Airports work 24/7 to connect travelers to their end destinations across the globe. Behind the scenes, a complex web of airport operations management is the secret to seamless travel.
For anyone in the aviation industry, it is essential to understand the dynamic nature of these operations and how they work together to ensure a smooth airport experience.
In this article, we’ll cover what airport operations are, the 4 types of airport operations, and why connected operations are key to better airport operations.
What are airport operations?
“Airport operations” refer to all the processes and activities in and around an airport that ensure the experience is as seamless as possible for passengers and staff alike.
Each division of airport operations focuses on a different aspect of airport management, playing a significant role for overall airport operations. Together, they ensure the safe, efficient, and smooth functioning of the airport.
The 4 types of airport operations
There are four primary types of airport operations:
- Landside operations
- Airside operations
- Billing and invoicing
- Information management
1. Landside operations
Landside operations are one of the two main areas of airport operations. It refers to a wide range of activities focused on managing public parts of an airport and creating a seamless passenger experience.
Essentially, landside operations cover all areas and activities that take place prior to security screening and are not directly involved with aircraft movement. This includes:
- Terminal management: Airport staff oversee daily operations within the airport terminals to provide a positive and efficient passenger experience. This involves managing check-in, outbound and reclaim baggage handling, flow management, and much more.
- Security and safety operations: Landside operations include maintaining a safe and secure environment while ensuring effective processes, optimizing the use of infrastructure and staff, and reducing unnecessary queues.
- Queue management: Queue management is an important aspect of managing passenger demand, reducing wait times, and improving operational efficiency. Many airports have introduced virtual queuing to optimize their queue management.
- Ground transportation services: Terminals are typically connected to various ground transportation services, such as buses, taxis, airport shuttles, and rental cars. Landside operations involve managing these services effectively to reduce turnaround times.
- Parking operations: Depending on the airport size and traffic, the demand for parking can vary greatly. That makes parking operations essential to providing a smooth airport experience.
- Customer service delivery: To enhance the passenger experience, an important aspect of landside operations is implementing tools and services to ensure that passenger needs are met within airport lounges, hotels, and other facilities.
Landside operations play such an essential role across all touchpoints in the passenger experience.
The most forward-thinking airports collect these touchpoints in a website or app where everything is easily accessible for passengers, creating an overview of all relevant and connected processes.
2. Airside operations
The other main area of airport operations is airside operations. This covers all activities that occur in the security restricted area of an airport where aircraft are parked, loaded, unloaded, refueled, and prepared for takeoff and landing. Airside operations personnel manage the airfield and ramps. They are responsible for the safety and security of aircraft during takeoff and landing, which includes tasks like directing aircraft and conducting runway inspections.
More specifically, airside operations include:
- Aircraft parking and stand/gate allocation: Aircraft movement is key. To achieve that, airside operators must maximize stand utilization, minimize congestion at the gates, reduce unnecessary fuel burn, and maintain tight schedules.
- Baggage management: This involves transporting, loading, and unloading passengers’ bags from check-in to aircraft, and from aircraft to baggage reclaim. It’s an essential part of preventing delays and lost baggage, and often involves coordination between multiple teams.
- Ground handling: Not only are ground handlers integral to baggage management, they also oversee fueling, aircraft maintenance, and cleaning to ensure punctual departures.
- Deicing operations: Deicing is an essential part of ensuring aircraft safety and maintaining efficient flight operations in cold climates. Airports must have designated de-icing zones, and operations are typically carried out under strict safety and environmental regulations.
- Passenger bussing operations: Passenger bussing operations ensure that passengers are transported safely and efficiently between the terminal and the aircraft. Airports and their ground handling teams must coordinate with the flight schedule to ensure passengers are transferred safely and quickly.
- Border control and immigrations: In airports, border control and immigration management are critical for maintaining national security. Their procedures ensure passengers are entering and exiting lawfully, and prevent illegal activities such as smuggling.
- Stakeholder communication: Airside operations is a massive coordination exercise between entities like airlines, ground handling companies, airport authorities, security teams, and customs and immigration services. Airports must be able to adjust to changes on the go, increasing the demand for real-time information sharing and effective processes.
When changes occur in one area of airside operations, they’re likely to affect other areas of operations. This makes it crucial for airport operations to be connected, creating a holistic overview so airports can optimize across all areas.
3. Billing and invoicing operations
Billing and invoicing operations handle aeronautical and non-aeronautical revenue, both of which are vital for the financial health of the airport and its operations.
Aeronautical revenue consists of fees for landing, fuel, and aircraft parking. Non-aeronautical revenue includes income from retail, dining, and parking.
Billing and invoicing operations covers:
- Invoice management: The primary function is processing and recording costs associated with flight operations. These include landing fees, fuel charges, and service fees.
- Sales and cash flow monitoring: Like any business, airports monitor all sales transactions, from food services to retail outlets.
- Payroll management: Billing and invoicing ensures that airport staff are compensated correctly and on time.
- Records and reporting: To support strategic financial planning and ensure compliance with financial regulations, the billing and invoicing division maintains detailed records of all financial transactions across airport operations.
Billing and invoicing ensures that all financial aspects of airport operations are handled precisely and efficiently, supporting the broader goals of commercial aviation.
4. Information management
The final type of airport operations is information management. This function ensures all flight, airline, and operational data is collected and distributed accurately. The bigger the airport, the more important it is to ensure precise, efficient information management.
Information management covers a wide range of activities, including:
- Communication with airlines and handling agents: Information management oversees the systems that enable continuous communication between airlines, handling agents, and other stakeholders. They facilitate efficient operational adjustments and emergency responses.
- Situational awareness support: Information management provides real-time updates and alerts on flight statuses and other crucial information. This enhances the overall safety and efficiency of airport operations by maintaining a high level of situational awareness among airport staff.
- Real-time data collection and sharing: Information management collects and records information that is essential to maintaining up-to-date and reliable flight data for airport managers and passengers alike. And to facilitate efficient operations and minimize delays, they share that information in real-time with all relevant parties, including airlines, passengers, and ground handlers. A well-known example of this is Flight Information Display Systems (FIDS), the display monitors that show updates on arrivals, departures, and gate changes.
- Operational optimization: Information management uses systems that continuously analyze data in order to improve future planning and resource allocation.
Distributing accurate, timely information is integral to airport operations. It supports the logistical needs of operations, as well as the entire flight schedule. By reducing uncertainties and improving reliability across airport services, information management also enhances the overall passenger experience.
Why connection is key to ensuring smooth airport operations
Traditionally, airport operations have been conducted in silos, making it difficult to adapt to changes in real time. Yet, passengers see an airport as one connected operation. So why don't airports?
To optimize the modern airport and boost operational efficiency, core operations can no longer be conducted in silos: they must be connected.
For this exact purpose, Copenhagen Optimization developed Better Airport®: a cloud-based airport operations management SaaS platform that gives all airports, regardless of size, a simpler way to run core operations and get the most out of their resources.
As a common operating platform, the system enables all stakeholders, internal and external, to easily access and use all functionality. Better Airport allows you to mix and match modules to create a solution perfectly suited to your airport. Every module can be connected, making it easy to forecast, understand, and plan passenger and baggage flows throughout the airport.
We call this way of working Connected Operations—and we believe it’s the future of airport operations.
Frequently Asked Questions about airport operations
What are the main challenges in airport operations?
The biggest challenge right now is trying to manage 21st-century passenger volumes with rigid, legacy systems and infrastructure that can't easily expand. Specifically, airports are hitting these walls:
- Capacity constraints: Passenger growth is stretching stands, gates, and check-in areas to their limits. You can't just build a new terminal every time traffic spikes, so airports have to figure out how to absorb increased growth with the infrastructure they already have.
- Static resource allocation: Many airports still allocate baggage halls or check-in counters based on static, seasonal rules rather than dynamic, actual data on the day.
- New technology: Introducing new technologies—like advanced CT security scanners—changes passenger throughput and flows entirely. However, legacy planning methods make airports hesitant to roll out new initiatives quickly because they fear day-to-day operational chaos.
What is the difference between landside operations and airside operations?
While they require vastly different logistics, treating them as separate worlds is an old-school way of operating. What happens at a landside check-in desk directly impacts whether an aircraft pushes back on time airside.
- Landside operations focus entirely on the passenger and baggage journey before the security checkpoint, as well as public-facing infrastructure. This includes terminal management (check-in counters, self-service kiosks, public concourses), baggage drop-offs, ground transportation (taxis, buses), and parking.
- Airside operations encompass everything past security. This means managing stands and gates for efficient turnarounds; runways and taxiways to inspect for debris or damage; aircraft fueling and towing - and even wildlife management to prevent bird strikes.
What are connected operations vs traditional operations?
- In a traditional setup, the airport operates like a collection of independent entities: airlines, ground handlers, security, and terminal management all use different data, spreadsheets, and legacy systems. They plan in isolation, where a small delay at check-in wrecks the security line, which then causes a missed departure slot at the gate, and so on.
- Connected operations is a centralized ecosystem where internal teams and external stakeholders operate out of a single, cloud-based platform. Everyone sees the same real-time data, the same flight updates, and the same predictive passenger flows. This form of airport operations shifts an airport from being a series of siloed teams to an active facilitator that plans ahead, collaborates instantly, and dynamically adjusts resources from curb to gate.
How are AI and machine learning used in airline operations?
Nearly all the processes in an airport can benefit from AI and machine learning. They are the engine behind efficient operations, including:
- More accurate forecasting
- Smarter staffing and rostering
- Improved baggage tracking and flow optimization
- Optimized gate and stand allocation
- Faster disruption management and recovery
