Tons of People
 Photo courtesy Denver International Airport Passengers are only one type of airport customer. |
Any major airport has lots of customers, most of them passengers. Atlanta's Hartsfield International Airport, for example, handles 2,400 flights every day (one flight every 40 seconds, 24 hours a day!) carrying hundreds of thousands of people. That adds up to 72-million domestic and 78-million international passengers passing through Hartsfield each year. That's a lot of people, and most of those 150-million are going to want to grab a bite, use the restroom, maybe buy a magazine...
To meet passengers' needs, an airport must:
- be accessible by roadways and public transportation, plus have plenty of parking
- have areas for ticketing, check-in and baggage handling
- keep the passengers safe
- offer food and other services
- maintain areas for the customs service
Airports have other customers to take care of, too.
- Airlines need space for airplanes, facilities for routine maintenance, jet fuel and places for passengers and flight crews while on the ground.
- Air-freight companies need space for loading and unloading cargo airplanes.
- Pilots and other crew members need runways, aircraft fuel, air-traffic information, facilities for aircraft storage and maintenance and places to relax while on the ground.
Airports have facilities to meet all of these needs. They have runways, ground concourses, terminals, fuel depots, hangars and a control tower, to name a few.
 A typical airport layout, based on the layout of Denver International Airport |
Generally, airport services can be classified as groundside and airside. Let's take a look at what's involved in each category.
