Navigating airports - a holistic new approach to airport design
1. The Hindu Business Line : Navigating airports http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2010/12/27/stories/201012275054...
Ads by Google
Non-Stop, Airport Drop
Business Daily from THE HINDU group of publications GroupOn at Grouping Point Rs 230 per person-saving of 70%
Monday, Dec 27, 2010
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version | Audio | Blogs
Opinion - Infrastructure
Home Logistics - Airlines
News Update
Navigating airports
News
ACHAL RAGHAVAN
Front Page
Corporate As India begins to build new airports in metros and smaller cities, a totally fresh approach to airport
Markets design and operation is called for.
Info-Tech
Marketing
Money &
Banking
Agri-Biz &
Commodities
Industry &
Economy
Logistics
Government
Stories in this Section
Opinion
Supply-side issue
Variety
Columns Navigating airports
States
Web Extras Conspicuous by absence —
Index governance
Archives
Doubts over PMO's watch-
Features and-ward role
Investment WikiLeaks and Wodehouse
World From check-in to the aircraft seat is a long walk at the new Bangalore airport.
eWorld Some business amid
Brand Line Airports around the world, and indeed in India, are beginning to look and feel alike. They all share unparliamentary chaos
Mentor some common features — large expanses of air-conditioned space, soaring rooflines, and
Life The attack on corruption
passengers trying to make their way across endless walkways, queues and shopping areas. Senior
Brand Quest citizens, foreign visitors, families and first-time travellers scramble to find the right departure gates in Food inflation
The New time.
Manager
BL Club Is this really the ideal vision for the Indian airport of the future? As India begins to spend serious
Smartbuy money on expanding existing airports and building new ones, we need to take a totally new and
Books holistic approach towards designing and building airport terminals — by giving priority to the interests
Gallery of the paying customer i.e. the passenger.
Stocks New airports in India – such as Bengalore, Delhi and Mumbai - have gone in for ‘size' with a
vengeance, flaunting huge terminal buildings, bright lights, and large areas devoted to shopping.
Quotes
Since Indian airports in the earlier era used to be cramped, smelly and poorly-lit, the travelling public
SE Diary
has reacted very positively to these erminals. However, as traffic picked up, fundamental design
Scoreboard
issues have become more evident.
Open-End Mutual
Fund The current status
Foreign Exchange Take the new Bangalore airport, for example. The departing passenger queues up to enter the
terminal, gets into the large check-in area, checks in, and has to make an abrupt right turn to reach
Rates either of the two narrow escalators at either end of the hall. Why was the departure area not built at
the first floor level itself, with the departing passenger getting dropped off by her taxi or bus at that
level through a sloping drive-way ramp?
Shipping Having travelled up the escalator, the passenger has to make a right turn again, and queue up for the
x-ray and security check.
Ports
As anyone who has stood in this queue for 15 minutes at 6 a.m. will tell you, this area is already a
huge bottleneck. There is no space in the layout for adding more x-ray machines, even if you wanted
to.
Archives
A fundamental principle used in the manufacturing world is “line balancing” – where the “capacity” at
each stage of the manufacturing process is carefully balanced (or equalised), so that there is no
Yesterday
bottlenecking or queueing, even at peak load.
Datewise
Resources That principle is glaringly absent here. Another common principle used in good manufacturing layouts
In Focus is that of avoiding twists and turns (and ups and downs) in the direction of flow – so that the “total
distance travelled” is kept to the minimum. This principle has also been given the go-by in Bangalore.
The passenger first has to find her way through various shops to reach the departure gates. The
absence of clear, large signages compounds the problem.
After the check through at the gate, she often has to climb down a staircase (after a right and a left
turn) and wait again for a bus to take her to the aircraft, where she again queues up for climbing the
staircase into the plane. This is done even when there are vacant aerobridges available.
Group Sites By the time she takes her seat in the aircraft, her tired feet have traversed a path that resembles a
badly twisted bunch of spaghetti – instead of a short, level and straight line.
The Hindu
The Hindu No wonder the average passenger feels a sense of relief and achievement as she sinks into her
ePaper (narrow) airline seat.
Business Line
holistic approach
Business Line
ePaper
1 of 2 12/28/2010 9:43 PM