ABSTRACT
Airports provide space, facilities, service, and equipment that allow aircraft to take off and land safely and efficiently and which enable passengers and cargo to transfer between air and different ground transport modes. This chapter gives an overview of airport design principles, airport elements, and interrelationships between them, as well as the airport management perspective. The chapter begins by considering the busiest airports in the world and their classification in terms of size and type of traffic. This is followed by an examination of the airport access, catchment area, and mode of transportation to the airport. The role of the principal components of the airfield and examine the factors that affect the location, orientation of runways, taxiways, and apron areas are identified. These airfield components are not considered in isolation and their interface with passenger and cargo terminals and landside areas are considered, too. In this chapter, the airport demand and capacity are also discussed along with the factors that affect their values. Additionally, airports offer a broad variety of commercial facilities to satisfy the needs of passengers, employees and visitors to generate additional revenue and this part of airport management is discussed, too.
