Preparing an Airport for the Olympic Games: Athens
Publication: Journal of Infrastructure Systems
Volume 15, Issue 1
Abstract
Athens International Airport served as the principal gateway to Greece for athletes and the Olympic Family and for the general public during the Olympic Games of 2004. The airport’s performance during the Games was universally praised. This paper describes many facets of the extensive preparations for the event and of actual operations during the event. These include: principal strategic decisions, coordination with the major stakeholders, air traffic and passenger forecasts, new facilities and upgrading or modifications to existing ones, air traffic slot management, planning for and modeling of the flows of members of the Olympic Family through the airport, and some initiatives with respect to organizational structure, security, and contingency planning. The paper also outlines some more general “lessons” for airports that will handle events of similar magnitude and visibility in the future.
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Acknowledgments
The writers were, obviously, not involved in all of the planning and operational activities described in this paper. Their specific contributions were to: the preparation of the initial forecast and the second assessment described in the section “Forecast of Traffic”; the demand/capacity analyses that resulted in the investments and measures described in the section “Capacity Analysis and Resulting Actions and Measures”; the development of the simulation models for the processing of the OF (the section “Modeling the Processing of the Olympic Family”); the audit of the status of preparations for the Olympics (the section “Other Actions and Measures”); and the planning for OVOC and contingencies (the section “Other Actions and Measures”). Credit must, therefore, be shared with all the members of AIA, S.A. and of the greater AIA community, whose contributions are gratefully acknowledged. Any errors are solely the responsibility of the writers and any views expressed herein are not necessarily shared by AIA, S.A. or any other entity.
References
Athens International Airport, S.A. (AIA). (2002). Annual report, Athens, Greece.
de Neufville, R., and Odoni, A. R. (2003). Airport systems: Planning, design and management, McGraw-Hill, New York.
Frantzeskakis, J., and Frantzeskakis, M. (2006). “Athens 2004 Olympic Games: Transportation planning, simulation and traffic management.” ITE J., 76(10), 26–33.
Kassens, E. (2005). “How to prepare an airport for the Olympic Games: Transportation of the Olympic family members,” MS thesis, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass.
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© 2009 ASCE.
History
Received: Mar 10, 2006
Accepted: Nov 16, 2006
Published online: Mar 1, 2009
Published in print: Mar 2009
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