Airports face a balancing act every day. According to Airports Council International, this year we can expect 14% year-on-year growth in passenger travel. This means that airports have even more to balance when it comes to optimising operational efficiency, enhancing passenger experience, supporting safety and security, and minimising their environmental impact. Honeywell offers airports solutions that help, addressing both airside and landside optimisation with air traffic management and terminal operations, as well as automation, security solutions and sustainability technologies.
Honeywell works with more than 80% of the world’s busiest airports, using its airside management expertise to deploy solutions like aerodrome surface traffic management technologies to help maximise aircraft movements and mitigate congestion amid increasing flight volumes.
Alex Cowen, airports general manager, Honeywell
Growth and airside operations
The increase in flight numbers equates to significant pressure on airside operations – it adds congestion, increases the possibility of delays and potentially creates safety issues. Airports need solutions that can help ease the strain on their airside operations, whether this means maximising aircraft movements, clearly identifying gate assignments or improving ground handling processes. These all play a role in operational efficiency and, ultimately, reducing controllable delays.
At Incheon Airport in Seoul, the implementation of Honeywell NAVITAS solutions has helped maximise aircraft movements and optimise taxi routes. This not only helped Incheon improve its airside operational efficiency by reducing ground delays and enhancing overall airport performance, but meant that airlines operating there required less fuel due to shorter taxiing times and more efficient ground movements.
Accommodating higher traffic
Airports need solutions that can enable seamless co-ordination of airside operations – from the gates, taxiways and runways. This can help support increased capacity, meeting the growing demands of air travel. The Honeywell NAVITAS suite offers a variety of solutions to help improve airside operations including Smart Docking systems to better manage gate utilisation to help improve aircraft turnaround times. Honeywell also offers solutions designed to enable more efficient surface traffic movements. The faster an airport can turn gates around and keep the runway safe from incidents, the better it can handle increased traffic.
It’s key to take a holistic approach when considering both airside and landside operations, especially in times of increased or even full capacity. All elements of an airport must be in sync and operating efficiently. By taking this comprehensive approach, airport operators can find ways to improve processes across operations, from passenger safety, baggage and aircraft movements to the terminal experience and airside operations. This will help minimise bottlenecks and delays, even during peak periods.
Rapidly growing passenger numbers are putting airports under increasing pressure
Spotlight on security
Passenger and staff safety is critical in the airport environment. This doesn’t just mean the physical security of the terminal, landside and airside operations – it’s also about runway safety, as well as cybersecurity. Recently, there have been several runway safety incidents that are causing widespread concern. Airports – especially when operating at increased capacity – need greater situational awareness of all airside operations, including those involving gates, ramps, taxiways, the airfield and runways – to help protect the safety of passengers, ground crews and overall airport operations. Honeywell offers multiple systems – from on board the aircraft to airside operations – to help minimise runway safety incidents. This includes cockpit alerting systems on the aircraft, airfield ground lighting, gate management and docking solutions. These systems will help predict, detect and resolve traffic conflicts across approach, runway, taxiway and apron areas, bringing layers of safety and security to critical airport operations.
Navitas has been designed to manage everything from the approach to the gate to improved turnaround
The environmental impact
The CO2 emissions generated by the aviation industry are at an all-time high, yet buildings emit 15 times more carbon globally than all the aircraft in the air. With the industry’s commitment to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, airports need to consider how they look at managing the energy used in terminals, creating power resilience, reducing aircraft movements and adopting sustainable aviation fuels (SAF). From a terminal perspective, when airports deploy modern building management systems (BMS) paired with advanced software control, these systems can help monitor, control and optimise the energy use in the building down to assets like heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC), lighting or even plug load. Importantly, these systems are designed to optimise energy use without impacting the building experience.
Airports need a partner that can provide a holistic approach to support sustainability efforts including airside LED lighting systems, constant currency regulators and gate turnaround management that reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions. Alongside Honeywell sustainable aviation fuels and low global warming potential refrigerants, these innovations work to help support airports to achieve their sustainability goals and carbon accreditation certification.
Looking ahead
Honeywell continuously invests in research and development to adapt its technology to evolving industry trends and customer needs. This includes advancements in artificial intelligence, data analytics and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies to enhance airport operational efficiency, sustainability and life safety.
The Navitas suite of airside systems is scalable for airports of all sizes and complexities
