How Airports Work

How Airports Work

by Craig C. Freudenrich, Ph.D.

| |
|You’ve probably been to airports many times—they are so familiar you may not pay much attention to them anymore. But if you go behind the |
|scenes, airports are amazing “mini-cities,” providing services to all sorts of people and companies. Air travelers, airlines, private pilots and|
|freight carriers all use airports incompletely different ways. |
|You can get an idea of just how amazing airports are when you consider this: At a typical large airport in the United States, over 100-million |
|people can flow through in just one year. When you consider that the population of the United States is only 300-million or so, that’s a pretty ||startling statistic! |
|[pic] |
|Photo courtesy Denver International Airport|
|Control tower and terminals at Denver International Airport |
| |
|Tons of People|
|[pic] |
|Photo courtesy Denver International Airport |
|Passengersare only one type of airport customer. |
| |
|Any major airport has lots of customers, most of them passengers. Atlanta’s Hartsfield International Airport, forexample, handles 2,400 flights|
|every day (one flight every 40 seconds, 24 hours a day!) carrying hundreds of thousands of people. That adds up to 72-million domestic and |
|78-million international passengers passing through Hartsfield each year. That’s a lot of people, and most of those 150-million are going to |
|want to grab a bite, use the restroom, and maybe buy a magazine.|
|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...