Introduction
Space management in an airport is a component of facility management. Space management plans and manages the physical space for smooth operation of the airport. It a bitter truth that space is not managed properly in the only international airport of our country. There are certain issues that passengers face while in the airport premises along with the management committee. I hope it’s a good issue to be discussed to uplift the functioning of our airport.
Problems
The basic problem in the domestic section of the airport faced by passengers is limited seats available in the waiting area. There are no enough benches to sit while in the waiting period. Consequently, the passengers need to sit on the floor with no other options left. Similarly, the domestic hangar of the airport is quite small in area and not properly managed. There is not enough space to settle a couple of planes in case of maintenance when it’s coincident. The tools in the hangar area are not placed in a way to provide more space to the planes. As a result, the maintenance of the plane has to be done outside the hangar in the parking area. Alongside, the parking area is not quite sufficient in the present scenario as it might sometimes move the planes near to the runways. Similarly, the area between the runway and parking area could be allocated in a more efficient way to extract some space for other purposes. The planes need to undergo a couple of turnings to return to the parking area which takes about a score of minutes. This also intensifies the delay in flight time in the domestic section. Despite the presence of a large area of land, only 25 domestic planes can rest in the airport domestic section. There was a large hole in the domestic parking section that has decreased the area for parking.
As per the observation of many passengers, the check-in entry area is not managed properly. We can easily see two doors for male and female to enter. But only the male door is active for both the genders that create an unnecessary crowd on the check-in and some delay. It is quite disheartening to say that the check-in areas is also quite filthy as the cargos are just thrown away in the way despite storage areas available. This also reduces the space for walking to the passengers as well as the staffs. Similarly, the outside parking area for visitor’s vehicle also has some constraints. The motorbikes and four-wheelers are parked in the main way that creates confusion about the actual way towards the parking. This also leads to the conclusion of small roads within the airport premises
Causes of Problems
There are different modern and realistic ways to effectively manage space in the airport like three-dimensional visualized space and asset management system for large-scale airports. But our international airport does not need to incorporate such heavy techniques to manage its system and ground space. It would be a matter of heartening only if above-mentioned problems are mitigated through effective laws and regulations. The other important aspect to know is about the causes of all these problems. We can ponder into the issue and easily sort out some mainstream causes of these poor management practices. One of the main reasons is the dishonest behavior of the operators in the airline’s hangars. The sole cause of this poor behavior of the operators is the lack of transparency in the work during office hours. Similarly, the technical problems may include the improper design of the runways that may have been designed in a proper way to reduce unwanted turnings of the planes.
Recommendations
It is a bitter truth that most of the problems aforementioned can be solved in a matter of months if proper rules and regulations are imposed strictly. It would be a good idea to provide training and workshops on “Total Quality Management” including the systems and traditions of airports like Singapore Changi Airport, Hongkong International Airport and so on. Similarly, the use of buffer zones needs to be initiated along with the proper use of hangars of the airline’s companies. These practices can at least mitigate some issues till the development of other international airports like Gautam Buddha Airport. If possible extra lands can be purchased to increase the runway paths and parking areas of the airport domestic section.
These small efforts can easily maintain a sound traffic environment in the airport for a couple of years till the alternatives get ready for action.
Article By: Rajan Bhandari
Institute of Engineering, Thapathali Campus Rajan071bme428@thapathalicampus.edu.np
