The Airport and the Environment

The Airport and the Environment


   Around September and October of every year, all airports in South Florida are exposed to what is called as "Hurricane Season". This is a time where you can expect a lot of delays and cancellations both in he airline industry and in the private sector. Although aircraft get impacted the most out of this, airports also suffer as well. Airplanes can get up to 3 hours waiting for departure, while they are sitting on the taxiway burning fuel.
    Airports struggle when a hurricane comes, because first of all, you can get winds up to more than 100 knots, and that might bring structural damage to many buildings. "At Naples Municipal Airport, gusts of up to 142 mph were clocked, according to Rozansky, causing million of dollars in damage to the site. The airport suffered flooding and the roof of the fire station was peeled off. The two FBOs—privately owned Naples Jet Center and the Naples Airport Authority’s own facility—suffered damage. At least six hangars were seriously damaged or completely destroyed." Damages or total destruction of buildings is not the only problem for airports, days before the hurricane arrives, the airport is overloaded with airplanes, both that want to go away to reposition the airplanes to another safer airport, and that want to arrive at the airport to pickup people. At this point in time the airport is a complete chaos, there is no space for them on the ground and even on the air. A few years ago, Florida ran out of transponder codes for airplanes to fly IFR, and that was because there were just too many people leaving.
    There is absolutely nothing for airports to do in situations like this. No one can stop a hurricane. A feasible solution would be to strengthen the buildings across the airport, so that they are able to sustain extreme winds, that way airplanes can be hangared inside, instead of flying them elsewhere.









References
Curt Epstein (2017). Hurricane Irma: For Most, It Could Have Been Much Worse. AIN online.             https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/business-aviation/2017-09-18/hurricane-irma-most-it-could-have-been-much-worse

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