Airport design in
numerous airports throughout the United States is outdated and
lacking in modern technology. The airport experience is
constantly being improved because airports are no longer
sufficient and adequate to support the amount of people
traveling through them each day. Vice President Joe Biden was
recently quoted saying that New York's LaGuardia Airport feels
like a third world country due to its deteriorating
infrastructure.
United States airports provide service to more than 800
million passengers annually and is projected to reach the
billion mark annually by 2027 or sooner. Compared with
their counterparts abroad, U.S. airports receive lower marks
for customer service, feature more delays and congestion, and
have older infrastructure. There are many large airports
in the U.S. however, few are considered good enough by global
standards. Nations in Asia and the Middle East are developing
new, efficient, and technology-enhanced airports that
resemble high-end shopping malls full of leisure amenities,
while American airports are falling behind in core
infrastructure areas as well as in amenities. The ACI-NA
predicts that U.S. airports will need $15.1 billion per year
until 2019 to support infrastructure investments. New
development and innovation efforts to improve airport design
are R&D Tax Credit eligible activities.
The Research & Development Tax
Credit
Enacted in 1981, the federal Research and Development
(R&D) Tax Credit allows a credit of up to 13 percent of
eligible spending for new and improved products and processes.
Qualified research must meet the following four criteria:
New or improved products,
processes, or software
Technological in nature
Elimination of
uncertainty
Process of
experimentation
Eligible costs include employee wages, cost of supplies, cost
of testing, contract research expenses, and costs associated
with developing a patent. On December 18, 2015 President Obama
signed the bill making the R&D Tax Credit permanent.
Beginning in 2016, the R&D credit can be used to offset
Alternative Minimum Tax and start up businesses can utilize
the credit against $250,000 per year in payroll taxes.
San Francisco International Airport
San Francisco International Airport (SFO) recently worked with
renowned San Francisco-based design firm, Gensler, to renovate
Terminal 2. Through extensive renovations with an emphasis on
service, hospitality, and comfort, Terminal 2 was the first
terminal to achieve LEED Gold certification from the U.S.
Green Building Council. The airport is also the first U.S.
airport that is an accredited museum.
The terminal features local and organic food cuisine, mood-lit
counters at the gates equipped with energy efficient LED
lighting , night and day motion sensors, environmentally
friendly certified wood other green building materials.
SFO reduces water use through low-flow restroom fixtures and
automatic shutoff valves. A dual plumbing system is used which
is 40% more efficient than typical fixtures. A flush for
solid waste uses about 1.6 gallons of water per flush while
the liquid waste option uses 1.1 gallons per flush. The
airport was also designed for increased sustainability through
the re-use of building materials from the original building
and implementing composting and recycling programs. AFO also
reduced energy costs by employing innovative displacement
ventilation systems which use 20% less power than conventional
systems and are designed to save 15% more than the energy cost
of an average airport terminal.
Restaurant & Retail Design
Airport terminals are beginning to focus more on airside
retail and dining design. Sales at airports are expected to
grow by 73% from 2013 to 2019 and food and beverage sales
accounted for $588 million in revenue in 2013. Rather than
food courts and fast food, airports are transitioning to
locally sourced fresh foods and five-star dining services.
Travelers can now obtain higher quality and artisanal foods
while also experiencing the different foods from the regions
they are in.
Newark Liberty Int’l Airport (EWR) of New Jersey Terminal C is
installing iPads in eating and waiting areas so travelers can
browse the web, track their flights, and order food and
beverages. Expecting to cost $120 million, 6,000 iPads will be
put in by mid- 2016. This new system will help improve
efficiency for travelers by reducing wait time on line for
food. Instead, travelers can check their flight status while
waiting for the food they just ordered to be delivered to
them. iPads have also been installed at gate areas in
restaurants at John F. Kennedy (JFK) and LaGuardia (LGA) in
New York, as well as Toronto Pearson Int’l Airport (YYZ) and
Minneapolis-St.Paul Int’l Airport (MSP). The new terminal
restaurant design will also consist of rotating signage and
sliding walls that will transform restaurants from a bagel
stand in the morning to a deli in the afternoon.
Currently, airports in India and Germany already allow
shoppers to view items on floor to ceiling walls that use QR
codes. The QR codes are then scanned on smartphones and
used to purchase luxury items. When the code is scanned, the
order is placed in a virtual shopping basket which can be
picked up at a nearby station in less than 15 minutes. In the
near future, Transtailing, a new concept of Transit Retail,
will use a mixture of physical and digital retail. The
same walls used from floor to ceiling will be transformed into
virtual shopping walls. Customers will be able to browse
through products just by touching the screen to scroll through
items. In 2013, Tokyo's University of Agriculture and
Technology developed a "smelling screen" where odors would go
through specific areas of the screen. So if a traveler wanted
to buy perfume they could smell the perfume right through the
screen. It is estimated that global ad spending will
increase by approximately 20% from 2014, to 2018, a large
amount of this growth coming from increases in digital
and mobile ads. This provides opportunistic ad space for
Transtailing as well as for iPads at restaurant dining in
terminals.
Automation & Self Service
Technology
Airports of the future will heavily rely on self service.
There will be an emphasis on self service kiosks, self service
bag drops, automated boarding pass scanners, and self boarding
gates. As technology advances, the majority of cell phones in
use are smartphones. Many people use their smartphones
to buy plane tickets, find out information about flights, and
load boarding passes. Self boarding gates takes this a step
further where travelers can scan their boarding passes from
their phones to board the plane with no gate agents required.
Smartphone applications are also being developed to track
luggage, flights, airport maps, etc.
Self service bag drops also have the potential to make
traveling a faster process for those who are familiar with
airport procedures. In addition, numerous luggage tags are
being developed which incorporate smartphone programmable
electronic tags and permanent RFID to prevent lost
baggage. In turn, this will allow employees to focus on
travelers with questions who are less experienced.
Multiple hour flight
can be exhausting however by promoting self service, airport
traveling time can be cut down and utilized more efficiently
at airports.
Intermodal Airport Hubs
Getting to and from airports is another pain point in the
United States. In many larger cities, airports are often
located fairly far from the city center. These distances
contribute to traffic congestion on the ground from cars,
vans, and buses; while rail service to airports is rare.iii
Traffic and road congestion is one of the biggest problems in
big cities such as New York and Los Angeles and there is a
high demand from travelers for a better connection to the
airport. Also known as intermodal hubs, airports would be a
focal point where railroads, buses, cars, and taxis, would
convene to make transportation easier. Cities like Providence,
Rhode Island, Miami, Florida, and Portland, Oregon are already
building these hubs. Similar to an "Aerotropolis" the hope for
the future is that business and urban development will be
shaped around airports. Governor Andrew Cuomo of New
York recently proposed a new and improved AirTrain system to
LaGuardia's soon to be renovated airport. The AirTrain would
connect the subway and the Long Island Rail Road at an
expanded terminal in Queens. The $450 million dollar plan is
expected to improve New York's transportation and
infrastructure.
Aruba Happy Flow
Happy Flow, a pilot program developed by Vision-Box, is a new
self service facial recognition technology recently placed in
Aruba's Queen Beatrix Int’l Airport (AUA). The facial
recognition technology is the main passenger identifier.
Travelers will have to show their passport only once at
check-in where a photo will be taken of them and then verified
against and linked with their electronic passport. As they
continue to move through the airport, biometric face cameras ,
within different self-service touch points such as bag drop,
immigration and boarding, will recognize their facial features
and continue to check it against their electronic passport all
within seconds. With an emphasis on comfort, improved security
and efficiency, Happy Flow will make the airport process
faster and safer.
LED Lighting
LED lighting is one of the best implements an airport can do
to become more energy efficient. LED's are most likely to be
installed in airport parking garages due to the large space
and lighting needed. Therefore, energy and maintenance savings
are significant. Since LED lights do not need to be replaced
frequently, there are also large maintenance savings. LEDs are
projected to last at least 50,000 hours while fluorescent
lights are only meant to last for a max of 30,000 hours.
Logan Int’l Airport (BOS) in Boston, MA input 2,000 LED lights
in their Terminal B parking garage. The upgrade is expected to
use approximately 50% less electricity and save $263,000 in
energy costs this year and $3.8 million over the next 20
years. LED lights are also used on runways and in main
terminal buildings. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta Int’l
(ATL) in Atlanta, GA also replaced 4,342 metal-halide fixtures
with 80-watt LED lights in north and south covered parking
lots. Replacing parking garage lighting can save energy,
reduce costs, and lower CO2 emissions. In addition to these
energy savings, Atlanta is expected to save almost $500,00
each year in energy costs.
Day-Lighting
Another form of lighting to save energy is an emphasis on
using the illumination of airports by natural lighting, also
referred to as daylighting. Airport gate access requires that
airport terminals have an elongated structure. This structure
is perfect for daylighting. Airports can utilize this
structure to reduce lighting costs and provide a more
comfortable environment for travelers. Typical buildings that
take advantage of daylighting are able to save 40-60% of the
energy used for lighting. Airports can also utilize
skylights to expose natural light. San Francisco Int’l
Airport's Terminal 2, designed by Gensler, uses clerestory
windows as well as skylights to enhance daylighting.
Airports in Denver, Colorado and Sacramento, California also
use daylighting in their airport terminals and it has helped
them achieve LEED certification.
Solar Farms
An
increasing number of airports are implementing solar panels to
help power airports while also saving on energy costs. Solar
panels convert sunlight into electricity, either directly
using photovoltaics which convert light into electric current,
or indirectly using concentrated solar power which use lenses,
mirrors, and tracking systems to focus a large area of
sunlight into a small beam. Indianapolis Int’l Airport (IND)
contains the largest solar panel system, also known as a solar
farm, in the United States. The solar farm contains 76,228
photovoltaic solar panels and produces 17.5 megawatts of
electricity which is equivalent to producing enough energy to
power more than 1,410 homes for a year.
Conclusion
As
the airport industry and number of travelers continues to
grow, new innovations are put into place to fix current
infrastructure problems, become more environmentally friendly,
and turn airports into a place where travelers actually want
to spend time. Federal and state R&D Tax Credits are
available to help support and stimulate these innovative
efforts in the airport design industry.
