Search Results (94)

In today’s dynamic and highly uncertain environment, organizations, particularly in the aviation sector, face increasing challenges that demand resilient, flexible, and data-driven change management decisions. Responding to the growing need for structured approaches to managing complex uncertainties—geopolitical tensions, economic volatility, social shifts, rapid technological advancements, environmental pressures and regulatory changes—this research proposes a theoretical change management model for aviation service providers, such as airports. Integrating three analytical approaches, the model offers a robust, multi-method approach for supporting sustainable transformation under uncertainty. Normative analysis using Bayesian decision theory identifies influential external environmental factors, capturing probabilistic relationships, and revealing causal links under uncertainty. Prescriptive planning through scenario theory explores alternative future pathways and helps to identify possible predictions, offer descriptive evaluation employing fuzzy comprehensive evaluation, and assess decision quality under vagueness and complexity. The proposed four-stage model—observation, analysis, evaluation, and response—offers a methodology for continuous external environment monitoring, scenario development, and data-driven, proactive change management decision-making, including the impact assessment of change and development. The proposed model contributes to the theoretical advancement of the change management research area under uncertainty and offers practical guidance for aviation organizations (airports) facing a volatile external environment. This framework strengthens aviation organizations’ ability to anticipate, evaluate, and adapt to multifaceted external changes, supporting operational flexibility and adaptability and contributing to the sustainable development of aviation services. Supporting aviation organizations with tools to proactively manage systemic uncertainty, this research directly supports the integration of sustainability principles, such as resilience and adaptability, for long-term value creation through change management decision-making. Full article

The aviation industry is under increasing pressure to reduce its environmental impact while maintaining safety and performance standards. One promising area for improvement lies in the use of sustainable materials in airport infrastructure. One of the issues preventing uptake of emerging sustainable technologies is the lack of guidance relating to the opportunities, potential benefits, associated risks and an implementation plan specific to airport pavements. This research reviewed opportunities to incorporate waste materials into rigid airport pavements, focusing on concrete base slabs. Commonly used supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs), such as fly ash and ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS) were considered, as well as recycled aggregates, including recycled concrete aggregate (RCA), recycled crushed glass (RCG), and blast furnace slag (BFS). Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) were also used to quantify the potential for environmental benefit associated with various concrete mixtures, with findings showing 23% to 50% reductions in embodied carbon are possible for selected theoretical concrete mixtures that incorporate waste materials. With considered evaluation and structured implementation, the integration of waste materials into rigid airport pavements offers a practical and effective route to improve environmental outcomes in aviation infrastructure. It was concluded that a Triple Bottom Line (TBL) framework—assessing financial, environmental, and social factors—guides material selection and can support sustainable decision-making, as does performance-based specifications that enable sustainable technologies to be incorporated into airport pavement. The study also proposed a consequence-based implementation hierarchy to facilitate responsible adoption of waste materials in airside pavements. The outcomes of this review will assist airport managers and pavement designers to implement practical changes to achieve more sustainable rigid airport pavements in the future. Full article

Accurate short-term passenger forecasts help regional airports align capacity with demand and plan investments effectively. Drawing on quarterly traffic data for 2010–2024 supplied by the Polish Civil Aviation Authority, this study employs Holt–Winters exponential smoothing to predict passenger volumes at Szczecin–Goleniów Airport for 2025. Additive and multiplicative formulations were parameterized with Excel Solver, using the mean absolute percentage error to identify the better-fitting model. The additive version captured both the steady post-pandemic recovery and pronounced seasonal peaks, indicating that passenger throughput is likely to rise modestly year on year, with the highest loads expected in the summer quarter and the lowest in early spring. These findings suggest the airport should anticipate continued growth and consider adjustments to terminal capacity, apron allocation, and staffing schedules to maintain service quality. Because the Holt–Winters method extrapolates historical patterns and does not incorporate external shocks—such as economic downturns, policy changes, or public health crises—its projections are most reliable over the short horizon examined and should be complemented by scenario-based analyses in future work. This study contributes to sustainable airport management by providing a reproducible, data-driven forecasting framework that can optimize resource allocation with minimal environmental impact. Full article

This study aims to develop an information strategy plan (ISP) for the integrated management of airport facility information in South Korea by applying smart technologies such as building information modeling (BIM), digital twins, and openBIM. As the demand for intelligent lifecycle management and efficient facility operations continues to grow, airport infrastructure requires standardized and interoperable systems to manage complex assets and stakeholder collaboration. This research addresses three core challenges facing Korean airports: the lack of sustainable maintenance environments, the absence of data standards and systems, and the insufficiency of user-oriented platforms. Through system analysis, benchmarking, and SWOT assessment, the study proposes a stepwise implementation roadmap consisting of development, integration, and advancement phases and designs a “To-Be” model that incorporates 37 component technologies and a standardized information framework. The proposed ISP supports data-driven airport operations, enhances collaboration, and accelerates digital transformation, ultimately contributing to the development of smart and globally competitive airports. Full article

Aviation heritage, though relatively recent in historical terms, constitutes an important and increasingly recognized component of urban cultural landscapes. This article explores how former airports and aviation-related infrastructure have been preserved, adapted, or commemorated in Berlin—a city with a uniquely complex aviation history shaped by political division, technological progress, and evolving urban needs. Based on a typology proposed by the author, the study analyzes five former airport sites in Berlin (Johannisthal, Staaken, Tempelhof, Gatow, and Tegel), employing historical research, field observations, and spatial analysis. The results reveal a wide spectrum of approaches to aviation heritage, ranging from complete erasure to creative reuse integrating ecological, recreational, educational, and symbolic functions. The study also highlights the role of aviation heritage in fostering local identity and contributing to sustainable tourism. The proposed typology may serve as a useful tool for assessing and managing aviation heritage in other urban contexts. Full article

The optimisation of airport infrastructure capacities lacks adequate tools that would enable airport owners and managers to make strategic decisions related to sustainable development and strengthening multimodal connectivity. Assessing the sustainability of the transport system is one of the important issues in creating transport policies worldwide. In this research, the methodology of multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) was used, which can be applied to decision making and the evaluation of transport projects, considering more than one criterion in the selection process. The Stepwise Weight Assessment Ratio Analysis (SWARA) method is one of the new MCDM methods. The SWARA method will assess the weights of the selected main criteria and sub-criteria for the multimodal connection of airports to the railway transport infrastructure. In this method, the expert plays an important role in the evaluation and calculation of the criteria weights. This research also aims to respond to the need to define a framework for objective and transparent decision-making based on the assessment of the weighting factors of the selected main criteria and sub-criteria. To assess the justification for the choice of railway transport for connecting airports, financial, traffic, environmental, and availability criteria were used. Full article

The advancement of sustainable economic development has become a strategic imperative for enterprises aiming to combine financial development with environmental and social responsibility. In this regard, strategic enterprise management (SEM) has a critical role in incorporating the aspects of sustainability into decision making. The present paper suggests a multicriteria decision-making framework that utilizes fuzzy TOPSIS in assessing and ranking sustainability integration aspects in organizations. By considering the intrinsic vagueness of sustainability analysis, the fuzzy TOPSIS model enables the systematic analysis of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors by companies for ensuring their alignment to corporate strategic goals. A case study of a major international airport in Greece demonstrates how the proposed methodology assists strategic choice making, balancing economic viability and sustainable value creation. The results show primary trade-offs among human capital investment, environmental footprint reduction, and stakeholder communication, demonstrating how companies can enhance long-term resilience and competitiveness. This research adds to the existing literature by giving an integrated strategic enterprise management framework with the use of decision support instruments to foster sustainability-oriented corporate governance and strategic efficacy. The suggested model is flexible and can be applied in any industry, hence being a benchmark for sustainable business practice. This paper contributes to the literature by integrating fuzzy TOPSIS with balanced scorecard in the context of airport strategic sustainability management, offering both methodological advancement and empirical insights for transport and supply chain enterprises. Full article

Various sectors focus on transitioning to clean and renewable energy sources, particularly airport microgrids (AMGs), which offer the potential for highly reliable and resilient operations. As airports increasingly integrate renewable energy sources, ensuring stable and efficient power becomes a critical challenge. In this context, maintaining proper frequency is essential for the reliable operation of AMGs, which helps maintain grid stability and reliable operation. This paper proposes a new hybrid disturbance observer-based controller with a fractional-order controller (DOBC/FOC) for operating AMGs with high levels of renewable energy integration and advanced frequency regulation (FR) capabilities. The proposed controller utilizes DOBC coupled with a non-integer FOC for load frequency control (LFC), optimized for peak performance under varying operational conditions. In addition, a decentralized control strategy is introduced to manage the participation of electric vehicles and lithium-ion battery systems within the airport’s energy ecosystem, enabling effective demand response and energy storage utilization. Furthermore, the parameters of these controllers are optimized simultaneously to ensure optimal performance in both transient and steady-state conditions. The proposed DOBC/FOC controller demonstrates strong performance and reliability according to simulation outcomes, showcasing its superior performance in maintaining frequency stability, reducing fluctuations, and ensuring continuous power supply in diverse operating scenarios, such as 55.5% and 76.5% in step load perturbations when compared to the utilization of electric vehicles (EVs) and electric aircraft (EAC), respectively. These results underline the potential of this approach in enhancing the resilience and sustainability of AMG and contributing to more intelligent and eco-friendly airport infrastructure. Full article

This paper provides a novel approach to airport sustainability with a comparative analysis of frameworks presented by Airports Council International (ACI) and the World Economic Forum (WEF), a case study on environmental social governance (ESG) reporting for large US airports, a historical perspective and discussion regarding legal considerations, and sustainability metrics. Airport sustainability reporting provides numerous advantages, including enhanced transparency and accountability, and it also supports risk management, regulatory compliance, operational efficiency, risk management, community engagement, and investor relations. There are 30 large hub airports in the US, and each one of these publishes information on sustainability, which may consist of a sustainability report, reports on sustainability related topics, or website information. Eight of these large US airports publish an ESG report. ESG reports are of increasing interest due to their use internationally and due to the role of ESG reports in investment decisions. This paper presents an analysis of the information contained in ESG reports published by US airports and compares the frame of reference used by airports that utilize UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in their reporting. Case studies of ESG reports for Salt Lake City and Dallas Fort Worth Airports are presented to illustrate ESG reports, and the use of the SDG identified in these reports is compared the framework identified by Airports Council International (ACI) and the World Economic Forum (WEF). The discussion of airport ESG reporting provides a thorough and contextual review of the topic and examines how this framework may evolve to address the increasing interest in ESG reporting for US airports. The information provided may be used by airports to improve their sustainability reporting. Full article

Airport sustainability has gained increasing attention as the aviation industry faces the challenge of balancing economic growth, environmental responsibility, and social standards. This study conducts a systematic literature review (SLR) using the OpenAlex database. The PRISMA 2020 (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) methodology was applied to refine the selection process, resulting in 66 relevant studies. Then, a bibliometric–systematic literature review (B-SLR) approach was employed to analyze trends and identify research gaps. The findings indicate that most studies often focus on two sustainability pillars at a time, while neglecting a fully integrated perspective. Not many research works simultaneously address all three dimensions of sustainability (economic, environmental, and social), leading to fragmented insights into sustainable airport management. Notably, some industry-driven reports are starting to suggest emerging holistic approaches, but the majority of the academic literature remains segmented. Hence, this study highlights the need for a more comprehensive research framework that considers environmental, economic, and social factors concurrently. Future research should integrate these dimensions to develop practical and well-balanced sustainability strategies; while methodological limitations may exist in this work, such as language constraints and dataset selection criteria, this review provides valuable insights into airport sustainability and lays the groundwork for further scientific studies. Full article

The rapid expansion of China’s civil aviation sector, particularly within the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei airport cluster, has led to significant airspace congestion and operational inefficiencies. This study develops a dynamic flight slot allocation model that integrates both airport and airspace capacity constraints, accounting for real-time fluctuations in resource availability. The model aims to optimize slot distribution, minimize delays, and enhance operational efficiency by adapting to variations in airport and waypoint capacities, offering a more flexible solution compared with traditional static approaches. A case study based on real-world data from the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region demonstrates the model’s effectiveness. Computational experiments show that incorporating capacity fluctuations significantly reduces the need for slot adjustments, particularly at secondary airports with volatile demand. The results indicate a marked improvement in operational efficiency, including reduced adjustment times and fewer affected flights. This research underscores the value of adaptive data-driven strategies in managing complex air traffic systems and provides valuable insights for policymakers and aviation authorities. Future research could extend this work by incorporating additional dynamic factors, such as weather conditions and emerging technologies, to further enhance the sustainability and efficiency of air traffic management. Full article

This paper introduces an alternative forecasting approach that leverages the application of visibility graphs in the context of multivariate energy forecasting for a regional airport, which incorporates energy demand of diverse types of buildings and wind power generation. The motivation for this research stems from the urgent need to enhance the accuracy and reliability of load forecasting in microgrids, which is crucial for optimizing energy management, integrating renewable sources, and reducing operational costs, thereby contributing to more sustainable and efficient energy systems. The proposed methodology employs visibility graph transformations, the superposed random walk method, and temporal decay adjustments, where more recent observations are weighted more significantly to predict the next time step in the data set. The results indicate that the proposed method exhibits satisfactory performance relative to comparison models such as Exponential smoothing, ARIMA, Light Gradient Boosting Machine and CNN-LSTM. The proposed method shows improved performance in forecasting energy consumption for both stationary and highly variable time series, with SMAPE and NMRSE values typically in the range of 4–10% and 5–20%, respectively, and an $R^2$ reaching 0.96. The proposed method affords notable benefits to the forecasting of energy demand, offering a versatile tool for various kinds of structures and types of energy production in a microgrid. This study lays the groundwork for further research and real-world applications within this field by enhancing both the theoretical and practical aspects of time series forecasting, including load forecasting. Full article

Airport facility management requires innovative and coordinated techniques due to the infrastructure’s complexity, stakeholders’ diversity, and the necessity of safety. Adopting building information management (BIM) as an advanced technology has several benefits, including increased productivity, lower cost, and higher quality of service. This study seeks to determine the strategies for using BIM in airport facility management. In this vein, two questionnaires were developed to collect data based on a literature review. The first questionnaire was used to collect data for identifying and ranking the main criteria, and the second questionnaire was used to identify the practical strategies. The experts of this study answered five strengths, four weaknesses, five opportunities, and five threats using a standardized questionnaire. An integrated AHP-SWOT approach was used to identify and examine the practical strategies. Furthermore, a sensitivity analysis was used to ensure the results were correct. The findings showed that smart maintenance management, with a weight of 0.363, was the most important strength in the SWOT analysis. Resistance to change was the most important weakness, with a weight of 0.455. The increasing need for smart airports with a weight of 0.358 was the most important opportunity, while cybersecurity issues with a weight of 0.385 were the most important threat. Integrating BIM into the aviation sector can enhance efficiency and sustainability in airport facility management while addressing potential opportunities and shared hazards that extend beyond airport operations. Full article

This paper discusses SESAR’s Auto-Steer Taxi at Airport (ASTAIR) project, which seeks to advance airport ground operations including engine-off taxiing to move towards sustainable airports. The ASTAIR concept integrates human–AI teaming to optimize aircraft movement from gates to runways, with the primary objectives of improving predictability, efficiency, and environmental sustainability at large airports. Building on previous initiatives such as SESAR’s AEON, ASTAIR brings high-level automation to tasks like autonomous taxiing and vehicle routing. The system assists operators by calculating conflict-free routes for vehicles and dynamically adjusting operations based on real-time data. Based on workshops with several stakeholders, we describe the operational challenges involved in implementing ASTAIR, including managing parking stand availability and adapting to unforeseen events. A significant challenge highlighted is the human–automation partnership, where AI plays a supportive role but humans retain control over critical decisions, particularly in cases of system failure. The need for clear and consistent collaboration between AI and human operators is emphasized to ensure safety, efficiency, and improved compliance with take-off schedules, which in turn facilitates in-flight optimization. Full article

Airports can be pivotal drivers of regional economic development. However, Gold Coast Airport’s cross-border location, spanning two local government areas (City of Gold Coast and Tweed Shire) and two Australian states (Queensland and New South Wales), has created several governance challenges affecting regional economic sustainability. This article explores three questions: (1) What are the barriers and opportunities to promote economic development and cross-border planning around Gold Coast Airport? (2) How do cross-border governance arrangements and planning frameworks impact the airport’s economic contributions? (3) What lessons can be drawn from this case study? To address these questions, the study uses a mixed-method approach comprising key informant interviews and policy analysis. The study finds that the airport’s economic impact is largely confined to the northern (Queensland) side of the border due to insufficient cross-border cooperation and fragmented planning frameworks. The article proposes transforming the border into a catalyst for economic development through three instruments: reimagining the border as a driver of growth, establishing a cross-border ‘airport city region’ with integrated governance, and creating a Cross-Border Committee under Federal oversight to foster collaboration. These insights are also relevant to other agencies managing major infrastructure projects with cross-border implications. Full article