Adaptive policymaking for Airport Strategic Planning

Airport Strategic Planning (ASP) focuses on developing plans for the long-term development of an airport. A crucial challenge in ASP is the treatment of uncertainty about relevant future developments (e.g., aviation demand, regulations, technological breakthroughs, etc.). Currently, ASP focuses on reducing demand uncertainties through forecasting. However, this approach ignores most of the uncertainties. As a result, the forecasts are practically always wrong. Still, most airports base their plans on such a forecast. As such, current ASP practice often results in serious negative consequences for the long-term development of an airport, including an inability to implement the plan, an inability to meet actual demand, and unnecessary investments in facilities. An alternative for handling uncertainty in ASP involves adaptive policymaking (APM). APM takes actions that might be needed right away and creates a framework for future actions that allows for adaptations over time as knowledge about the future becomes available. In this paper, we describe the problem of uncertainty in ASP in more detail, and present an example of the application of APM to the case of Schiphol Airport. We conclude that adaptive policymaking is a highly promising alternative to AMP that can avoid serious mistakes in airport planning.