It is difficult to tell whether Singapore Changi Airport is an entertainment complex rather than an airport.
Changi has a three-screen theater, an indoor butterfly garden, a rooftop pool and inventive eateries that attract as many locals as travelers.
With more than 400 stores, including Apple and Tiffany & Company (there are two), Changi Airport would become the fourth largest shopping center by the number of tenants if it were in the United States.
An audience that is both captivating and often rich, commercial square images of airport have made some of the most lucrative in the world. But the pandemic has shattered the commercial calculation at airports, and no one is sure what will follow.
The leading airport for concession and retail sales in the United States is Los Angeles International, with revenues of $ 3,036 a square foot, according to a 2018 report by Airport Experience News. Chicago O’Hare clocked in second with $ 2,718 in sales a square foot. By comparison, the average shopping center is around $ 325 per square foot, according to 2017 data from CoStar.
But that’s all gone now, said Alan Gluck, a senior aviation consultant at ICF.
“In general, sales are in the toilet,” Mr. Gluck said. For example, concession sales at San Francisco International Airport in May were 96 percent lower than a year earlier. Duty-free concession sales were 100 percent down, he said, because all stores were closed. In May 2019, duty-free sales were $ 11.5 million.
Until passenger traffic returns, Mr Gluck said, retail properties for airports will not be profit centers, and even if it returns, it may be at reduced capacity.
“I believe we need to rethink existing heuristics unless we think customer behavior will return to what we now normally consider,” he said, adding that activities such as health screenings often cut into space for other needs. , usually concessions.
Many concessions are likely to require more space for social distance, which will reduce the number of retail units that airports can offer.
The very facilities that once made airports a standout for profit are the same things that prove challenging. The Changi theaters, for example, are not yet closed not only for the protection of pathogens, but also because traffic is too low to justify business expenses.
“We will scale our airport operations based on the volume of passengers we serve,” said Ivan Tan, senior vice president of marketing communications with Changi Airport Group, which operates the facility.
Airport traffic has dropped to 1 percent from what it was a year ago, leaving little market for movies like gourmet food, Mr Tan said. The airport is using this time to close Terminal 2 to speed up planned renovations, but the pandemic will cause some facilities to be replaced by new ones.
“The longer-term impact of Covid-19 on the facilities and facilities we provide remains to be seen,” he said.
To date, the pandemic has not planned any terminals as in progress in the United States, although some airport operators are investigating facilities for travelers.
Kansas City International Airport is in the midst of a $ 1.5 billion renovation plan to consolidate its three terminals into one giant 39-port, including a fountain with two stories, a children’s playroom and updated concessions.
It is not the first time the airport has been rebuilt during a major airline disruption: On September 11, 2001, the airport was in the midst of a major overhaul. Changes had to be made in screening areas quickly, and interior and exterior glass reinforced.
“In that case, the project was underway. The adjustments were made, and it was not too late, “said a spokesman for the airport, Joe McBride. “We are still early on this terminal project, the construction is ongoing, so we are in better shape than in 9/11.”
Other projects underway, including at La Guardia Airport in New York and in smaller markets such as Lafayette, La., Are advancing but taking a wait-and-see approach over adjustments.
New terminal construction should concentrate on space not only for the coronavirus but for other respiratory diseases, said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
“The full nature of things at an airport has always made me uncomfortable, especially in a less modern one,” said Drs. Fauci. “People are literally waiting from nose to nose to get on the plane.”
He said new terminals are needed to create enough space for people to spread out, provide high-efficiency private air filtration and distribute free masks.
He also wants to see more health screening at airports to prevent the kind of virus that is seen in Wuhan, China, and Milan, Italy. Such tests may include temperature checks, questioning, and trace of contacts. Because 40 percent of coronavirus cases are asymptomatic, the task is challenging, but still worthwhile, he added.
“You can’t throw up your hands and say it’s impossible,” said Drs. Fauci.
The key to making post-pandemic airports commercially viable is to make the medical screens uniform everywhere, said Vik Krishnan, aviation consultant at McKinsey & Company.
“You did not have several airlines encouraging their safety after 9/11,” he said. Travelers will be more inclined to re-fly if airports now adopt the same safety standards.
In Kansas City, officials are making adjustments as needed. As more space is needed, their design flexibility is built-in, which older airports may not be able to do as easily.
“At present, we have not changed course or adapted the existing new terminal design, but we are in the early stages of researching how we can improve the safety and health of travelers,” said Mr. McBride.
The new building will give the airport more flexibility in dealing with this pandemic than future ones, including the ability to carry out health versions outside, said Laura Italman, a managing partner at Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, an architecture and design firm in New York that oversees the redevelopment of the airport.
The pandemic will accelerate future construction of terminals at other airports to include flexibility, they added.
“Airports are architecturally difficult because they are rapidly becoming obsolete, so all the buildings at the present works are about flexibility and more flexibility,” Ms. Framan said.
Other airport designers follow the same mantra.
“We are not scaling back at the moment,” said Curtis W. Fentress, a Denver-based architect whose firm is involved in the redesign of the international terminal at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, as well as terminals in Nashville and Orlando. Fla. “What we can all do is clear things out and make things as touchless as possible.”
Even before the pandemic, he strives to keep things contactless.
“You move huge people through the airport, so I suggest daylight to guide and guide you through the building and let them be sanitary and feel as clean and safe as possible,” he said.
But even bigger changes will be needed, said Henrik Rothe, a senior lecturer in airport planning at Cranfield University in the UK who has designed airports in 45 countries. The restriction to airports is the most complex ever, and all stakeholders will have to come together to reimagine them, he said.
The 2002 SARS outbreak was a pandemic warning that most airports ignored, he said. In the long run, airports will need to re-evaluate their operations and perhaps focus more on business and infrastructure than facilities.
“Airports need to become multifunctional commercial centers, sustainable and resilient to disruptive events,” Mr Rothe said.
