Development and planning of sustainable airports

• Published date: 01 February 2021
• Author: Avin S. Chourasia,Karunakar Jha,Narendra N. Dalei
• Date: 01 February 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2145

ACADEMIC PAPER

Development and planning of sustainable airports

Avin S. Chourasia

1,2

| Karunakar Jha

3

| Narendra N. Dalei

1

1

School of Business, Knowledge Acres,

University of Petroleum and Energy Studies,

Dehradun, India

2

Nippon Koei Co., Ltd., Gurugram, India

3

School of Business, Department of General

Management, Knowledge Acres, University of

Petroleum and Energy Studies, Dehradun,

India

Correspondence

Narendra N. Dalei, School of Business,

Knowledge Acres, University of Petroleum and

Energy Studies, Kandoli Campus, Dehradun,

Uttarakhand 248007, India.

Email: nndalei@gmail.com, ndalei@ddn.upes.

ac.in

Air transport is considered an important part of the transportation infrastructure and

it has a great impact on urbanisation as well as long-term economic growth. Airports

significantly add to local economy and facilitate a country's integration into the global

economy and also provide social benefits to the society. However, together with the

socioeconomic benefits, airports adversely affect to the surrounding environments,

ecology and society. Some of the main concern, that is, emission from aircraft, noise

while take-off and landing of aircraft, land use, waste disposal and energy consump-

tion, are raised with respect to airport's functioning which requires the attention of

the regulatory authorities. The authorities to find the balance approach for the devel-

opment of airports and to minimise the unfavourable consequences. Therefore, the

efforts to be made to develop the “sustainable airports”.“Sustainable development”

practises in the airports, improves the social, financial and operational benefits of the

airport and also lessen the negative impacts on the environment. After understanding

the concept of “Sustainability”, next challenge is to make airport sustainable. The

main objective of the article is to find, how to make airport sustainable, when it is

called that the airport is a “sustainable airport”. After reviewing the relevant litera-

tures, it may be concluded that “sustainable airports”can be developed by incorpo-

rating the sustainability concept in to the airport planning and then taking care of the

airport sustainability issues and barriers and airport sustainability components, that

is, policy making, commerce, social responsibility, environmental and service quality.

1|INTRODUCTION

Air transportationis considered an important partof the transportation

infrastructureand it has a great impact on urbanisationas well as long-

term economic growth. Airports and Aircrafts together make the air

transportation possible. Airport consists of airside and landside infra-

structures required for the steady operation of aircrafts. Airport infra-

structures provide support to aircraft operation and become critical

part for the airport sustainability. Airports significantly add to local

economy and facilitate a country's integration into the globaleconomy.

However, togetherwith the socioeconomic benefits,airports affect the

environmentin many stages, that is, constructionas well as operation.

Airports have always been an immense source of anti-

environmental activities. Construction as well as operation of airports

negatively affect the environment and human life which are quite

noticeable. Airports majorly affect to the surrounding environments,

ecology and society.Some of the environmental and sustainable devel-

opment issues, that is, emission from aircraft, noise while take-off and

landing of aircraft, land use, waste treatment and ground congestion

and energy/power consumption are the main concerned raised with

respect to the operationof airports which requires the attentionof reg-

ulatory authorities in order to minimise the impact on the environment

and social life. The airport authorities to find the balance approach for

enhancing the airport capacity of existing airports and possibilities and

potentials for further development of new airports by minimising the

accompanying negative impacts. It is important for the airports to be

socially and environmentally responsible. Therefore, the efforts to be

made to minimise the adverse impact on the environment and side by

side to improve the social life by business activities of the airport. To

develop the sustainable airports is the future of airport planning. Such

combination of above observations leads to the question of whether

“sustainable”aviation is possible(Boons, Buuren, & Teisman, 2010).

Received: 21 October 2019 Revised: 3 January 2020 Accepted: 20 March 2020

DOI: 10.1002/pa.2145

J Public Affairs. 2021;21:e2145. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 1of9

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2145