National Academies Press: OpenBook

Airport Terminal Facility Activation Techniques (2010)

Chapter: Chapter Four - Soft Versus Hard Date and Schedule for Airport Terminal Facility Opening Day

« Previous: Chapter Three - Phased Versus Consolidated Openings
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Suggested Citation:"Chapter Four - Soft Versus Hard Date and Schedule for Airport Terminal Facility Opening Day." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. Airport Terminal Facility Activation Techniques. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14394.
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Page 11
Page 12
Suggested Citation:"Chapter Four - Soft Versus Hard Date and Schedule for Airport Terminal Facility Opening Day." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. Airport Terminal Facility Activation Techniques. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14394.
×
Page 12
Page 13
Suggested Citation:"Chapter Four - Soft Versus Hard Date and Schedule for Airport Terminal Facility Opening Day." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. Airport Terminal Facility Activation Techniques. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14394.
×
Page 13
Page 14
Suggested Citation:"Chapter Four - Soft Versus Hard Date and Schedule for Airport Terminal Facility Opening Day." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2010. Airport Terminal Facility Activation Techniques. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14394.
×
Page 14

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12 Data collected indicate that decisions regarding whether and when to plan for a soft or hard opening date are complex and involve many issues and stakeholders. • Agreements used to finance airports are generally based on new assets being put into use at a fixed point in time. Failure to comply with these agreements exposes an air- port to added financing costs and potentially to penalties. • Airlines need to plan for schedule changes at least 6 months in advance of making a change so that they can be published in the Official Airline Guide Flight Schedule and the airline has sufficient time to start marketing new routes and flights. • Lease and use agreements with concessions, airlines, and others generally start at a fixed point in time; delays can expose an airport to penalties. • Politicians and other dignitaries often participate in rib- bon cuttings that need to be scheduled months in advance. • Contractors and developers may be exposed to liquidated damages if they fail to complete work and open the facil- ity on time. Those surveyed indicated that construction of airports is often delayed and that the opening day for new airport termi- nal facilities is often set too early in the planning stage of the facility. Additionally, the date can be concurrent with or just before an immovable date with little float. The result is that when construction is delayed, the amount of time available to activate the new facility is compressed and familiarization, training, trials programs, etc., forced to overlap with the final stages of construction, leading to inefficiencies and poten- tially a compromised activation program. Therefore, instead of discovering and resolving issues before the opening, prob- lems may be publicly discovered and resolved during or post- opening. Examples of where hard links of AOD to fixed points in time resulted in problems include: • Chek Lap Kok, where opening day was linked to the transfer of Hong Kong to China. • Terminal 5 at London Heathrow, where the airport authority and airlines linked AOD to airline seasonal schedule changes. In the these examples, a decision was made to proceed with an opening at a fixed date, although construction and commissioning were late and incomplete, staff had not been adequately trained and were not adequately familiar with new facilities, and/or plans of operation were not fully tested. One cause that was reported during interviews was a lack of trans- parent, accurate, and timely communications and reporting regarding the actual status of construction, commissioning, and the readiness of the airport authority, airlines, and other stakeholders to operate out of the new facilities. Although it is often necessary to forecast an opening date relatively early in the process and firm it up about 6 months before the opening, it is critical that progress in achieving it be closely monitored throughout the entire planning, design, construction, commissioning, and activation processes. If slip- page is discovered early, the schedule can often be recovered by committing additional resources to the tasks that have fallen behind schedule. If it is not possible to recover the schedule, informed decisions can be made about whether to adjust the schedule or implement a fallback/recovery plan. The opening strategy of many of the airports included in the survey had characteristics of both fixed and soft opening dates (the opening date is always fixed before opening). An opening date is defined as fixed if the date is established rel- atively early in the project delivery process. It is defined as soft if it is established later in the project delivery process when state of construction completion and readiness are con- firmed. Table 3 identifies whether a fixed date or soft date approach was taken when establishing opening dates for the projects discussed by participants in the survey. A decision matrix similar to that included in Table 2 can be useful in determining whether a soft or fixed date should be established for an opening. If a soft approach is used, a process similar to the 90/60/ 30-day issue resolution reporting mechanism used by the Dubai Airports Company can be used to predict construction comple- tion and readiness for an airport opening day. Issues were tracked along with actual and predicted rates of resolution. As opening day approached, issues were resolved by authorizing overtime and shift work. Where issues could not be resolved as originally planned, workarounds were developed, tested, and implemented so that there were no surprises on opening day. In Figure 4, at 120 days out (4 months before AOD), a decision was made to accelerate the closeout of open issues by CHAPTER FOUR SOFT VERSUS HARD DATE AND SCHEDULE FOR AIRPORT TERMINAL FACILITY OPENING DAY

13 Airport Fixed or Soft Opening Date Comments Athens International Airport in Greece Fixed Airport management programmed a 6-month trial period following substantial completion. So, once airport was substantially complete, AOD was “fixed” at six months later. Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport Initially fixed then soft 1 month prior to opening major carrier postponed move by 3 months owing to concerns about insufficient time to test BHS. Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County International Airport Fixed Date was fixed approximately 6 months prior to opening Dubai Airports Corporation Dubai Soft Dates for four phase opening were fixed at 90 days out and confirmed at 60 and 30. Hong Kong International Airport— Chek Lap Kok (CLK), Terminal 2 and other new facilities. Fixed 12 months prior to opening of CLK Since opening of CLK, opening dates are not fixed more than 2 months prior to opening. Indianapolis International Airport Fixed Fixed 2 months prior to opening jetBlue Airways Terminal 5 at JFK in New York Soft Opening was delayed by ~3 weeks owing to delay in completion of concessions. Larnaka International Airport, Cyprus Fixed London Heathrow Terminal 5 Fixed Date was fixed 24 months prior to planned consolidated opening, 18 months out decision was made to open it in two phases separated by 3 days. On opening day the decision was made to open in six to eight steps with schedule determined by success of each step. Pafos International Airport in Cyprus Fixed Port Authority Southwest Florida International Airport, Lee County Both Initially fixed then became soft owing to concerns about the BHS San Francisco International Airport Soft Official opening date was established following successful activation and testing of all facilities and systems. Seattle–Tacoma International Airport Soft Following September 11, 2001, enormous changes to baggage system design and scope were required; so, decision was made to go with a soft opening. Toronto Pearson International Airport Fixed Washington Metropolitan Airports Authority (Dulles International) Both Initially fixed then became soft owing to airline concerns about opening during holidays. BHS = baggage handling system. TABLE 3 SOFT VERSUS FIXED OPENING DATES

14 authorizing overtime and developing workarounds for any- thing that could not be completed as initially designed. This enabled the predicted rate of issue resolution to be increased from approximately 150 issues per month to approximately 450 issues per month between 60 and 30 days out. At 30 days out a more conservative approximately 100 issues per month was used to predict completion. The shaded area around the solid line indicates the lack of certainty regarding the amount of time required to resolve issues. If issues are resolved more quickly than anticipated, opening day can be moved forward; if it takes longer than anticipated to resolve issues, opening day can be postponed. As time progresses, the range of possible opening dates will tighten. A typical sequence of activities that need to be com- pleted is found in Figure 5. It is critical that progress toward achieving the 90-day, 60-day, and 30-day milestones is closely monitored and reported on, as shown earlier in Figure 4. This enables one to predict when the facility and all stakeholders will be ready for the opening. In the event that a date is missed and the facility or stake- holders have not completed all of the 90-, 60-, or 30-day tasks, it is necessary to stop and assess the situation. Sometimes additional resources can be deployed to recover the schedule. At other times it is necessary to develop workarounds—at FIGURE 4 90/60/30-day issue resolution (Source: Arup 2009). FIGURE 5 Monitoring progress through 90/60/30-day countdown (Source: Arup 2009).

15 one airport that opened recently the new Airport Operational Database and Resource Management System was defective. The activation team noted this and implemented a manual planning and data entry procedure. New processes and pro- cedures were developed and additional staff engaged so that it appeared to the public, airline staff, airport staff, and other parties that everything was working smoothly on the AOD. Subsequently, when not under close scrutiny, a more per- manent and efficient workaround was implemented to elim- inate the need for additional staff. The process used to con- firm readiness at Dubai Airports Company is depicted in Figure 6. FIGURE 6 Managing issues through 90/60/30-day countdown process (Source: Arup 2009).

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TRB’s Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Synthesis 20: Airport Terminal Facility Activation Techniques explores lessons learned during terminal activations at 13 domestic and international airport facilities. The report is designed to help identify effective airport terminal facility activation practices.

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