Airport Terminal: A City on It’s Own

Author: Dhrual Rudani

Study on Airport Terminals

Study on Airport Terminals
 Airport Terminal: A City on It’s Own

Dhrual Rudani
Student at KS School Of Architecture, Bengaluru

Abstract
The aviation industry, as one of the fastest growing industries, needs extensive
development and growth. With that, the Terminal buildings are one of the most
important pieces of aviation infrastructure. Many have grown to the point that they
resemble a small city, with a detrimental effect on the human-built environment.
This paper attempts to convey the reality of the effects of large terminal expansion
on human behavior, using a variety of surveys and first-hand studies methods.

Keywords: Aviation, Airports, Human-Built Adaptability

Study on Airport Terminals

Airport Terminal: A City on Its Own

Introduction

Aviation plays an important role in today's societies, offering communication and

mobility as well as promoting trade. Airports are important nodes in the air
transportation system as well as in the connectivity of the territory. Along with
the expansion of airport infrastructure, airport-related industry, industrial, residential,
and spatial development occurs in the airport's immediate vicinity, which is linked by
surface transportation infrastructure. Airports have expanded to include shopping and
hotel complexes, conference facilities, manufacturing zones, logistic centres, and
intermodal public transportation hubs, in addition to aviation-related functionalities
(e.g. passenger, freight, and aircraft handling facilities).(Ferrulli 2016) The evolution and
changes of human settlements have been influenced by the structure and organisation of
transportation networks, which has influenced the creation of public spaces designed to
accommodate nodes and connections in each generation. As a result, air transportation
growth strategies must be prioritised, and they must be integrated into wider economic
development and infrastructure development strategies. The ability to assess those
problems and manage them creatively and systematically during the design process is
critical to the growth of airport infrastructure.(Ferrulli 2016)

There are many reasons to build or extend an airport.

Accessibility: A new airport should be designed in conjunction with the formation
and/or expected growth of a city, particularly in rural areas where the presence of
an airport would promote a rapid link to other, larger metropolitan areas. Despite
the fact that major new airports are currently being built in different parts of the
world (e.g., India, Dubai, Sri Lanka), the majority of airport development will
continue to focus on modifying, expanding, and converting existing ones.
(Urfer and Weinert 2011)

Until recently, the issue of wayfinding–or navigating one's way around an area or
building–was largely ignored in the context of airports. Terminal buildings are
designed to handle a certain amount of passengers, but they are often expanded
later in a disjointed and uncoordinated manner. Some airports are known for being
especially perplexing. The Dallas Fort Worth airport was found to be so confusing
that it needed to employ 34 passenger service agents just to guide passengers
around the terminal building when it first opened in 1974.(Fewings 2001)
Observations of passenger movements and occupancy at Heathrow airport in 1996
revealed that a significant proportion of passengers were unsure of their location
inside the terminal building and where they should be heading.(Fewings 2001)

A passenger's overall experience at an airport can be demanding and

time-consuming. The higher the customer satisfaction, the less time they spend in
the programmes. At the same time, the airport is required to maintain expectations
that passengers must adhere to. These requirements include proper identification,
baggage weight restrictions, and security checkpoint protection procedures.
(Guizzi et al. 2009)

The airport, as a whole, must meet the needs and demands of the various
stakeholders. The design of an airport terminal building has traditionally been a
collaborative effort between the airport owners, the selected architectural firm(s),
and, on rare occasions, individual airlines. The design process has "usually
overlooked major stakeholders in the airport like humans itself," according to the
study. However, as aviation has evolved, passengers' position has shifted from that
of a non-involved party to that of an active stakeholder.(Harrison et al. 2012)

Study on Airport Terminals

Airport Terminal: A City on Its Own

Data Collection and Survey

We conducted an online survey with some basic questions about human nature and
airport procedures and processes in order to better understand the relationship between
humans and massive built forms such as airport terminals. Several methods, such as bar
graphs and pie charts, were employed to measure airport experiences and reflect reliable
data from the survey. A total of 200 samples were obtained from all around the world,
and the data reflected a wide range of ages, which proved to be an important aspect of
the study because it allowed us to gain a better knowledge of how people interact with
airport terminals as they become older.

The study covered a wide range of topics relating to airport terminals, but the age,
experience with airport processes, and emotions experienced while in the terminal
building were the most important. Using criteria from the existing literature, a
self-administered questionnaire was created. First, the participants were asked to answer
a series of questions to refresh their memories of their most recent airport experience.
They were then asked to describe their impressions of airport environmental cues that
included ambient, aesthetic, and functional signals. These three elements were taken into
account in order to highlight the link between two components: ‘Age and Airport
Procedures' and ‘Age and Emotions at the Terminal.'

In Study, a total of 200 valid responses were gathered. The respondents ranged in age
from 19 to 52 years old, with an average age of 22 years. Males accounted for 90.2
percent of responses, compared to 9.2 percent for females, according to the gender
breakdown. The participants were also asked if they ever felt lost or puzzled in the airport
terminal due to its scale, with 36.3 percent reporting that they did, 43 percent denying it,
and another 20.7 percent reporting that they had a mixed state every time. In addition,
participants in the poll were questioned if they prefer one huge terminal or multiple
smaller terminals in the form of island terminals, which can indicate whether people are
happy with large infrastructure or desire more human scale relevant built forms. In this
section of the survey, 75.1 percent of them preferred a single large terminal, while
around 24.9 percent preferred smaller terminals. However, most of them spoke not only
in terms of scale of terminals, but also in terms of making it easier to find their gates in a
single large airport, whereas in the case of several small terminals by mistake, they
would most likely migrate.

Finally, a number of earlier research have looked into the link between users'
emotional responses and satisfaction, and the same was attempted to be
investigated using survey data. There were two scaled-based items in the survey:
one was a scale for measuring one's tiredness throughout airport processes, and the
other was a scale for measuring one's emotions when in the airport terminal. The
findings revealed that, on a scale of 1 to 10, a higher proportion (19.1 percent)
rated airport procedures as 6 on a range of 1 to 10, indicating that they are slightly
more tiresome than average, Despite being exhausting, the other question revealed
that a majority of them, roughly 29%, stated they felt calm and relaxed within
airport terminals.

Study on Airport Terminals

Airport Terminal: A City on Its Own

Data Analysis

These two scale-based questions were correlated with age, and graphs were created to
arrive at the study's ultimate conclusions and findings. The plotted data for the co relation
between age and passenger emotions is shown in Fig 1, which shows that the majority of
people in the age groups of 20 – 30 years feel an emotion ranging from calm and relaxed
to exciting and joyful, while those in the age groups of 40 and above are generally calm
and relaxed.

The negative declination line on this scatter chart indicates that as people get older, they
experience a negative impact on emotion, which means they are more likely to feel calm
and relaxed rather than excited and joyful. However, on average, the line reveals that a
huge number of people experience a peaceful and relaxed emotion, and that age is not a
significant element that may negatively influence the emotion of airport users. Of course,
there are other elements that influence this, such as how frequently one travels the
airport or how familiar they are with the airport atmosphere, since this may always bring
out facts like calm and relaxation in passengers.

Fig 1 Fig 2

The second graph, displayed in Fig 2, was a scatter chart depicting the relationship
between age and tiredness as a result of airport processes. Because the question was
scaled from 1 to 10, with 1 being the least tiring and 10 being the most tiring, the graph
clearly reveals that a considerable number of persons in the 20-to-30-year-old age group
chose 4, 5, and 6 as the scale of tiredness, indicating a slightly higher than average
degree of comfort, noting that people over the age of 40 are more exhausted as a result
of specific procedures in airports, from check-in counters to departure gates.

Furthermore, the scatter graphs' line displays a straight line with a slight negative
declination, indicating that age is not a key factor in determining how tired people are
during airport procedures, and instead comes to a more neutral judgement.

Study on Airport Terminals

Airport Terminal: A City on Its Own

Conclusion

By combining the previous literature study and research along with the survey and data
analysis there are few conclusions that can be brought out. This study found a link
between younger age groups and positive emotions like joy and excitement, as well as
being less exhausted during airport processes, and as the age grows there is reduction in
positive emotion and processes feel more tiring, and emphasizing that these relationships
occur in a variable manner. Although passengers may acquire preferences for certain
airport surroundings, this study on human interaction with large-scale airport terminal
built forms might provide an overall justification.

The findings of this study may aid airport sector practitioners in better understanding the
airport environment from the perspective of passengers. To improve transportation
efficiency, traditional airport design practise relied on standardised formulas that
calculated passenger and cargo flow. The modern traveller’s experience, on the other
hand, goes beyond efficiency. The outcomes of this study imply that focusing on the
design and fragrance aspects of terminal surroundings could help airports generate more
delightful experiences.

References

Ferrulli, Paolina. 2016. “Green Airport Design Evaluation (GrADE) – Methods

and Tools Improving Infrastructure Planning.” Transportation Research Procedia
14 (January): 3781–90.

Fewings, R. 2001. “Wayfinding and Airport Terminal Design.” Journal of

Navigation.
http://www.signdesignsociety.co.uk/images/Knowledgebase/Fewings_WATD.pdf
.

Guizzi, G., T. Murino, and E. Romano. 2009. “A Discrete Event Simulation to

Model Passenger Flow in the Airport Terminal.” Mathematical Methods and
Applied Computing 2: 427–34.

Harrison, Anna, Vesna Popovic, Ben Kraal, and Tristan Kleinschmidt.

2012. “Challenges in Passenger Terminal Design: A Conceptual Model of
Passenger Experience.” In DRS Biennial Conference Series.
dl.designresearchsociety.org.
https://dl.designresearchsociety.org/drs-conference-papers/drs2012/researchp
apers/50/.

Urfer, Bert, and Robert Weinert. 2011. “Managing Airport Infrastructure.” In

Aviation Systems: Management of the Integrated Aviation Value Chain, edited
by Andreas Wittmer, Thomas Bieger, and Roland Müller, 103–31. Berlin,
Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg.

Study on Airport Terminals