PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Project Management: Heathrow Airport

Project Management: Heathrow Airport

Background

Heathrow is one of the world's busiest airports, currently handling some 67 million passengers every year (Business Traveller 2010). This is nearly one-third of the passengers at UK airports, the UK national total accounting for around one-fifth of all international air passengers worldwide. Heathrow serves the most economically active regions in Britain, comprising London and the South East. It is renowned for being Britain's hub airport, where a concentration of activity enables multiple connections between routes. The airport operator, BAA, refers to it as 'the hub of the aviation world' (TaxFreeTravel 2011). It is also very close to full capacity, at an estimated 97 per cent of capacity utilisation. With such pressures in mind, there is a case to be examined for maintaining or enhancing the capacity of such a key element of Britain's communications infrastructure; however, any plan for a major expansion of infrastructure must be assessed in the context of wider policy objectives and pressures. Architects Roger Stirk, Harbour & Partners has radically renewed the design of Terminal 5 at London's Heathrow (Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners 2009), as the beginning of modernization of one of the busiest airports in the world. The design of the new terminal is designed to reduce travel times. For the 35 million passengers who pass through Terminal 5, the waiting time between check-in and departure was reduced by about 10 minutes. Terminal 5 was built on an area equivalent to 'Hyde Park in London.

The Terminal 5 construction project included the construction of a main terminal and three satellite buildings on the far west of the airport. The first phase of the project (the main terminal and the first of three satellite buildings) has been completed and the second satellite building due for completion in 2011 (Business Traveller 2010). In response to Terminal 5 parking at Heathrow, a park of 4,000 parking multi-storey, operated by an automated parking system advanced has been added to the parking facilities at the airport Heathrow. The project also included construction of a new road from the M25 to the airport , the reconstruction of the west end of the road and extensions of the Heathrow Express and Piccadilly Line rail links (Business Traveller 2010).

In this case, policy has evolved significantly since the 2003 Air Transport White Paper gave initial backing to proposals to expand Heathrow. The wider context includes a commitment to sustainable development, within which the Climate Change Act 2008, and more latterly an emissions target for aviation, are principal elements. The policy landscape therefore raises an apparent inconsistency between stringent targets for emissions cuts and calls to expand one of the most emissions-intense industries. (DeFillippi, 2005, Pg # 1475-1489)

Source: (Doherty 2008)

Environmental Issues for the Project

It is broadly accepted that emissions from aircraft have a more intense global warming impact than emissions from other activities at ground level, such as road transport. This is particularly so because technological efficiency improvements for aviation are widely considered ...