New technologies also create new jobs which require similar-level skills as the ones they replaced.

Joeri N. Aulman MSc

Region Manager, NACO Netherlands Airport Consultants, Royal HaskoningDHV

How optimistic are you about the government initiatives and policies in the airport sector, especially development of airports under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model?

We have closely followed and actively participated in the governments PPP initiatives from the start; NACO was the bid-consultant to the winning GVK-ACSA-Bidvest consortium for Mumbai Airport back in 2005, developed the master plan for the airport's transformation and has worked on all the Indian PPP-airports in the following 15 years. We can attest that development of airports under the PPP model has been very successful in India and one of the latest PPP projects - to develop the Delhi National Capital Region's second gateway airport Noida International Airport at Jewar, Uttar Pradesh - promises to be no different. The Swiss developer and its design consortium that we are a part of are developing plans to make it a unique new gateway to the world city of Delhi and to the state of Uttar Pradesh.

The government intends to make India a global hub for Aircraft Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) services. Also, the convergence between the Defence sector and the civil MROs will be established to bring down the maintenance cost of airlines. What is your take on this?

We recognize this ambition for in The Netherlands a similar initiative has been taken under the brand 'Maintenance Valley', where different industry players come together to pool their expertise on MRO for both military and civil aviation. This makes absolute sense and we look forward to sharing our experience in the planning, design and engineering of integrated aircraft maintenance clusters to help India achieve its ambitions.

There is a need to complete the ongoing projects under the UDAN initiative in a time-bound manner. In addition, the existing capacity of international airports needs to be augmented under the International UDAN initiative. What measures do you think can help the government reach this target?

The key to success for airports taking part in the UDAN Regional & International Connectivity Scheme is to make the challenging business case work; Challenging cash-flows from low passenger numbers in the initial phase should not be burdened by high terminal development costs.

For Kalaburagi (formerly known as Gulbarga) airport NACO developed a model terminal development which minimizes both the CAPEX and running costs of the facility, whilst maximizing the footfalls for the limited retail opportunity these UDAN airports provide. The scheme is illustrated here and we are in talks with the government on how it can act as a model for future UDAN developments.

How do you see the adaptation of smart technologies for digital transformation of airports for the future like Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), tracking system, automation, big data and advanced analytics?

Again, the Noida design is exemplary; Driven by the current challenging environment in aviation, the design makes the case for a 'smart' airport, with customer experience and sustainability at its heart. It will encompass parameters such as short and efficient passenger flows, digital services and commitment to minimal environmental impact.

It is fully aligned with NACO's focus on smart airports with customer experience and sustainability at its core

What are the significant concerns / challenges / potential in the airport sector in terms of competitiveness, rising fuel factor, overcapacity, labour unrest, emergence of low-cost carriers etc.?

The continued roll-out of automation and AI has indeed led to labor-unrest since it replaces certain jobs which are repetitive. But these new technologies also create new jobs which require similar-level skills as the ones they replaced. As a fitting example, I always like to refer to the repetitive sorting work done previously by workers in logistics and courier facilities which are now replaced by automated systems. However, the fast-delivery that these new systems facilitated have created whole new business models which rely on last-mile delivery by workers with similar skill-levels as the ones that were replaced. Similarly, for other aspects of future air-logistics, the adoption of new technologies and systems will spur the sector to great heights again, including ample jobs for people with diverse skill-sets.

New technologies are also in demand now that rising fuel factors, Low Cost Business Models and competitiveness put a huge strain on airlines and result in limited opportunities for airports to recover their investments purely from increased landing-charges. Instead, the airport has to look at how to reduce both its capital investments and running costs. New technology plays an important role here for it allows more processing capacity per terminal area for it frees up space previously occupied by more traditional manned processes and increases the throughput.

An added advantage is that many of the new technologies also make airports lean and resilient to change and unforeseen impacts; At the click of a button your airport's digital screens at the airport's entry-point, check-in, security, lounges and boarding areas and digital signage and wayfinding can display new information in response to any sudden changes. And by reducing the human factor for standard, repetitive actions such as checking in bags, the airport can use its staff instead for more of a value-adding services and/or special assistance as we have seen during the covid-pandemic.

Finally, new technologies support sustainability of your airport operations by tracking and analyzing processes to improve their efficiency, lower carbon emissions and even coming up with alternatives for fossil fuels. This will assure a brighter future for our airport industry.

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