Airport Design
The return of the great American airport – is the sleeping giant waking up?
The Design Solution Managing Director Robbie Gill examines the revival of a sleeping giant – the great American airport. After decades of lagging behind other regions on airport infrastructure, a major programme of investment – driven by US government funding and a surge in private funding – is injecting new life into the continent’s hubs.
In the 40 years since The Design Solution launched, the biggest contrast I’ve seen in the airport world has been the extraordinary revolution of glimmering new terminals across Asia and the Middle East (most recently with Abu Dhabi’s new Zayed International Airport) and their contrast to the remarkable way that America’s major hubs have somehow continued to operate in the face of increasingly intensive pressures on their ageing infrastructure. For the past 20 years or more, the warnings across America’s airports, highways and bridges, ports and dams have grown ever louder.
Once, America’s pioneering airports led the world in the passenger experience. They launched a golden age of aviation with airport development programmes from the late 1950s through to the 1980s, including creating stunning locations such as Finnish architect Eero Saarinen’s designs for the TWA Flight Centre at JFK and the magnificent Washington Dulles Airport. This was travel with style.
New York JFK Terminal 6 is among the new wave of airports being developed through public-private investment
At TDS in the late ’80s and early ’90s we were part of the UK shopping centre industry that was emerging from the post-war era of brutal open-air shopping precincts. Many of the leading developers, fund managers and architects made multi-city visits to the USA to see the newest and best that led the worldwide retail industry.
We returned with hundreds of slides showing malls with grass rooflights, dramatic double-height spaces, food courts, glass lifts, palm trees and structural balustrades – all of which became the signature of so many shopping centres throughout the UK and, soon after, mainland Europe.
On those trips we also passed through numerous airport terminals – a decidedly less glamorous experience. Few were memorable, the vast majority concentrating on moving vast numbers of domestic passengers through institutional buildings; the bus stations of the sky. For the decades that followed, little changed.
Today, the heart of the problem is that many US airports are still using pretty much that same core infrastructure from the 1960s-80s, except that they now face up to three or four times more traffic than was ever planned for.
Another view of JFK Terminal 6, and the planned East Hall environment
The catalyst for change
The UK and Europe followed a different path. The privatisation of seven UK airports and the creation of BAA in 1986 – the first major airport privatisation in the world – demanded a dramatic reduction in aviation charges. Subsequently, BAA’s necessary drive towards maximising non-aeronautical revenue set a new benchmark in terms of commercial focus. It also set a privatisation path that hundreds – if not thousands – of other airports followed worldwide in freeing them up from public sector constraints.
However, having worked in 56 countries around the world, I think it is notable that the USA is one of the most challenging environments I’ve worked in. Apart from the constraints imposed by public ownership, the complexity of this ownership makes decision-making a political mire.
Old infrastructure dominates in many airports which were never designed for commerce. Narrow check-in halls often lead to small nodes at the head of piers and concourses. Prior to 9/11, the free flow of passengers allowed for a more flexible approach to landside and airside shopping eating and drinking with space at the head of the pier the focus of commercial activities.
Post-9/11, this tended to get re-purposed to facilitate expanded commercial operations. Often, terminals have no space for a consolidated commercial approach and rely on small pockets of commercial space in-between gate rooms to satisfy their commercial offer, with limited effectiveness.
Across all types of US airport-development projects, emphasis is given to Disadvantaged Business Enterprises (DBEs) where majority-owned companies are positively protected and encouraged. This additional consideration on tenant selection is a challenge and markedly different from the relatively free-trade approach that most countries enjoy.
As US airports’ operational pressures mount and legacy challenges come home to roost, in our role as airport planners at TDS we’ve encountered increasing demand from US airports desperate to squeeze out extra capacity and efficiency while being severely constrained by both space and investment.
Those challenges are now being addressed and a revival of US airports is clearly underway, driven not only by the pressures on capacity and operations but also by a desire to create a new standard of customer experience – and an added commercial edge to help finance these investments.
The latter has been especially pertinent in enticing private investors, further encouraged by US government support that includes the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, allocating up to US$25 billion for the modernisation of US airports, aiming to upgrade runways, terminals, air traffic control systems and airport efficiency. Almost every airport has applied for support and the FAA has also launched a series of major funding initiatives.
Airports supported by the US Airport Terminals Program, investing up to US$5 billion
Source: FAA website
“I think that US airport infrastructure fell behind the curve of the world’s airports, in a pretty big and noticeable way. Part of what we’re trying to do is move that, and I think we’re now well under way.”
US Government Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg (Source: fastcompany.com)
Public-private partnerships (P3s) are being used to fund and execute large-scale projects, including the stunning US$4 billion redevelopment of New York’s JFK Terminal 6. These models are helping overcome the traditional funding challenges that have slowed US airport improvements in the past, including the cumbersome issue of ownership and administration. It is clearly progress but ACI research suggested that much more is needed (continued on next page).
“Airports in the United States collectively need US$151 billion over the next five years in order to meet their infrastructure needs”
–ACI 2023 Report on US Airport Infrastructure Needs
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The Moodie Davitt eZine
Issue 338 | 27 September 2024
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