Comprehensive Research on Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport

This research paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW), examining its history, airside and landside operations, compliance with regulations (including Part 139 and SMS), security measures, budget, and financial aspects. The paper details the airport's historical development, its status as a major hub for American Airlines and a global leader in passenger and aircraft movements. It explores the airside, including runways, taxiways, and the Skylink light rail system, and the landside, encompassing parking, public transportation, and terminal facilities. The report also investigates the airport's security checkpoints, wait times, and the integration of technology like automated screening lanes. Furthermore, it addresses the airport's budget, financial investments, and its economic, political, and social roles, including its commitment to sustainability and alignment with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The report highlights DFW's significant economic impact and its status as a carbon-neutral airport, providing a detailed overview of its operations and strategic importance.

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Abstract
The paper aims at providing a deep research on the Dallas/Fort Worth International airport
including its history, the airside, landside, compliance, finance, budget, social political role and
others. The research finds that this airport is one of the most well-structured airports in the
whole world where the security system and the operations management are done in the right way
within minimum time. The findings are based on the annual reports of the Airport and scholarly
sources and the report also provides detailed description of the Airside and the Landside with
suitable pictures.

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Title- Research paper on Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport
Introduction
The Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport is considered as the primary international
airport which serves Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex area in the state of Texas. It is the largest hub
for the American Airline headquartered nearby the airport. It is further the fourth busiest airport
of the world in terms of aircraft movements along with being the fifteenth busiest airport in the
whole world in terms of the passenger traffic of 2017. It is located roughly halfway between the
big cities such as Fort Worth and Dallas including the portions of Euless, Irving and the
Grapevine and Coppell too. The report will provide a deep research on the Dallas/Fort Worth
International airport including its history, the airside, landside, compliance, finance, budget,
social political role and others.
History
The Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport was opened in the year 1973. In the first
part of 1940, one regional airport for the Fort Worth area and Dallas was being properly
considered. The civil Aeronautics Administration had approached the city of the Arlington for
sponsoring an airport in the midway between two of the larger cities. Both the Fort Worth and
Dallas were quite interested because the expansion of Love Field and Meacham Field in Dallas
would need some expensive construction in order to accommodate developing some larger
aircraft and air traffic. With the support of the American Airlines, the CAA was to establish the

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landing area and in the year 1942 the construction has started but there was a disagreement on
which the terminal building should have faced with some other consideration. During the time
of World War II, it was actually operated by the militaries in the form of a training field and for
the testing of the flights (Dallascityhall.com 2020).
Airside
The airside is that part of an airport which is used by an aircraft in order to load and
unload the landings and the takeoffs. This is the area beyond the passport, the security checks
and the custom controls in the terminal of an airport. The airside areas consist of the areas such
as runways, ramps and taxiways. In the DFW, there is a series of the semicircular terminals
having the International Parkway and the other road systems that runs in between. Also the
ground transportation is well accessible from the inner airside gates of departure which is
situated on the outer part of each semi-circle. All the terminals are connected by the Skylink light
rail service that runs on the outskirts of the semi-circles. Except for the Terminal E, the walking
airside is further possible.
As far as the Airside Transport post-security is concerned, the free Skylink light rail
helps all the passengers for connecting between all the terminals and at the same time staying
within the secure area in case the flight arrival permits having depended on the immigration and
the custom needs. Notably, the train functions 24/7 and also departs in every 2 minutes from two
of the stations under each of the terminals. The trains that are running counter-clockwise and
clockwise have maximum 9 minutes of time to ride between the furthermost points. Most
specifically, it is found that the stations of Sylink are situated in Terminal A (between A13 and
A16, between A29 and A34), Terminal B (between B9 and B12, between B28 and B31),

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Terminal C (between C8 and C12, between C27 and C32), Terminal D (between D11 and D20,
between D24 and D34), Terminal E (between E8 and E11, between E31 and E32).
Landside
The landside areas in an airport consist of the parking lots, the train stations, the public
transportation and the access roads. The access from the landside spaces to the airside spaces is
controlled tightly at maximum airports. There are some passengers on the commercial flight who
can access the airside areas through certain terminals where the tickets can be purchased,
security can be checked, luggage can be claimed and the aircraft can be boarded through the
gates. The waiting areas that provide the passengers the access to the aircraft are called
concourses typically. The terminal is quite equipped with two of the baggage claiming areas
having the digital signage and some advertises with an improved TSA or Transport Security
Administration with four such security lanes along with a fibre-optic backbone, communication
rooms. The terminals that has been expanded later have 13 kiosks on landside. Four of the new
high-capacity elevators have become installed for providing access to the levels of concourse. In
the DFW, the Landside transport pre-security can be viewed in a detailed manner.

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Image- Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (Faa.gov 2020).
Part 139 and Compliance
The Federal Aviation Administration hosted a Roundtable meeting on 2nd November
2011, including 14 airports that had participated in the Part 139 SMS or Safety Management
System implementation study. The aim of the study was to investigate the way airports certified

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14 code of federal regulations Part 139. After the examination of the Dallas/Fort Worth
International Airport, it has been found that DFW had developed and also integrated the four-
step process connected with the identification, the reporting analysis and the decision-making
too. DFW had recorded one hazard reporting in a simple database. It had no such streamlined
ability of collecting, comparing, analyzing and managing the hazards and incidents. The Airport
can now recognize the hazards in the environment and rely on the ATCT (Airport Traffic
Control Tower) , AOC (Airport Operations Center) and this is the integrated approach through
which DFW has become able to do a green reporting providing a consistent ability to save the
necessary records.
(Faa.gov 2020)

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The evaluation showed that there was strong evidence of awareness among the staffs about the
SRM and SMS. The SMS was clearly visible in the Operation Department where the other
departments were quite interested in the integration. The signs of safety culture was there and the
safety data was being analyzed, reported and investigated too.
Security
In the DFW airport, there are multiple security checkpoints are offered at each of the
terminals providing the travelers ease and allowing some more time to eat, shop and prepare for
the departure. The automated screening lanes are also available at theD18, A21, D30, D22 and
the E18 checkpoints. The security system was strengthened since the year 2012 with the
expansion of the Terminal A. It became divided into three such phases. In the first phase, the
expansion was completed and got opened for public use. It consists of terminal’ revamped
portion comprising of the gates A8 through the A16. There were improved and new facilities for
the ticketing, the parking, the security and the concessions.

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Image 3- Security wait times according to priority (Faa.gov 2020)
There are 15 separate DFW security lines which are situated in total 5 terminals. All of the DFW
terminals except for B have the TSA Pre Check. Some other have the CLEAR and the Priority
access. The opening and the closing hours for each of the checkpoints are subject to vary. The
DFW airport wait times can often vary during the day time and on the busy travel days along
with the holiday periods. The TSA Pre Lanes can further be found at the checkpoints numbered
as 2, 3 and 5. Also, the checkpoint 4 is one type of TSA Pre dedicated lane. The Pre Check

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passengers can easily avail the expedited screening at the DFW where in most of the cases one
does not have to remove the laptops, the shoes, the light jackets and the belts. The security wait
times in the Dallas Forth Worth DFW Airport can vary founded on certain factors such as the
TSA staffing, the severe weather, the airport construction and others. The security time forecasts
are done to leverage the flight volume information and the staffing models of TSA. It is done
through using the advanced data science and using the DFW wait times for the Dallas Fort Worth
DFW airport which bar the outliers and within five minutes of the accuracy which is validated by
the US airlines (Tshaonline.org 2020). It is urged by TSA that all of the travelers should arrive in
advance of the scheduled departure of the flight at the airport and the wait time guidelines are
provided for helping in the travel planning. One should ensure checking with the airline because
the ticket counter wait times change to the flight schedules and some other factors might
influence on the decision of how early one arrives..
Budget and Finances
It is found that most of the major projects are funded by the discretionary finds of DFW.
This includes an expansion to the administration developing on the East Airfield Drive for
accommodating the previous needs along with the additional staffs in coming days. It has been
estimated that the investments of DFW will definitely generate additional $34bn while
implementing on the airport’ $2.6bn plan for capital development. This will leave impact on the
economy of North Texas with an additional 77,000 employment in coming 10 years. The airport
is found to be receiving $40m from the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for
the B Terminal improvement programs in the year 2016 (Fan et al., 2018). As far as the rankings
are concerned, DFW ranks 4th in terms of the global flights, 15th in terms of the global
passengers, have 164 gates, 7 runways and $ 37 billion of annual economic impacts. The DFW

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makes use of the Hybrid Use Agreement model through which it retains the profits from the non-
airline revenues to the ‘Upper Threshold’ having shared 75 % with airlines in order to reduce the
fees of landing.
An overview of the proposed budget of 2020 has been provided that is $ 1.032 billion that is a
2.3% increase from the outlook of 2019. It will operate the expense increase related to the
strategic priorities, the terminals A & C custodial, the fixed contract increase, the merit pool and
the salary annualization. The management has identified almost $15.5 million of reduced costs
and the savings on the budget 3.1 % of the outlook.
The fixed contract increase, the funding terminals A & C custodial, the salary annualization, the
strategic priorities and the merit pool is to account for almost 96.9% of the increase in budget.

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Dallascityhall.com (2020).
Economic, Political and Social Role
The airport has been focused historically on the social, environmental and the
governmental goals. In the strategic plan of the airport, it has been clearly described. This is the
considered as the largest carbon neutral airport of the world and the only airport that is carbon
neutral in the whole South and North America. The social programs and the environmental
programs of the airport comply with the United Nations Sustainable Development goals or the
SDG. The programs of the airport along with the initiatives advance directly 14 of the identified
17 SDG by the United States. At the beginning of the financial year 2016, the airport had started
issuing of an ESG repot. It is further found that the airport has procured a property policy ‘all
risks’ with the FM Globally (Ogwari, DeShon & Hornbach, 2018). It conducted a survey having
determined the amount and the scope of the insurance of Airport which is comparable to which is
similar size public entity or the airports. It is completely committed to the sustainability of the
environment in a balanced approach. It is focused on the switching to the renewable energy

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having implemented different programs. It engages the stakeholders on the issues of
sustainability which is relevant to the people, the airport and the community.
Conclusion
On a concluding note, it can be said that the paper has provided an insightful research on
the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport outlining its history, the airside, landside,
compliance, finance, budget, social political role and others. It is the found that it is the most
well-structured airport in the whole world and the operations are done in a systematic manner.
The budget of the year 2020 shows that there is going to some new implementation of programs
and strategies for future improvement.

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References
Faa.gov (2020). [online] Faa.gov. Available at:
https://www.faa.gov/airports/airport_safety/safety_management_systems/external/
pilot_studies/media/part139SMSImplementationStudyRoundtable.pdf [Accessed 21 Feb.
2020].
Dallascityhall.com (2020). [online] Dallascityhall.com. Available at:
https://dallascityhall.com/government/Council%20Meeting%20Documents/a_dallas-fort-
worth-international-airport-fy-2020-proposed-budget_combined_080719.pdf [Accessed
21 Feb. 2020].
Ogwari, P. O., DeShon, H. R., & Hornbach, M. J. (2018). The Dallas‐Fort Worth airport
earthquake sequence: Seismicity beyond injection period. Journal of Geophysical
Research: Solid Earth, 123(1), 553-563.
Fan, H., Tarun, P. K., Chen, V. C., Shih, D. T., Rosenberger, J. M., Kim, S. B., & Horton, R. A.
(2018). Data-driven optimization for Dallas Fort Worth International Airport deicing
activities. Annals of Operations Research, 263(1-2), 361-384.
Tshaonline.org (2020). DALLAS-FORT WORTH INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT | The
Handbook of Texas Online| Texas State Historical Association (TSHA). [online]
Tshaonline.org. Available at: https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/epd01
[Accessed 21 Feb. 2020].