Introduction
An airport is a place where aircrafts of various sizes land and take off. These aircrafts may be Helicopters or other classes such as fixed wing aircrafts. It is in the airport that the aircrafts are refuelled and maintained. The plane might pass through a routine service check or a full maintenance check.
An airport consists of a Helipad or a runway for planes to land and takes off. There are different categories of airports that exist. They are classed according to the sizes of planes that they can accommodate. Smaller sized airports which consist of the majority of airports worldwide have short runways and few of them are paved with concrete or tarmac. Their runways are generally constricted to being shorter than 1000 metres (Campbell, 1977). Bigger airports can accommodate bigger airplanes and thus have more facilities. For this article we will dwell on low cost airlines and the facilities needed to accommodate them.
The rise of low cost carriers
As the number of low cost carriers increases over time, Competition has affected the dominance of the large players. The issue of accommodating them has arisen as infrastructure built in many airports was centred on the main aviation players of the time. The way low cost carriers use the buildings is very different from the way the main players in aviation use their passenger buildings.
Airports have been at pains to address this issue (Rodwell, 2003). One emergent view is that low cost carriers want to cut cost using the shortest and most effective way possible and if this means compromising on the buildings and facilities offered by them, then so be it (Campbell, 105). Low cost airlines have moved away air traffic from the main airports to secondary airports and this has forced the main airports to rethink their overall long term strategy. LCC’s (Low cost carriers) are quickly emerging as the replacement for national carriers.
As National carriers continue to go bankrupt, the no frills airlines are raking in massive profits. Examples of these airlines include Easy jet and Ryanair which are beating all expectations to deliver to both the business and its clients. In South America Gol is rapidly becoming the airline of choice among many people in the region. This trend seems to be the same in Asia where Air Asia and Lion Air are attributed to carrying over 6% of the air traffic in the Asia region (Wells, 2008).
Planning and Management of Airports
Good planning of the airport and development is thus required in the face of the current environment. The way these airlines operate is different from the way legacy airlines. LCC’s seek to maximize the use of their planes as much as possible by restricting the number of wasted hours that the plane may incur on the ground or in the air.
For example, the turnaround time for south west airlines on the ground was 25 minutes (Singer, 2008). This means that on average, each plane spent only 25 minutes on the ground. To achieve this, the airports chose secondary airports due to their lack of congestion. This doesn’t mean that they only operate in secondary airports, but they also operate in main airports when profits and traffic justify so. With the shrinking of the main players, low cost carriers are increasingly taking over facilities (De Neufville, 2007).
Secondary Airports
A secondary airport, by definition is any airport that competes for passenger traffic from the main airports. Such airports may be located close to the city or even some distance apart from the nearest main airport. They normally act as a bridge for the other cities or airports. For example Malmo airport in Sweden is the secondary airport serving Copenhagen (Wells, 2004).
Secondary Airport Facilities
LCC’s (Low cost airlines) use less expensive slot spaces in airports. These slots are mostly older and less costly facilities when compared to other slots in the airport. They further maximize the slot facilities by making sure that they are always busy leading to lesser use of them in the long run. When it comes to Airport fees, Low cost use of airport gates is another example of how they have managed to survive the downturn.
For example the charges per gate vary greatly from carrier to carrier; because of the high turnaround experienced by LCCs they can process more passengers across their gates. They can easily beat main players as they are charged much less for each gate and they can process more passengers per gate.
When it comes to other auxiliary services such as airport parking and quality of shops, low cost carriers prefer facilities that do not cost much for their passengers and this choice will be reflected by the passengers’ preference to the airline. The main airports demand a lot in terms of parking fees and canteen services that may be offered at the airport. Where the ground costs such as maintenance facilities in major airports are high due to the high quality provided, low cost carriers can avoid these costs by using secondary airports that charge less expensive maintenance fees for the planes.
Conclusion
The catchment area of any airport is under increased competition as the number of airlines and alliances increase. The catchment area being served by low cost airlines is continuing to grow as the number of low cost airlines increase. This factor plays an important role when any airline is designing their route. Other facilities such as cost of fuel and baggage handling are also considered when the low cost carriers decide to plan any route.
Works Cited
Campbell, George. (1977). Airport management and operations, Oxford: Claitor’s Pub Division.
Douglas Aircraft Company. (1968). Airplane characteristics for airport planning, New York: McDonnell-Douglas.
De Neufville, Richard. (2007) Airport systems: planning, design, and management, 2nd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill Professional.
Rodwell, Julie. (2003). Essentials of aviation management: A guide for aviation service business, 6th ed., Oxford: Kendall/Hunt Pub. Company,
Singer, Jerry. (2008). Small airport management handbook, 1st ed.NewYork: Carl Vinson Institute of Government,
Wells, Alexander. (2008). Airport planning & management, New York: McGraw-Hill Professional.