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10 The airport view

G.S. Hill
Director of Research and Projects,
British Airports Authority

In considering the large number of departing passengers expected in the 1970's, we must take a new look at the process between town terminal and home, and town terminal airport. Random individual arrivals at the airport terminal may overstain the present system unless trains or coaches carry at least half the traffic, and it may be necessary to expand processing facilities at the town terminal. The procedures at the airport will also have to be simplified to avoid using too much space at check-in desks. From the purely airline point of view it would probably be best if passengers carried their bags virtually up to the aircraft and there went through such formalities as were necessary. Against this, however, we must reckon the normal desire of a passenger to get rid of his baggage as soon as possible and to be able to use the duty-free shops. In addition we must recognise that the control authorities will find dispersing their already scarce staff very difficult and expensive. The cost and profitability of new aircraft will put a premium on the quick turn-round. Can this be achieved with traditional methods of baggage loading, the growing number of ground support vehicles, and current passenger handling methods? Every function should be carefully re-examined.

Every system has advantages and disadvantages; satellites may be attractive but take up a great deal of land and may require expensive equipment to overcome long walking distances; piers present similar problems; if access between terminal and aircraft is to be by means of a vehicle, which certainly offers flexibility, it will be necessary to examine the high running costs, the physical problems of handling very large numbers of passengers in a swarm of small vehicles or a few unwieldy monsters, and also the vulnerability to fog or labour disputes.

Finally, the larger the aircraft, the more awkward appears the problem of the delayed flight -- delays may still be due to mechanical trouble long after the problem of blind take-off and landing have been solved.

Arriving traffic presents many of the same problems, but the transfer of baggage into the terminal is perhaps the most acute. Already, with aircraft less than half of the typical aircraft of the next generation, passengers may find themselves waiting as long as ten minutes for bags to appear in the customs hall. Customs and perhaps immigration clearance before departure, in flight or, in certain circumstances, at the town terminal of arrival cannot be rules out.

In many respects the handling of air cargo is already far more advanced than the handling of air passengers. Containerization will doubtless bring its own problems, but the use of similar techniques in surface transport will point the way to solutions. Perhaps the biggest single problem will be how to stop the present tendency to use airline transit sheds, built at great expense on scarce and expensive land, as warehouses. Through transport from consignor to consignee has achieved considerable recognition in theory, but the practice will require all concerned to be willing to work round the clock in the same way as airlines and airports. They will not do so unless it can be made more expensive for them not to do so. It has been suggested that heavy demurrage charges have a part to play here; it is not a good solution to allow the goods to remain outside the transport process but on the airport in a special warehouse, and as far as the transport process is concerned the whole concept of warehouses in the middle of the chain is irreconcilable with the speed and efficiency of air transport.