Larger aircrafts could lead to fatter landing fees

Jan. 17, 2011 - PRLog -- Larger aircrafts such as the A380 and increased traffic levels reduces the timescale to perform maintenance is a large issue that need to be overcome.

Armann Norheim, Rapporteur of the Friction Task Force, for the ICAO believes that airfield engineers should utilise windows throughout the day for pavement maintenance.

“Use the “windows” available throughout the day. If that’s not practical achievable one has to use the quiet period during the night. Work during the night might have its own challenges with regards to quality control of the maintenance work. This should be given extra focus and tools like prequalification, including practice tests on other areas than the runway might be needed. The maintenance work has to be executed correct once out at the runway,” said Norheim

Plus there is additional coordination and cooperation challenge that Carlos Madeira, Vice President at ANA Aeroportos de Portugal believes is a big opportunity for airfield.

“Today’s airfields are intimately connected with other modes of transportation be they railways, motorways, or other. Experience shows that extraordinary difficulties arise when one needs to align and coordinate simultaneous interventions involving several agencies to the purpose of coming up with integrated initiatives focused on enabling a seamless travel experience,” he said.

But as aircrafts become larger, Madeira explains that airports could charge higher tariffs to reflect the stress placed on airfields.

“I believe that, given the surge of much larger aircrafts in same airfields, airfield engineering and asset management will evolve around the need to design and adapt pavements, terminal buildings and baggage handling systems to cope with the stress that a 500 or 600 seat airplane always poses on all airport sub systems – be they parking spaces, check in counters and kiosks, baggage screening, terminal facilities.”  

“At the same time because of the impact those huge aircraft will have on runways, taxiways and aprons, airport landing fees may eventually have to be adjusted to reflect the accelerated depreciation of assets.”

Armann Norheim & Carlos Madeira are speaking at Airfield Engineering and Asset Maintenance 2011 which will be held in Singapore from the 22 - 23 February, 2011.

For more details visit www.airfieldengineering.com or drop an email to enquiry@iqpc.com.sg