Airports of the Future

Airports 10, 20 or even 30 years from now will look very different to the facilities we see across Australia and New Zealand today. Radically different ground transportation, seamless self-service passenger experience, virtual digital control towers and airports that serve as destinations in themselves are all on the horizon.

The ongoing boom in travel demand within Asia Pacific, together with challenges posed by climate change and growing global instability, as well as the pace of technological change in the lives we all lead, will shape airports that might – apart from the obvious building-with-planes-nearby similarities – be almost unrecognisable to today’s traveller.

Some of the evolution towards these advanced facilities has already started, with airports within future ocean flooding zones already building runways and terminals at higher elevations. None wishes to be the next Osaka Kansai, flooded and knocked out of action by a typhoon in early September.