Benchmarking for Design of Major Airports Worldwide

This note presents, for the first time, the concept of benchmarking of airports from the perspective of designers and planners. Benchmarking is valuable for three reasons: it provides basic data otherwise difficult to obtain, it defines world class standards for facilities, and it identifies priorities for improving the physical design at individual airports. Effective benchmarking is focused on objective data of capacity or performance that can be measured and observed in widely different operations, rather than on data that is subjective or derived from widely different accounting practices. The note illustrates the approach by comparing availability of airside and landside facilities at comparable major airports worldwide—those that handle between 12 and 26 million passengers each year, and for which data were available. This initial comparison underlines the fact that airports worldwide differ enormously in the relative amount of facilities they provide, and suggests which airports might require additional investments to reach the best worldwide levels. An application of benchmarking to the México City International Airport demonstrates the usefulness of the concept.