Some say that when one door closes, another one opens. Turns out that when one Air Force base closes, a lot of doors can open. Salina Regional Airport (SLN), located about 175 miles west of Kansas City, is currently a thriving municipal airport fed by a busy industrial park and a satellite campus of Kansas State University. But that wasn't always the case.
Plenty of unknown challenges emerged when COVID-19 turned the industry upside down in a matter of weeks. San Diego International Airport (SAN) also found an opportunity. While air traffic is at record lows due to the global pandemic, the metropolitan airport is analyzing how the noise data it routinely collects correlates with the number of noise complaints from the community.
Spoiler alert: The relationship is not what you might expect.
From the very onset of the COVID-19 crisis, Los Angeles World Airports has been aggressively pursuing new processes, protocols and technologies to keep Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) clean, healthy and safe for employees, tenants and passengers.
When Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY) officially opened the doors of its new terminal in November 2019, the facility gleamed. The concourses and updated finishes literally transformed the way nearly 25,000 passengers traveled through the airport each day. But shortly after the grand opening, cleaning challenges emerged that threatened the image and reputation of the city's flagship airport.
As the general public continues to shy away from commercial air travel during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, airports are finding new ways to keep their important infrastructure improvements on track. Teams supporting projects in Pittsburgh and Puerto Rico, for instance, learned how to keep projects moving during shutdowns in March. Leveraging remote technologies that allowed personnel to work from home proved pivotal in both cases.
As the world's busiest airport, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) spans more than 7 million square feet of property. Naturally, it takes a lot of supplies and materials to keep the facilities that large running smoothly. Everything from carpeting and trash cans to paper towels and window cleaner is purchased and used in high volume.
Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (MSP) recently completed a roughly $3.5 million project designed to prevent the glycol used to deice planes from potentially seeping into groundwater. By sealing select sections of concrete storm sewers with leak-proof liners, the airport avoided the higher cost and disruption associated with excavating and replacing pipes.
By their very nature, airports require nimble communication teams. One day, it's a routine personnel announcement or upbeat ribbon-cutting ceremony; but the next can bring an all-out media frenzy about COVID-19. The topics airports must address run the gamut, and so do their communication strategies.
When customers roll up to a ticketing counter in a wheelchair or navigate through the concourse tapping a white cane on the floor, airport employees know that they might want extra assistance. It's far more difficult, however, to identify customers with conditions that are less apparent such as learning difficulties, mental health issues or hearing impairments.
Savvy airport officials know that it makes sense to help senior-level executives improve their leadership skills and broaden their perspectives. Such training helps the executives and airports. Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport (CVG) put a global spin on its development program by sending one executive to experience life at a European airport and another to observe operations at an Asian airport.
Washington, D.C. is experiencing an especially mild winter this year. In fact, it is on track to be the fifth warmest on record for the past 150 years. (Fingers crossed, it doesn't prove to be a jinx.)
Frequent flyers take great pride in their ability to overcome travel hurdles. They have finely honed strategies for moving efficiently through security, managing tight connections and scrambling to book other flights when theirs are delayed or canceled. It's almost a science.
