Technological Impacts on Heathrow Airport's Sustainability: A Report

Desklib provides past papers and solved assignments. This report analyzes technology's impact on Heathrow Airport's sustainability.

TECHNOLOGICAL FACTOR AT
HEATHROW AIRPORT, LONDON

INTRODUCTION
Aviation sector of every developed and developing nation plays an important part in the
growth of its economy. Heathrow airport in London is one of the busiest airports of not only
the UK but entire Europe. The UK, having the third largest aviation network in the world, have
lots of hopes and attached needs with this airport. An airport business, in general, is influenced
by a number of external and internal factors and almost every one of them is intertwined with
each other in some way which makes the situation quite complex to handle and avoid common
disruptions. In this part, the technological impact on Heathrow airport has been discussed.
As understood, technology is the major drive for airline operations since from booking via
online sophisticate system to the high tech aircraft responsible for safe and comfortable
transport of hundreds of people, everything is governed by technology. Here, three of the
many important technological impacts which have their role in sustainable operations of the
airport have been discussed and elaborated as a part of the discussion.

DISCUSSION
With the continuous growth in the traffic and volume of travelers every year, the growth in
every aspect of the Heathrow airport is hard to sustain by the airport management and the
limited available space. However, technology has only played its part in smoothing and
streamlining the operations. In every function at the airport like security checkpoints, booking,
boarding, aircraft maintenance, luggage support, aircraft technology, emission control and
green technology, internal transport and connectivity, data safety, etc. technology is leading
the scenario (Topham, 2019).
It is evident from the amount of stress and load on the airport that it is in dire need of
expansion which again, would need to be supported by the technology. The question that can
be asked in this case is, would this expansion and incorporated technological advancements
will help and support society or not?
A) Heathrow airport has recently incorporated biometric boarding system at one of their
terminals. Boarding has always been a time-consuming process with a need of a dedicated
skilled employee to check the tickets and passports before passenger enters the aircraft. This
process is considered as final check and assurance for safety and to prevent the entry of any
non-social person or to potentially prevent terrorist activity. In the advent of this new
technology, people will be verified and check automatically by advanced biometric face
recognition system incorporated at the boarding point of the airport. This technology has
improved boarding punctuality by 10% on domestic flights. The technology has been in use by
the US at their Los-Angeles airport for a long time and the results as an impact of it made the
Heathrow airport choose it as an advancement step (Edie Newsroom, 2016).
This technology is quite sophisticated and is able to handle a high load of a passenger without
showing any sort of fatigue. Not only this, the technology is very accurate and provides a high
degree of assurance regarding safety and security of boarded passenger and a hassle-free
significantly less time-consuming operations. Use of such technology not only improves the
punctuality of airport operations and hence they're efficient but it also facilitates more

comfortable experience and timely departure of the passenger to their destination (Topham,
2019).
B) Another technological implementation seen by Heathrow airport is the use of remotely
accessed or remote controlled pushback vehicles for the airport's internal transportation like
those of aircraft. Being the busiest airport of the country, Heathrow airport handles takeoff/
landing of aircrafts one in every 45 seconds. This makes the timely placing of aircraft on the
runway and off runway very crucial. Heathrow airport is the first in the world to use such
technology and implement it in direct operations. It is battery operated so not only it provides
fast and precision short hauled transport of aircraft but it also cares for eco-friendly operations.
These pushback vehicles are specially designed for the need of at Heathrow airport and they
have evidently proved their worth. Hundreds of thousands of passenger are already have
benefitted from smooth and seamless timely departure from the airport. In such a complex
operational setup were every second count and could produce a considerable lag, such small
improvement is the one which sustains the operations by saving time and resources. These
small technological changes are combined together to form a big change thus revolutionizing
the operation and performance all together. According to the Raoul Cooper, applications of
these pushback vehicles in internal transportation of aircraft have gained 72% reduction in
pushback related delays which is a huge improvement. Also, it fairly contributes to the
emission control goals and promises of the new Heathrow 2.0 and being electric, also
contributes to noise reduction at the airport (Edie Newsroom, 2016).
C) This technological impact is also associated with environmental expectations from airline
operations. It is about the use of technology which could utilize and work on biofuels and
electricity rather than fossil fuels which pollutes the environment and make air toxic (McGrath,
2016). The two biggest concerning pollution agents that airports like Heathrow airport suffers
are noise and emission. A report produced by RDC Aviation has suggested that, with the
upcoming growth of Heathrow airport and overall air travel requirements, the carbon and
nitrogen emission is likely to be reached a critical level and which can only be sustained by use
of advanced technology (Cooper, 2018).

Use of biofuels has been reported by many airlines throughout the world especially by
Germany, a country which is constantly working towards finding alternatives to fossil fuels in
various operations. The report has claimed that if Heathrow airport introduces new plane with
advanced fuel engines supporting biofuels and electric power units, the airport would be able
to gain 1.6% improvement on year-on-year fuel efficiency. As the transportation scenario of the
whole world is shifting toward electric vehicles because of the increasing pollution and limited
availability of fuel, air travel much also be aligning itself with this change in its own ways. In the
process, Heathrow airport has reported calling for local as well as worldwide partners and
technocrats to work together to control the pollution and promote the use of biofuels and
other alternatives for its operations (McGrath, 2016). Heathrow airport in this regard has made
many promises and ambitious plans regarding its commitment to reduce emission and
encourage sustainable growth and for that its major reliance can be observed on technology
which it intends to develop with the collaborations of its local and national partners.
As a discussion, these three points which are the impacts of technology on sustaining
operations of Heathrow airport can be summarized as,
 The use of biometric boarding system will provide faster and more secure operations as
it already has saved 10% time on domestic boarding process at the airport. Use of this
technology will likely to contribute to maintaining punctuality at different operations,
together providing timely departure to passengers. As general outcomes, it makes the
boarding process smooth and seamless ultimately benefitting both passengers and
airport management (Cooper, 2018).
 The pushback vehicle technology which is remote operated and green in the sense it
uses electricity for power requirements is considered as an important step by the
airport in its commitment towards "timely and efficient" operations. This vehicle help is
fast and precise transport of aircraft off and on the runway on the airport which hosts
arrival and departure of aircraft every 45 seconds. It already has resulted in reduction
of 72% pushback related delays after the introduction and the fact that Heathrow

airport is the first to use such technology makes it more recognizable impact (Edie
Newsroom, 2016).
 Impact of emission control technology at the Heathrow Airport will have the biggest
impact among the other discussed impact since it is known that around 70% of the cost
of operating an airline or airport operations involves only the fuel cost (Cooper, 2018).
So even a small improvement in the efficiency of the aircraft can emerge as significant
change and cost saving which can be used in other development purposes. As the
emission problem is being noticed by people and authorities, the airport will be
required to take impactful actions against its containment and in that part, technology
will have a major role to play (McGrath, 2016).
CONCLUSION
Impact of technology on the operations and sustainability of the projected growth of Heathrow
airport is evident from the following discussed points. Technology always has a major role in
the development and evolution of such operations but since the people involved do not get as
much recognition as by people in other factors, it is considered secondary. For example, the
technological impact seen by the implementation of Biometric boarding system and pushback
vehicle technology was not in a serious requirement but as a process of development and
evolution as mentioned, they have played their part and have given improvements in both long
and short tenure. Use of efficient technology in aircraft, on the other hand, is altogether an
unavoidable need which has to be addressed sooner or later by not the only Heathrow airport
but every airport and aircraft in the world.

REFERENCES
 Edie Newsroom, 2016. Green technology could mitigate environmental impacts of
Heathrow expansion, online available at https://www.edie.net/news/6/Heathrow-s-
third-runway-impacts-mitigated-through-technological-advances--report-finds/, last
accessed on 6th April 2019.
 Cooper, R., 2018. Transforming the airport experience using innovative technology,
online available at
https://www.internationalairportreview.com/article/70314/transforming-the-airport-
experience-using-innovative-technology/, last accessed on 6th April 2019.
 Topham, G., 2019. Heathrow trials digital control tower for a third runway, online
available at https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jan/24/25m-plan-for-hi-tech-
solution-to-heathrows-third-runway, last accessed on 6th April 2019.
 McGrath, M., 2016. The environmental costs of Heathrow expansion, online available at
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-37762099, last accessed on 6th April
2019.