Congratulations to one of our Airport Planners Merin Roy who has successfully completed her airside driving course and is pictured here with our latest EV! This is great news for AiQ as it increases the team’s capacity to deliver surveys at what is a really busy time for us. Special thanks to our friends at Cobalt Ground Solutions Ltd for their help with the course.
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AiQ shortlisted for Aviation Industry Award
We are delighted to share that AiQ have been shortlisted for the Aviation Sustainability and Environment Award at the upcoming Aviation Industry Awards UK. This recognition reflects the hard work, dedication and excellence of our entire team at AiQ.
Due to take place at the ICC in Birmingham on 17 September, the Aviation Industry Awards UK recognise and celebrate the achievements of all UK aviation stakeholders, from airlines and airports to cutting-edge manufacturers and innovative suppliers. We are thrilled to be recognised for our contribution to Heathrow’s Sustainability and Carbon programme and the wider Net Zero movement.
Congratulations to our fellow finalists, we’re looking forward to the results in September! The shortlist can be viewed here.
Congratulations Anushka!
Congratulations to our Senior Airport Planner Anushka Padhye who passed her Heathrow airside driving test recently which is great news for AiQ. This increases the team’s capacity to deliver surveys, so it’s a good job we added to our EV fleet earlier this year! Special thanks to our friends at Cobalt Ground Solutions for their help with the test.
Top four priorities for airports and stakeholders in the next 5 years
The aviation industry is now four years on from the pandemic and airports and stakeholders have moved on from worries about demand with their focus now pivoting back to the long-standing issue of capacity. One of our priorities at AiQ is helping airports with the challenges this issue brings and consulting with their planning and operational teams so that they can effectively manage capacity issues over the next few years and capitalise on the return to and surpassing of pre-pandemic passenger levels.
So what will drive capacity over the next 5 years? Our observations are that the following factors will be significant:
- Passenger behaviour and trends
- Automation
- Biometrics and digital identity
- Sustainability and Net Zero
AiQ team up with Heathrow at CVP event
Last week some of the AiQ team attended and contributed to a HAL Clean Vehicles Partnership (CVP) event which highlighted Heathrow’s plans for EV charging installations and the transition strategy.
Reflections on PTExpo 2024
Our new recruit Airport Planner Jaime Castiblanques, pictured far left below, recently attended PTExpo 2024 for the first time. We asked him for his impressions of the world renowned airport terminal conference.
AiQ update
After another action-packed 12 months for aviation, as well as for AiQ and our clients, we thought it might be useful to detail some of the projects we are involved with to provide some scope on the range of work we can undertake.
We continue to work for a variety of airports including Heathrow, Schiphol, Bristol, Newcastle, Newquay and Farnborough. Our work at Heathrow is across a wide range of programmes, in fact we are involved with 4 of the 6 current H7 programmes:
Passenger demand and capacity expertise
With record-breaking passenger numbers predicted to be moving through airports this year, the efficiency of their journey is a key consideration for AiQ’s work with airports throughout the world.
As global experts in constrained and saturated airports, we approach the capacity and the operation with not only a scientific approach to big data, but also with a strong emphasis on the passenger journey and experience.
There are lots of different things that need to be considered when you’re looking at passengers at an airport.
AiQ scoops Net Zero Heathrow Supplier Award 2023!
AiQ are very proud to be named as winners of the SME Net Zero award at the Heathrow Supplier Awards 2023. AiQ provide aviation consultancy including operations, optimisation and modelling to Heathrow and this industry accolade recognises and celebrates their efforts in helping to achieve Heathrow’s strategic aims and their plan for sustainable growth Heathrow 2.0.
Changes in check-in behaviour
We have recently conducted surveys of passengers arriving at check-in at a number of UK airports and there is a discernible trend for passengers arriving much earlier. Why is this?
We are putting it down to Flight Anxiety post-COVID and also related to Brexit.
Airport Demand Forecasting
In our previous blog we identified that in 2024 Airport Capacity Planning will once again be an issue for Airport Operations for the first time since the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020. In 2024 passenger volumes are predicted to recover to 2019 levels.
While Demand Forecast Planning has not gone away in that period, indeed it has been a constant and very challenging process used to anticipate changing passenger/cargo volumes, it will come into sharp focus as airports once again work at their limits of capacity. It therefore seems timely for Airports to re-evaluate this fundamental process to check it is fit for purpose.
Continued Airport Recovery – a look ahead to 2024 and beyond
There are plenty of reasons to be optimistic as the aviation industry moves towards the end of 2023, not least that it is expected to finally reach a profit this year for the first time since the pandemic.
ACI World Airport Traffic Forecasts 2022-2041:
- Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, global passenger traffic dropped from 9.2 billion in 2019 to 3.6 billion in 2020, and then recovered to 4.6 billion in 2021, and 6.5 billion in 2022. Over the next five years, traffic is expected to recover from 4.6 billion to 11.0 billion. (See chart below) This equates to a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 19.0% over the 2021–2026 period.
- It is predicted that in 2024 global airport passenger traffic will return to the volume observed in 2019. Passenger traffic worldwide is expected to reach 19.3 billion in 2041 and 23.9 billion in 2050.