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How Airports Work

To meet passengers' needs, an airport must: be accessible by roadways and public transportation, plus have plenty of parking have areas for ticketing, check-in and baggage handling keep the passengers safe offer food and other services maintain areas for the customs service Airports have other customers to take care of, too. Airlines need space for airplanes, facilities for routine maintenance, jet fuel and places for passengers and flight crews while on the ground. Air-freight companies need space for loading and unloading cargo airplanes. Pilots and other crew members need runways, aircraft fuel, air-traffic information, facilities for aircraft storage and maintenance and places to relax while on the ground. Airports have facilities to meet all of these needs. They have runways, ground concourses, terminals, fuel depots, hangars and a control tower, to name a few. A typical airport layout, based on the layout of Denver International Airport Generally, airport services can be classified as groundside and airside. Let's take a look at what's involved in each category. Ground Transportation An airport can't exist in isolation. It depends on a massive surface-transportation system so that people can get to and from the airport, park and get from place to place within the airport structure itself. While your first thought about an airport is air travel, ground transportation is pretty crucial to an aiport's operation. The busiest airport in the world is Jeddah International Airport. Here are some ways ground transportation is critical to that airport: Take a look at this. Atlanta's Hartsfield International Roads allow access to and from the airport: In Atlanta, four interstate highways move traffic to and from Hartsfield. There's also a station for MARTA trains to connect into the city's rapid transit system. Parking allows short- and long-term storage of automobiles. Parking can be on or off airport grounds, and some parking systems are run by private vendors under airport regulation. Hartsfield has 30,000 public parking spaces. Passenger drop-off and pick-up areas make it easier for passengers to get into the terminals, although they are often plagued by traffic congestion because so many people are trying to get in and out. Rental car companies serve airports. Hartsfield has eight rental car companies on airport grounds and another three off airport grounds. Shuttle services provide passengers with transportation to local hotels and off-site parking facilities. Hartsfield is served by 18 hotel/motel shuttle buses. Private transportation is available in the form of limousines, vans and taxis. Public transportation (such as municipal buses and subways) may have stations at an airport. Besides the MARTA station at Hartsfield, 12 bus lines (public and private) serve the airport. Internal subway trains and trams may be available to help passengers get to the terminal gates from the concourse. Hartsfield's People Mover is a 3.5-mile (5.6-km) loop track that has 13 stations serving six concourses with nine four-car trains; the trip is two minutes between stations. Now that we know about ground transportation, let's move on to the core of the airport: concourses and terminals. Concourses and Terminals At a busy airport like Atlanta's Hartsfield International, ______ flights take off and land every day. That means that, every day, perhaps as many as ______ people move through the airport and need certain services. Airports provide those services in their concourses and terminals, the heart of any airport. There you'll find the space for airlines to handle ticket sales, passenger check-in, baggage handling and claims. While the terms are often used interchangeably, we'll define concourses as the long halls and large, open areas where you'll find shops, restaurants and lounges, and terminals as long halls lined by the gates where you board and disembark airplanes. Atlanta's Hartsfield airport has 5.7-million square feet (529,547 square meters) of concourses and terminals -- that's 130 acres! Most of the time, and in most airports, concourse areas are accessible to the general public (passengers and non-passengers). The gate areas may be restricted by airport security to ticket-holding passengers only, especially during alerts (for instance, during the Gulf War, non-passengers could not pass security points). Generally, airport security and/or customs lie between the concourse and the gates. At Hartsfield's concourses, there are: 75 food and beverage vendors (most of these are owned and staffed by private companies) 82 retail and convenience stores (also owned and staffed privately) 21 staffed service outlets (places where you can get your shoes shined or connect to the Internet) The food that passengers eat while onboard the airplane is usually provided by private companies contracted by one or more airlines at an airport. The food is prepared in a building that is off the airport grounds, shipped to the airport by truck and loaded onto the plane by the catering company's personnel. For example, SkyChefs is one of the catering contractors at Denver International Airport. They prepare and load thousands of meals per day for various airlines. Airline freight and private air-freight services such as Fed Ex and DHL may have their own terminals at the airport. Gates The gates are where the airplanes park for passenger boarding and deplaning. Passengers wait in the immediate area of each gate to board the plane. Gates are rented by each airline from the airport authority, and some airlines may rent a whole terminal building in their "hub" airport, in which case the rental fee alone can run into the millions of dollars. Planes parked at the gates of terminals for passenger boarding and deplaning Routine airplane maintenance, such as washing, de-icing and refueling, is done by airline personnel while the plane is parked at the gate. In some cases, other maintenance tasks might be performed at the gate, possibly with passengers onboard the plane -- it is not uncommon to sit on a plane at the gate while maintenance personnel replace something like a hydraulic brake line on an aircraft. Maintenance crews wash an airplane at the gate. Airline baggage handlers load and unload baggage at the gates using baggage trucks and conveyors (see How Baggage Handling Works to learn all about this system). The funny and interesting problem that most airports face is that airplanes and their gates are very large compared to people. At an airport like Hartsfield, there are literally miles of gates. This can mean a whole lot of walking at any big airport. Runways Runways are amazing -- a typical one is about 2 miles long, as wide as a 16-lane highway and about 3 feet thick! Think about this: A fully-loaded 777 or 747-400 weighs about 850,000 pounds (385,554 kg). Imagine a rough landing where 850,000 pounds slams down hard onto the runway. Runways have to be specially constructed to take that strain without cracking or, worse, buckling. As they're designing runways, engineers have to consider the number of wheels an airplane has, how far apart those wheels are and the size of the tires. As planes get bigger and bigger, runways have to be re-built to accommodate the increased stresses. When the Denver International Airport was built, it took 2.5-million cubic yards of concrete to create five 12,000-foot runways, plus taxiways and aprons. First, 6 feet of compacted soil was put down; then, a foot-deep layer of soil was spread, topped by an 8-inch-thick cement-treated base; that was followed by 17 inches of concrete paving. Main runways are usually oriented to line up with the prevailing wind patterns so that airplanes can take-off into the wind and land with it. Local and ground air traffic controllers determine which runways are used for take-off and which for landing, taking into account weather, wind and air-traffic conditions. In some airports, main runways cross each other, so the controllers have to pay even closer attention. Planes use taxi runways to get from the gate to a main runway for take-off and from a main runway to the gate after landing. Ground controllers direct ground traffic from the airport's tower. Airline ground personnel assist with the push-back and arrival of aircraft in the gate areas, driving the tugs that push the aircraft back and directing traffic with those glowing wands. Now let's take a quick look at how airports provide jet fuel. Fuel Airplanes almost always have to refuel between flights, and jumbo jets love fuel. A 747 can consume up to a (______) of fuel per second, and "filling up the tanks" takes tens of thousands of gallons of fuel. This huge appetite means that a busy airport can sell millions of gallons of gas every day. At Denver International Airport, fuel comes into the fuel-storage depot through a pipeline at rates that vary from 46,300 to 92,400 gallons per hour (175,264 to 349,772 liters per hour). The depot can also receive fuel from tanker trucks. The fuel is stored in three unloading islands, each with six, 3,000,000-gallon (11,356,235-liter) storage tanks, a meter station and dedicated pump that can handle 300 gallons (1,136 liters) per minute. In some airports, fuel trucks carry fuel from the storage depot to the airplane for refueling. In others, fuel is pumped through underground pipes directly to the terminals. Safety Airports have their own crews to handle fire and emergency medical services (EMS). An airport may have several fire/EMS stations on the ground because the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requires that emergency crews be able to reach the midpoint of a runway within 3 to 5 minutes. The crews are usually employees of the city or municipality and are stationed at the airport. Airports also have their own police crews. Some airport police are members of the city or municipality assigned to the airport, while others are from private security companies contracted to patrol the airport grounds (such as the perimeter fences that limit access to the airfield) and to operate the security inspection points within the terminals (read How Airport Security Works to learn more). Finally, airports must have crews for collecting and disposing trash, keeping terminals clean (some janitorial services are run by airlines or airline cooperatives) and keeping runways clear during foul weather. Without snow-removal crews, aircraft would be grounded whenever a storm hit.