5 steps to build climate resilience into the airports of tomorrow

Earlier this year, Dubai was inundated with nearly one and a half years’ worth of rain in just 24 hours, catching the famously arid city off guard and leading to the cancellation of nearly 2,000 flights at Dubai International Airport over three days.

Dubai acted quickly to mitigate the impact, however thousands of passengers were stranded, luggage and cargo movements were brought to a standstill and knock-on effects disrupted travel plans and global supply chains for days and weeks, reflecting the storm’s severity and the scale and importance of this critical hub.

Although a severe example, this is not an isolated incident. In 2023, flash flooding shut down operations at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood Airport for 24 hours, and, in 2022, on a day that also saw train cancellations, school closures and wildfires across the UK, Luton airport was forced to suspend flights because of excessive heat causing damage to the runway.

As extreme weather events become more frequent, more widespread and more intense, serious vulnerabilities are being exposed across the airport sector, and airport operations are increasingly becoming paralyzed by conditions they were never designed to withstand.

The airport sector needs to share our knowledge, learn from each other’s experiences and collaborate to embed climate resilience into airport upgrades and developments as a matter of urgency.

Working as part of the World Economic Forum’s Airports of Tomorrow initiative, AtkinsRéalis has devised five steps that airports can take now to build resilience for the future.

We need to be climate smart when we build new airport assets, and build them specifically for the future they will exist in. By assessing and identifying current and future climate risks, we can create resilience by directly responding to these risks and designing for them.

JFK’s coastal location makes it vulnerable to flooding but its new terminal design raises ground levels by approximately one metre and relocates passenger-facing activities to upper levels. This will help to mitigate structural damage, minimize operational disruption and keep passengers and staff safe during extreme weather.

To create the resilience we need now, and in coming years, retrofitting resilience into existing assets is essential to ongoing airport upgrades.

Built in 1937, Sofia Airport is creating infrastructure enhancements in readiness for rising temperatures, including using new heat-resistant materials to resurface pavements and runways, and upgrading to modern cooling systems capable of operating in temperatures in excess of 35°C.

As the availability of data soars and technology continues to evolve, it’s critical that we maximize this potential to inform resilience decisions and planning. Digital twin and simulation tools, for example, can prioritize interventions and capital investment, while informing asset management and maintenance.

AtkinsRéalis’ City Simulator combines data on population, movements and infrastructure with climate predictions to generate realistic future scenarios and simulate the impact of extreme events, such as flooding, storms and wildfires.

The speed and efficiency of response in the first 48 hours following an extreme weather event can have a huge impact on the level of disruption.

When Dubai was hit by extreme flooding, the airport’s disruption management group was critical. A team such as this provides a base level of resilience in the first instance and facilitates established lines of communication with emergency services, local authorities and other stakeholders to ensure a coordinated regional response.

Resilience needs to be formalized through integration with strategic planning and investment models — for instance, adopting the EU approach of including resilience within the Environmental Impact Assessment process, or including it as a mandated chapter within airport masterplans.

Sofia Airport has developed a systematic approach to incorporating climate risk assessments into planning. It considers the risks associated with temperature increase, flooding and drought, and maps the probability of these events to their predicted impact level. This supports the prioritization of resilience measures in the long- and short-term, creates a business case for investment and helps assign funding.

Climate change and the urgency of bolstering resilience is sometimes seen as an issue we will face in future decades rather than now, but nature is already sending its message loud and clear. Our airports do not have the infrastructure to endure the extreme weather events we’re seeing today, let alone stand up to what is to come.

The operational and financial risks presented by extreme weather events mean airports must ensure resilience measures are sufficiently articulated, planned and funded. There is an unmissable opportunity to collaborate and transform our approach, further enhancing safety and the vital economic role of airports.