Aviation

It has been a testing time for the aviation sector – no question. For many airports, a return to full operation after the Covid-19 pandemic will take time. We have been helping clients to explore how their businesses need to adapt and recover. This period has also been an opportunity to rethink aspects of our industry and define a new baseline for future operations. With over 60 years of experience and deep knowledge across the sector globally, we believe a better way forward is possible. 

How we can help

Our team can help across five core areas:

The sustainable aviation era

Like the rest of the transport sector, aviation businesses must balance demand and global growth with the need to decarbonise, become more energy and operationally efficient and address climate change. We help clients across the industry to understand how to make their operations and services more sustainable, designing for lower energy use and operating costs at the same time. We are working with our aviation clients to help them rethink their business models and operations to maximise social value, ensure supply chains are resilient, develop circular business models, reduce emissions, generate electricity, harvest water and eliminate waste.  

From energy efficiency at San Francisco International Airport to greener solutions at Hong Kong International Airport to sustainable design at Abu Dhabi International Airport to sustainability masterplanning at Mexico City New International Airport, we have the global experience and expertise to help airport operators and airlines balance the key elements of sustainable development at a corporate, project development and operational level.

Planning future services

We help aviation clients set new standards of international travel service and commercial return, in what is still one of the most competitive sectors of the world economy. Our airport planning expertise in negotiating the complex relationships between demand, capacity, connect time, passenger flow, regulation and investment has shaped the passenger experience at many of the world’s leading airports.

We shape projects from the earliest stages, including new airports, new or repurposed terminals, even new forms of air mobility. In each context, our work produces development programmes where physical design is precisely aligned to passenger behaviour and changing market needs. By bringing these disciplines and insights together we enable clients to lower costs, improve operations and generate higher revenues.

Design that meets demand

We have over 60 years’ global experience in the physical design of airport structures, from control towers to passenger terminals to cargo and maintenance facilities. Our breadth of expertise in engineering, design, and operational performance makes us the perfect partner to successfully deliver aviation projects of any size that respond to increased demand for capacity and quality of passenger experience, while addressing sustainable development outcomes. We ensure our clients’ facilities and infrastructure are designed and operate optimally, through an insightful alignment of people, processes, physical assets, and technology, balancing commercial, social and environmental objectives.

Digital insights, operational benefits

Airports are increasingly able to shape their operational, strategic and tactical decisions using the power of real-time data. Our digital aviation team brings together Arup’s traditional planning, engineering, design and advisory strengths with advanced digital expertise in enterprise architecture, modelling, data analytics, and user–centred design. We work with clients to develop strategies, choose and implement the right technologies and make the operational changes required to improve both the long term and day-to-day running of their business. 

We have developed a valuable new service with our passenger analytics tool the Airport Demand Analyser, to better predict passenger numbers through terminals, based on live global flight data. We have used advanced digital analytics to help meet surface access sustainability goals. We have captured, measured, and analysed real-time passenger data to inform changes to operations and improvements to service quality.  Our MassMotion passenger modelling software has helped plan recovery capacity in a new physically distant world.

Ready to launch

In aviation, successfully launching new services, opening new facilities depends on a rigorous combination of training, new technology and organisational change. Our operational readiness and transition (ORAT) service is designed to achieve these converging goals. Our advisory services extend to improving operational efficiencies, passenger processing and organisational design, asset management and repurposing for resilience and transformation.

At Heathrow Terminal 2 our ORAT approach involved 175 trials, testing by 14,000 people and training for 25,000 airport staff. At Emirates Terminal 3, Dubai Airport we ensured the opening of the biggest single passenger terminal in the world without incident. Facilities, processes, technology and most importantly, people, worked in harmony from day one. 

At Los Angeles International Airport we helped Delta Air Lines orchestrate the most challenging terminal move in commercial aviation history, planning and implementing complex airport programmes without interrupting day-to-day activity – the first step of a major modernisation programme.