Lack of airport capacity: Exploration of alternative solutions

Lack of sufficient airport capacity to meet traffic demands and the resulting problem of congestion and delays plague the aviation system at many major airports around the world. As traffic continues to grow, the problem worsens. This issue has become a major concern of airport authorities and airlines and innovative means of accommodating the ever increasing airline traffic have been sought. The paper explores some approaches for coping with the underlying problem of imbalance between the available airport capacity and the traffic demands placed on the system. Four basic alternative approaches are discussed: increasing the capacity through building new airports or expansion of existing facilities; reducing the demand by transferring portions of it to alternative locations or to other transportation modes; spreading the traffic peaks through economic or administrative measures to make the demand fit within the available capacity; and application of new technology and innovative operational practices to optimize the operation and usage of airport facilities. The effectiveness of each approach in relieving congestion and the implementation difficulties involved are discussed and final conclusions are presented. The scope of the paper has generally been confined to the landside component of the airport system.