Logistics and freight transport as the kernel of resilient airport-driven development; a survey on basic interactivities and causalities

Abstract

Air transportation has experienced an almost steady growth in recent decades, in response to the global economic growth and to the trade interaction demand. With the largest part of the world’s population living in emerging economies and the continuous growth of urbanization, the future growth of air transport can be guaranteed. Other modes of transport cannot compete with its key competitive advantage– travel time for long distances. Therefore, most airports have been subject to expansion and development as well as efficiency enhancement strategies to keep themselves alive and profitable in the air transport market, to serve their catchment area more efficiently, and to support the economy of connected regions. They are not small take-off and landing ports anymore; a revolutionary transformation has been changing their functionality, while businesses gravitate toward them causing economic, social, and environmental changes in their surrounding regions. A mutual relationship between the airport and its surrounding is formed to gain more economic benefits, which can lead to more aeronautical and non- aeronautical revenues for the airport. The existence of significant links between the airport operation and economic development has been proven in several studies; it has also been reviewed in this chapter. To make airports and their surroundings more fetching environments for business activities, decision makers have been planning to add diversified -especially non-aeronautical- services, and are planning to strengthen the economic ties between airport services and business activities. Most of the business activities are concentrated in cities, accompanied by the movement of goods and productions. The availability of the airport and the reliability of its services heighten the efficiency of freight transport chains and logistics networks and reinforce the competitive advantage of its region. Different concepts have been developed to conceptualize the relation of airports with their surroundings, acknowledging the strong ties between airport development, freight transport, and logistics. However, different interactions between airport and logistics/freight-transport within the catchment area arises the necessity of applying system approach to conduct more comprehensive analysis and to move toward implementing integrated approaches in planning. This necessity is crucial because other systems such as regional and urban economy, urban transport, land-use, environment, etc. also must be involved in integrated planning for the purpose of addressing sustainability and resiliency. In this study, which is a part of author’s PhD research, a detail review on Airport-Delated Development concept(s) and the centrality of freight transport and logistics is provided. The complexity of planning is mainly addressed as an initial step for further research and system modeling.