Airports Council International (ACI) World has released a new tool to assist airports with terminal planning to increase capacity as the global recovery from the pandemic continues.
The Static Capacity Tool – developed by ACI World business partner Redwater Consulting Group – will, it says, assist by helping airports to evaluate the level of resource and equipment needed throughout the airport passenger journey, assessing queue length, queue time and breaking points with a particular focus on the challenges arising from physical distancing.
It has been designed to provide a simple method for evaluating any additional space or queuing requirements needed as a result of Covid-19 physical distancing measures and the impact of adding more process points to address additional health checks that have been introduce at many airports.
The tool is said to be user friendly and not complex, enabling non-technical airport employees to make use of the model through simple inputs and a painless user interface in order to assist airports in providing an efficient, safe and seamless passenger experience.
“ACI World is determined to provide new guidance and innovative tools to support our airport members as the industry continues to navigate a recovery from the impact and effects of the Covid-19 pandemic,” ACI World director general Luis Felipe de Oliveira said.
“We wanted to assist airports in their determination to provide an efficient, safe and seamless passenger journey while meeting all physical distancing and other Covid-19 expectations and requirements. Providing support for our members during the process of restart and recovery is a key priority for our organization and this simple, low-cost solution will assist even small and medium-size airports to prevent bottlenecks in the airports and improve the passenger experience.
“Listening to feedback from our committees, we have worked with one of our World Business Partners, Redwater, to develop a simple, user-friendly capacity tool to assist airports in planning for operations as passenger levels increase. The tool assists them in understanding the impact of physical distancing on passenger process points with estimated queue length as they plan for the increase in traffic and operations.”
ACI World says it selected Redwater for this project following an open request-for-proposal process which was designed to meet the needs of members. MD of Redwater Anthony Cicuttini added, “We designed the tool with the user in mind and kept everything as simple as possible, which is difficult to achieve with something as complex as an airport.
“Users can check the performance of their existing operations, assess how changes to processors will impact performance, or understand the requirements of new infrastructure. As aviation recovers, it is imperative that airports ensure their operations can cope with the new realities of the industry, and we think this tool will help with that directive.”