Airport overhaul as new normal arrives

Dedicated lanes for COVID-safe travellers and apps to use the bathroom are likely to become the ‘new normal’ for airports.

Melbourne Airport’s international departure gate. Airports are likely to look a lot different post-COVID-19. Picture: David Crosling/NCA Newswire

Airports face the prospect of a significant overhaul in design and operation on a similar scale to what occurred after the September 11 terrorist attacks.

A report by international design and engineering firm Aurecon points to between 70 and 100 changes to the passenger journey as a result of the COVID-19 crisis and collapse in travel demand.

While some changes were what Aurecon aviation industry leader Brett Reiss called “the standard Woolworths’ supermarket response” such as floor stickers, clear plastic shields at customer service desks and hand-sanitising stations, others were entirely airport-centric. For a start, travellers would be assigned different “lanes” for processing based on their COVID-19 status detailed in a health passport.

Bags and hand luggage could also be sent for extra checks, and entry to domestic as well as international terminals would be off limits to anyone other than staff and travellers.

Using the airport bathroom would require a phone app that issued an alert when it was your turn to go, and triggered the automatic opening and closing of cubicle doors. Every effort would be made for a touchless experience throughout the airport, and more staff would be needed to explain how new technology worked and to ensure social distancing was observed.

Mr Reiss said the biggest change would be the level of intervention for passengers depending on their destination, or point of origin.

“You’d have a lane dedicated to those travellers flying within COVID-safe bubbles because they wouldn’t need as much intervention apart from the administrative side,” Mr Reiss said.

“But if you were going to say the US or somewhere like that, you’d need a more detailed approach which may require some sort of pharmaceutical test along the way.”

He said as airlines restored capacity and travellers returned to flying, airports would have to consider reorganising their space or reworking flight schedules to reduce congestion.

“As passenger numbers return to normal there will be capacity constraints but hopefully what will happen as we move forward is that the interventions become fewer,” Mr Reiss said.

“It will come down to the mandated health requirements of federal and state governments and then the aviation industry will have to work out how to facilitate those health requirements.”

In time the changes made to minimise the risk of COVID-19 transmission would become the “new normal”, he said.

“We expect it will be rather like 9-11, where we thought those extra procedures would be in place for a short time but in actual fact they’ve been in place for many years,” Mr Reiss said.

Among the measures adopted after the US terrorist attacks were bans on items like nail scissors, knitting needles, box cutters and cigarette lighters in hand luggage, and more thorough security screening.

Although some rules have been relaxed, full body scans have become the norm, and many airports require passengers to remove outer layers of clothing and shoes before screening.

The Aurecon report will be published on Tuesday and presented to industry executives at an Australian Airports Association webinar in coming weeks.

As the design engineers on the Western Sydney Airport terminal precinct, Mr Reiss said Aurecon planned to incorporate post-COVID initiatives into the design. The airport was due to be completed in late-2026, by which time the aviation industry should have fully recovered from the COVID-19 crisis.