCLUSION
Following report is about the Airport Planning and Development for which two airports
are compared, that is Gatwick Airport and Gibraltar Airport. Both are from different places and
have different airport features which are highlighted in this report. They are critically evaluated
based on 4 terms so that better understanding about planning and development can be gained.
From the report, it can be easily seen that airports that are near to major cities are highly used by
people. They have more construction, higher security level and require more finance. They are
also major source of pollution and other environmental impacts. However, Airports that are used
for army purpose and passengers travelling are not popularize. They require low maintenance
cost but they too affect the environment and create impact on animals.
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Jimenez, E., Claro, J. and de Sousa, J. P., 2014. The airport business in a competitive
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Koo, T. and et. al., 2016. Air transport liberalisation and airport dependency: developing a
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Marshall, C. F., 2016. Sustainable communities: The Atlanta Airport EcoDistrict. Journal of
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Voltes-Dorta, A., Rodríguez-Déniz, H. and Suau-Sanchez, P., 2017. Passenger recovery after an
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Yang, Z., Yu, S. and Notteboom, T., 2016. Airport location in multiple airport regions (MARs):
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Zaina, S., Zaina, S. and Furlan, R., 2016. Urban planning in Qatar: strategies and vision for the
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