Aviation
Aviation is a key driver of global connectivity and economic growth, playing a vital role in connecting communities, creating employment, and providing access to opportunities for wealth generation, education, and cultural enrichment.
Sustainable airports form part of a well-connected transportation network, integrated with their local environment and communities, and beneficial to society and the economy more widely.
They engage with and create positive opportunities for local people, play their part in achieving decarbonization targets, and maintain reliability and resilience. And they do all this while improving customer experience and delivering returns to public and private investors.
What can we do for you?
Prepare for a low-carbon future
We’ll help you reduce operational emissions across the airport system, working with you to develop an energy strategy that will improve system-wide efficiency and transition to low- or zero-carbon energy sources. We’ll also support you in reducing embodied carbon by decarbonizing the construction of new assets and extending the life of existing ones.
Deliver community benefits
We’ll plan and design infrastructure and operational improvements that support local communities — addressing noise levels and air quality, traffic congestion and transport connectivity, as well as environmental quality, public space, employment opportunities, and more. We’ll help you engage with both local and wider communities to deliver social, environmental, and economic value. As a business that puts social purpose at the heart of everything we do, we are aligned with your own aspirations for sustainable growth.
Improve return on investment
We’ll help you improve operational effectiveness and manage assets to their full potential, while improving the experience for end users and providing a better working environment for employees.
Engage with new technologies
We’ll ensure you adapt smoothly to emerging technologies, from digital transformation of airport operations and asset management to the adoption of advanced air mobility and zero-emissions aircraft.
Anticipate climate change
We’ll help you adjust to the physical effects of climate change by assessing the probability and severity of weather events and their potential impact on your assets and operations — and developing appropriate responses.
Manage project risks
We’ll deploy our global experience in establishing the brief, developing the design and managing the delivery of complex capital and change programs.
Engineering aviation infrastructure for tomorrow’s flights
We provide an end-to-end aviation consultancy service, encompassing strategic planning, design, program management, and operational improvement. We integrate our extensive in-house capabilities with those of international and local partners where appropriate, to suit your organizational and program priorities.
Our experience
Our teams have worked with governments, investors, operators, and airlines on projects at more than 250 airports worldwide, from small regional airfields to global hubs such as New York JFK, Singapore Changi, Hong Kong, and London Heathrow.
Recent projects include:
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Heathrow carbon and sustainability program, London, UKAt Heathrow, Europe’s busiest airport, we were appointed to develop a program for reducing carbon emissions by 2.3 megatons annually by the end of 2026. We built a multidisciplinary team of aviation, transportation, and energy experts. The program will see Heathrow Airport invest around £200 million over five years in transforming its business and supply chains, incorporating new commercial and delivery models and new ways of working.
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Heathrow third runway masterplan, London, UKOur masterplan for the expansion of the UK’s principal airport brought together disciplines including airspace management, town and country planning, legal and commercial advisory, business case development, environment and climate, stakeholder engagement, and program management. We identified a range of third runway options for Heathrow and created a shortlist of feasible options. We also designed surface access strategies and carried out environmental impact assessments for each option. Our work identified £1 billion in cost savings.
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Istanbul Airport, TurkeyThe first phase of the huge Istanbul Airport expansion comprised three runways and capacity for 90 million passengers a year. We collaborated with the Turkish consultancy Dolsar to provide technical advisory services to the project’s lenders, ensuring they knew traffic forecasts were credible and that infrastructure design, construction, and operation were aligned correctly. Our due diligence brought the project to financial close, and all commercial traffic transferred from the existing Atatürk Airport to the new facility in April 2019, creating the continent’s busiest airport.
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Jersey Airport masterplan, UKPorts of Jersey appointed us to develop a masterplan that would increase annual passenger capacity from 1.5 million to 3 million by 2050, ensure that the capital investment program is properly managed, and improve operational performance. Our solution also mapped out embodied and operational carbon reductions.
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John F. Kennedy International Airport masterplan, NY, USAWe developed a masterplan for New York’s international gateway airport that would enable it to handle 100 million passengers a year by 2050. Our ongoing role incorporates program planning for near-term developments and measures to radically improve service quality. Our work contributed to the announcement of a US$13 billion redevelopment that includes two new terminal complexes.
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Quito Airport, EcuadorQuito’s new international airport was a technically challenging project. The site is surrounded by active volcanoes, which prevented the old and new airports operating at the same time, meaning a phased opening of the new facility was not possible: flights switched immediately and wholly from the old airport to the new. We provided a comprehensive range of technical, commercial, and critical risk management services. We also monitored, assured, and program-managed delivery of the airport, which is injecting over US$200 million annually into the Greater Quito economy, providing direct connectivity to Quito’s major export and tourism markets.
Carbon Portal
Identify, calculate, and reduce embodied and operational carbon emissions. This infrastructure carbon calculator is aligned to PAS 2080, the international specification for managing carbon across the built environment (coauthored by Mott MacDonald). It allows anyone across your business and supply chain to identify and calculate carbon emissions, not just carbon experts.
