Strategic Airport Planning and Development: Heathrow Airport Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of strategic airport planning and development, specifically focusing on Heathrow Airport. It delves into the key planning challenges faced by the airport's master planning team, particularly in relation to traffic forecasting and the development of surface accessibility. The report examines the successes and failures of previous master plans in achieving traffic forecasts and improving surface access. It also explores the potential impacts of these planning decisions on various stakeholders, including passengers, air carriers, airport authorities, investors, service providers, employees, NGOs, business organizations, and parking operators. The analysis covers the period before the latest published master plan and considers the implications of airport expansion, including the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on traffic forecasting. The report concludes by summarizing the major challenges and opportunities in Heathrow Airport's strategic development, emphasizing the need for effective planning to meet stakeholder interests and manage airport operations efficiently.

STRATEGIC AIRPORT
PLANNING &
DEVELOPMENT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................1
Part 1 Explanation of key planning challenges for an airport Master Planning team, when
giving consideration to future airport expansion.........................................................................1
Part 2 Explain how successful/unsuccessful they have been using previous Master Plan since
the previous Master Plan was published......................................................................................2
Part 3 Possible impact for stakeholders.......................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Strategic planning and development is an organizational process or strategy that help
organizations in allotting and using their resources in such a manner that that overall business
strategy can be developed, as well plans for the long-term development of an organization
(Goodfellow and Natarajan, 2021). Strategic planning and development of an airport can help in
identifying channels faced by planning team so that those challenges can be overcome and
accordingly a new masterplan for expansion of airport can be developed. Organization focused
upon in this report is Heathrow airport. It is also known as Lonon Airport is second busiest
airport in the word and one of the major international airport in London England. This report will
lay emphasis upon Airport surface accessibility and traffic forecasting for Heathrow airport.
MAIN BODY
Part 1 Explanation of key planning challenges for an airport Master Planning team, when giving
consideration to future airport expansion
1.1 Airport traffic forecasting
Airport traffic forecast has always been a challenge for master planning team of
Heathrow airport. This is because Heathrow airport the second busiest airport in the world. As
this airport has only two runways therefore it does not allow low- cost carriers at this airport.
Many times, early morning arrival flights are more than expected forecasted demand level. It has
always been a challenge for master planning team of Heathrow airport because due to its busiest
traffic new entrants are never given priority in securing slots (Pretto and et. al., 2020). Domestic
connectivity from Heathrow airport is increasing because of which traffic at airport is always
greater than forecasted traffic. In fact, it is one of the major infrastructural challenge faced by
Heathrow airport. Mostly traffic at airport is always greater than forecasted traffic. But in 2020
due to Covid-19 pandemic situation, traffic at Heathrow airport was much lower as comparted to
traffic forecasted fur to this their overall revenue was also impacted. In 2020 traffic forecasted
was 29.2 million but original traffic was 22.6 million.
On the basis of this explanation some considerations that can be considered for future
airport expansion planning of Heathrow airport are: in third runway expansion plan, new entrants
will be given some priority in booking slots, so that allowance of low- cost carriers can be
increased. This will further help the airport to deal with negative impact of Covid-19 and this
traffic forecasting challenge can be overcome by the airport.
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1.2 Development of surface accessibility
Growing environment concerns is forcing Heathrow airport to focus upon development
of surface access challenge. This challenge has come into picture in recent years because number
of people using London Heathrow airport has increased but on the other hand, proportion of
people using public transport to reach Heathrow airport has reduced. Due to this development of
surface accessibility has never been a challenge and important to be focused upon (Button,
2017). It is a challenge for Master planning team of Heathrow airport as it directly impact ways
in which airport can serve their passengers or people using Heathrow airport. Due to this, it
becomes important for master planning team to focus upon development of surface accessibility
so that Heathrow airport can remain heart of transport network and can benefit UK.
consideration to future airport expansion for third runway development is: Airport can focus
upon development of surface accessibility in order to focus upon new transport gateway for
people to reach Heathrow airport.
Part 2 Explain how successful/unsuccessful they have been using previous Master Plan since the
previous Master Plan was published
At achieving their traffic forecasts
According to Previous master plan of Heathrow airport; Heathrow airport was able to
bring improvement within their traffic forecasting. It has not only helped in accurate traffic
forecasting but has further helped in enabling their business to plan their activities, manage their
resources in accordance with expansion demand (Vine, 2020). Heathrow Airport was able to
successful because as per the last master plan 5 terminals of Heathrow airport helped airport
authorities to manage traffic forecast. Terminal 5 especially in increasing and managing more
early morning flights. Not only this after terminal 5 was opened, Heathrow Airport traffic
forecasting increased by 20 percent. Opening of terminal 5 was a success as it increased number
of flights at airport. Soon it became one of the busiest terminals of Heathrow airport with more
than 40 percent of passengers which is more than Edinburgh Airport and Birmingham Airport
combined. Connectivity was increased due to this terminal. But in 2020 due to Covid-19
pandemic traffic forecast by 64 percent and traffic at terminal 5 reduced. It was a part of master
plan that successfully helped in increasing traffic forecasting and further helped in managing
traffic at the airport as per the traffic forecast. Not only this, it successfully helped in attracting a
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greater number of flights that further increased traffic at airport and made this terminal one of the
busiest terminal of the airport.
Improving their surface access
According to previous Master plan of Heathrow, they were successfully in manging
surface accessibility challenge till a certain extent. In fact, they had added surface accessibility
development funds within master plan individually so that traffic at the airport can be reduced by
creating a new plan for public transport so that overall public transport can be improved. This
initiative was taken by master planning team to bring operational improvements by making best
use of its capacity by bringing improvement within surface access to airport specifically by rail
transport (Vine, 2020). For development of surface accessibility, surface access to rail to
Heathrow Airport was focused upon. This master plans some shift from road to rail was brought
in a per the airport expectations. But this surface accessibility was not increased for passengers
who arrived airport by air in fact, this surface accessibility was introduced for passengers who
would likely to continue to go by Air to their UK destination.
Part 3 Possible impact for stakeholders
Impact of management of Airport surface accessibility and traffic forecasting of Heathrow
airport had both positive and negative impact upon its stakeholders. Impact upon some of the
main stakeholders of Heathrow airport have been explained below:
 Passengers: Development of surface accessibility impacted customers in a positive manner
because it directly helped in increasing accessibility to and from airport for passengers. As
air pollution is normally significant and increased easiness to travel to and from Heathrow
airport was beneficial for passengers (Vine, 2020). Accurate traffic forecasting further helped
in management of flights which further increased convenience for passengers.
 Air carriers: Accurate traffic forecasting helped in management of fright in more accurate
and appropriate manner. this impacted air carriers in a positive manner as it increased their
accessibility or availability of slots. Airport planning can be done in more accurate manner
that helps air carries increasing to and from of their flights from airport.
 Airport Authorities: Traffic forecasting helped Heathrow airport authorities to management
both carrier and passenger traffic at airport. Not only this surface access development also
helped them to provide more accessibility to their passengers in more appropriate manner.
overcoming both of these challenges though master pan directly helped Airport authorities of
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Heathrow airport to manage air traffic, manage passengers as well as provide more managed
and appropriate facilities to new entrants.
 Investors and bond-holder: Impact of expansion master plan was negative upon investors and
bond holders (Vine, 2020). This is majorly because they will be required to invest more upon
airport infrastructure or accurate traffic forecasting and for surface accessibility development.
 Service Providers: This master plan positively impacted service providers because they were
able to get more business because accurate traffic forecasting and development of surface
accessibility helped in more accurate management and attracting more number of flights
which increased servers providers business who provide high quality service to air carriers
and to aviation users.
 Employees: this master plan helped in increasing overall business of Heathrow airport which
helped the airport in increasing number of jobs, provide more benefit and wadges to existing
employees.
 NGO like environmental bodies: It had a negative impact upon NGO’s because both traffic
forecasting and surface accessibility increased traffic of both air carriers and passengers
because of which air environment pollution was increased.
 Business organizations: it had a positive impact upon business organizations because
business opportunities for them increased. It can also be said that business opportunities for
those organizations had increased.
 Parking operators and ground transportation providers: Surface accessibility development
work of parking operations because of increased traffic at airport (Vine, 2020). But it further
provided with an opportunity to increase their overall revenue and profitability.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it has been summarized that there are various kinds of challenges
that airport Master Planning team can face out of which Airport surface accessibility and traffic
forecasting are two most important challenges faced by them. It is important for Airport to focus
upon identifying and overcoming these challenges in masterplan for successful management of
their business and stakeholder interest.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Button, K., 2017. The other side of an airport’s two-sided market: issues in planning and pricing
airport surface access. European Journal of Transport and Infrastructure
Research. 17(4).
Goodfellow, M. and Natarajan, N., 2021. 8 Workers and environmentalists of the world unite?
Exploring red-green politics in union support for Heathrow expansion. Climate Change
in the Global Workplace: Labour, Adaptation and Resistance, p.131.
Pretto, M., and et. al., 2020. Forecasts of future scenarios for airport noise based on collection
and processing of web data. European Transport Research Review. 12(1). pp.1-14.
Vine, R., 2020. Riskwork in the construction of Heathrow Terminal 2. Available at SSRN
3755049.
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