Expanding Airport Capacity in Large Urban Areas

Expanding airport capacity in large metropolitan areas is difficult. Community agreements on noise constrain growth at existing airports. Land prices can be prohibitive for relocating airports. Most new sites require extensive investment in surface transport links to city centres. In multi-airport regions, options for expansion at the airports are to an extent interdependent, complicating assessment of whether to build new runways.

Many major airports are hubs for network carriers at the same time as serving a large local market. The complementarity between these functions may be a prerequisite for viable network operations, suggesting that distributing services over multiple airports instead of expanding the main hub would be costly. Hub airports and their network carriers often compete with hubs in neighbouring regions. The strategies of network carriers and potential new entrants to this part of the market need to be taken into account in assessing future demand for airport capacity. The requirements of low cost and other point-to-point carriers are equally important, but different.

This report reviews international experience in reconciling planning and environmental constraints with demand for airport capacity and the potential benefits in terms of productivity and growth from developing international airline services. Experience is compared in London, New York, Tokyo, Osaka, Sydney and in Germany’s main airports with particular attention to the dynamics of airline markets and implications for airport planning in multi-airport cities.

Contents:

+ Executive Summary by David Thompson, Stephen Perkins and Kurt Van Dender
-1. Introduction
-2. Estimating future demand for airport capacity
-3. Hub economies
-4. Measuring and valuing connectivity
-5. Comparing the positive and negative impacts of airport expansion
-6. Environmental constraints and environmental assessment
-7. An approach toward developing, phasing and co-ordinating airport expansion
-Bibliography

+ Chapter 1. Upgrading to world class: the future of the New York region’s airports by Jeffrey M Zupan
-1. Introduction
-2. Summary of 2011 RPA report
-3. Developments since
-4. Other potentially significant developments
-Appendix

+ Chapter 2. Air capacity for Sydney by Peter Forsyth
-1. Introduction
-2. Background
-3. Location, hubbing, connectivity and competition
-4. Rationing excess demand
-5. Evaluation of the options
-6. Externalities
-7. Conclusions: why Sydney Airport is not a disaster
-Bibliography

+ Chapter 3. Evolution of metropolitan airports in Japan: Airport development in Tokyo and Osaka by Katsuhiro Yamaguchi
-1. Introduction
-2. Overview of Japan and the air transport market
-3. A brief history of airport development in Tokyo and Osaka
-5. Implications for future airport development in large urban areas
-6. Concluding remarks

+ Chapter 4. Expanding airport capacity under constraints in large urban areas: the German experience by Hans-Martin Niemeier
-1. Introduction
-2. Investment of German airports – overview
-3. Case studies of capacity expansion at six German airports
-4. Key problems of airport investment
-5. Assessment of decisions on capacity expansion of airports
-6. Strengths and weaknesses of the german decision process
-7. Summary and concluding recommendations
-Bibliography

+ Chapter 5. Airport capacity expansion strategies in the era of airline multi-hub networks by Guillaume Burghouwt
-1. Introduction
-2. Hubs, network service airlines and their value for society
-3. Specialisation patterns in multi-hub airline networks: some empirical evidence
-4. Multi-hub network services and the implications for airport capacity expansion strategy
-Bibliography

Website: OECD iLibrary http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/

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