King Fahd airport area Saudi Arabia- 780 km². It's 7 times more area Paris - 80 quarters of the French capital fit on 105 km². And 25 km² more than the area of ​​Hamburg (755 km²).

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Airports can be compared with cities not only in terms of area. In many ways, the modern air port is organized like a city. There, too, there is an administration, a budget, services that monitor security and order. Let's consider the airport device in a little more detail.

What determines the structure of the airport

From his size. Most of us mean by airport huge complex with hangars, terminals, command and control towers and runways with a 24/7 operating mode. But not all airports meet these standards.

small airports

An airport is also called a short strip of asphalt among grass and dirt, which is used no more than two or three hours a day. These runways often only serve one or two pilots. Such airports may not have any structures other than a runway.

Regional airports

They organize flights within one country, without international flights. Often regional airports serve not only civil aviation but also military.
In regional airports, the infrastructure is more developed. It includes hangars, radio towers, pilot training facilities, weather observation systems. Such facilities sometimes have lounges for pilots, trading platforms, conference rooms, fuel storage.
The full list of objects depends on the traffic and destination of the airport.
The hangars of regional airports usually accommodate aircraft with a capacity of up to 200 people.

International airports

Organize regional and international flights. The infrastructure of international airports is complemented by duty-free shops, service stations, transport system inside terminals, customs control zones.
The runways and hangars of such airports serve aircraft of various sizes. From private - less than 50 people on board, to Airbus A380 - 853 passengers.

Runway strip

Regional airports may have only one runway. In international - from two to seven. The length of the runway depends on the weight of the aircraft. For example, a Boeing 747 or Airbus A380 requires a 3300 m runway to take off. And for takeoff aircraft with a capacity of up to 20 passengers, 914 m is enough.

Stripes can be:

• Solitary. Engineers plan the location of the runway, taking into account the prevailing wind direction.
• Parallel. The distance between two runways depends on the size and number of aircraft using the aerodrome, ranging from 762 m to 1,310 m on average.
• V-shaped. The two runways converge but do not intersect. This arrangement gives air traffic controllers the flexibility to maneuver aircraft on the runway. For example, in light wind conditions, the controller will use both runways. But if the wind picks up in one direction, controllers will use the runway that allows aircraft to take off into the wind.
• Crossed. Crossing runways are common at airports where the prevailing winds vary throughout the year. The intersection point may be in the middle of each runway, in the threshold area where aircraft land, or at the end of the runway.

Taxiways

In addition to the runways, the airport is equipped with taxiways. They connect all the buildings of the airport: terminals, hangars, parking lots, service stations. They are used to move aircraft to the runway or to the parking lot.

Light signaling system

All international airports have the same lighting scheme. With signal lights, pilots can distinguish between runways and highways at night or in low visibility conditions. Beacons that flash green and white indicate a civilian airport. Green lights mark the threshold or start of the runway. Red lights signal the end of the lane. White or yellow lights define the edges of the runway. Blue lights distinguish taxiways from runways.

How the airport works: terminals

The terminals are located representative offices of airlines and services that are responsible for organizing passenger traffic, security, baggage, border, immigration and customs control. There are also restaurants and shops here.
Number of terminals and total area terminal area depend on airport traffic.

The terminal complex at Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in Atlanta, USA occupies 230,000 m². It includes internal and international terminals, 207 passenger pick-up/drop-off gates, seven conference rooms, 90 shops and 56 service points where passengers receive the necessary services - from polishing shoes to connecting to the Internet.

Usually airlines rent gates at the airport. But sometimes they build separate terminals. Such as, Emirates airline at Dubai International Airport. In addition to lounges and aircraft gates, Emirates Terminal offers 11,000 m2 retail space, three spas, two Zen gardens.

In-flight catering

Food for aircraft passengers is prepared outside the airport. It is delivered by truck and loaded on board. Daily at one major airport caterers deliver thousands of meals. For example, three catering providers provide 158,000 meals to Hong Kong Airport every day.

Fuel supply system

During a flight from London Heathrow to Malaysian Kuala Lumpur Jumbo Jet consumes about 127,000 liters of fuel. That's why busy international airports sell millions of fuel every day. Some airports use tanker trucks to transport fuel from storage to aircraft. In others, fuel is pumped through underground pipes directly to the terminals.

Safety system

Passengers of domestic flights go through passport control and security control. Passengers on international flights go through customs, security and passport control.

Airports are looking for prohibited items using combinations software and screening technologies - computed tomography, x-ray machines and explosive trace detection systems. If necessary, passengers are subjected to personal searches or full body scans.
Major airports complement the security system with fire services and ambulance stations.

How is ground transportation at the airport

System land transport ensures the arrival of passengers at the airport and transportation from the air port to the city.

Typically, a ground transportation system includes:

• Roads to and from the airport.
• Car parking.
• Vehicle rental services.
• Flights transporting passengers to local hotels and to car parks.
• Public transport - municipal buses and metro.

Large airports are equipped with an internal transfer system. It includes travelators, mini cars, automatic trains or buses.

The internal transfer system helps passengers get from one terminal to another or to the terminal gate faster.

Budget

Airports are huge enterprises. Denver Airport in the US costs about $5 billion. Its maintenance costs are $160 million a year. At the same time, the state's annual income from the airport is $22.3 billion.
Airports, as a rule, own all facilities on their territory. They rent them out to airlines, retailers, service providers. Fees and taxes on air tickets and services - fuel, parking - occupy several more income items of air ports. Most airports are self-sustaining enterprises.

Staff

About 90 percent of airport employees work for private companies: airlines, contractors, tenants. The remaining 10 percent work for the airport: administrators, maintenance personnel, security service.

It is no secret that quite a lot of a large number of forces and means.
Airports are an important link in air transportation - from the smallest to the largest international hubs.
And in each of them, life is like an anthill. It's just that anthills are also different in size and the number of worker ants in them.

Such working ants at each airport are a huge fleet of vehicles - apron buses, tractors, ladders, deicers, snow plows, tankers, fire trucks, etc. All of them scurry around the clock on runways and in hangars to ensure the speed of aircraft maintenance and ensure safe flight for passengers.
About some worker ants that are in the service at the airport today, and there will be my story

2. Standing in the terminal of almost any airport, waiting to board our flight, we often observe the work of certain machines on the runways or taxiways. Most often, this is the movement of various cars of technical services, as well as cleaning the lane from snow or ice.
Any weather precipitation for the airport is a potentially dangerous factor that must be eliminated as quickly and efficiently as possible.
That is why during a snowfall, as well as after it, snow removal equipment on the runway works almost non-stop.
Whatever the weather, the asphalt surface must be clean and provide a sufficient level of grip during takeoff, landing and taxiing of an airliner.

3. For cleaning large amounts of snow during heavy snowfalls, an auger machine is used. Its device allows, without damaging the concrete pavement, to quickly and efficiently remove large masses of snow in a short period of time. Special support wheels and a lower ski position the auger as close to the ground as possible.

4. Snow is ejected from the side snail to a distance of about 50 meters. In this way, snow is quickly removed from the strip, and then graders (as in photo No. 2) are already sweeping away the snow, and trucks are taking it out.

5. Another extremely important worker ant in winter time is a deicer - a de-icing machine that applies a special alcohol-based de-icing liquid to the aircraft fuselage. Anti-icing treatment is necessary so that the flaps and other moving elements of the fuselage do not freeze during takeoff, landing and flight. The process is carried out in a semi-automatic mode - there are ultrasonic radars near the air injectors, which control the distance to the fuselage and stop the boom with the nozzle at a critical moment. First, the remaining ice is removed, and then the de-icing liquid is applied.

6. Deicer, despite the external "commonness", is actually a computer monster - five different embedded computer systems are responsible for its work.
The treatment of one Boeing 737-500 type airliner typically requires 400 to 700 liters of anti-icing fluid.
The cost of one such car, according to a representative of the technical service of Surgut International Airport, is about 20 million rubles (about 650 thousand dollars)

7. The runway must be kept in perfect condition not only in winter, but also at any other time of the year. For these purposes, there is a machine that combines the functions of a washer, polisher and sweeper.

8. Today, not a single international airport can do without an airfield tractor. This short, but powerful and vicious dwarf is capable of towing aircraft weighing 60 tons or more.

9. White plates at the stern of the towing vehicle are weights.

10. Fire equipment at the airport is always on alert, because in the event of a fire, seconds count

11. Please note that there are people in the cab of the fire truck who are ready for an instant response. All cars are necessarily equipped with powerful water guns.

12. The filling of fuel into the aircraft is carried out by special vehicles - tankers. It is known that during the flight the aircraft consumes a fairly large amount of fuel - from 700-800 liters per hour for small models to several thousand liters per hour for large airliners. In addition, there must be sufficient large stock fuel in case of various unforeseen situations - flight to another airport in case of refusal of the destination airport to take the board for various force majeure reasons (weather conditions, accidents, etc.), additional stay in the air while waiting for the landing command, etc.
Modern tankers have a fuel tank capacity of 10,000 liters or more and provide accurate dosing of the poured fuel.

13. The filling of tanks of tankers takes place at a special fuel warehouse, where fuel quality is monitored, as well as the introduction of special additives into it, depending on various current needs.

14. For the delivery of passengers from the terminal to the aircraft (if it is impossible to deliver the aircraft to the air bridge), special buses are used, called apron buses.
As a rule, these are low-floor buses of increased capacity - more than 100 people.

15. To deliver passengers directly to the aircraft cabin, different kinds self-propelled ladders. One of the world's largest manufacturers of ladders is the French company Sovam. Self-propelled ladders are equipped with Perkins, Deutz or VW engines. The minimum docking height is 2.2 m (Boeing 737), the maximum is 5.8 m (Airbus A340). The ladder can hold up to 102 people.

16. But modern airports are gradually switching to the use of special boarding bridges as much as possible, allowing passengers to immediately get from the terminal on board the aircraft bypassing the street

17. On the face and convenience, and safety

18. Another interesting ant is a car that provides refueling of the aircraft with drinking water, as well as draining it after the flight.
There are two containers in the car - one with fresh water, the second - for stale water. When the plane arrives, the drinking water on board is already considered stale and must be drained. Even if the plane is scheduled to take off in a short time on the return or another flight, the water on it is still replaced with fresh water.

19. Having finished the inspection of the technical park of Surgut airport, we again returned to the runway, where snow removal equipment continued to work, removing slowly falling snow from the surface ...

20. But no matter how powerful the technical fleet modern airports are equipped with, the main functions are still performed by ordinary people - the management of this equipment, logistics, communications, dispatching, etc...

Since July 2017, the specialists of Aerodorstroy LLC began to carry out work on the comprehensive repair of the runway in international airport"Bryansk". The work of the Bryansk airport is under the personal control of the governor of the region, so the employees of our organization had to show high professionalism and ensure high quality work performed.

Video report of the repair of the runway of the airport "Bryansk"

Comprehensive repair of the runway at the airport "Bryansk"

The first thing to be done was to bring expansion joints (compression and expansion) on the strip in accordance with the technical requirements. As a result, over the period of work, the old expansion joints were repaired and new expansion joints were cut for a total of about 30 km. This made it possible to prevent further destruction of the strip and extend its service life. In the course of the work, modern powerful high-performance joint cutters and autonomous self-propelled pouring boilers were involved, which made it possible to achieve strict compliance with the production schedule and operating regulations of the operating airport.

The next stage of the complex repair was the patching work on the runway and taxiway. Since the airport is operational, the work required efficiency and strict adherence to the technological process.

High-strength fiber-reinforced concrete of a special composition was chosen as a repair material with the use of microsilica additive, which made it possible to accelerate the hardening process, as well as to increase the strength characteristics of the composition. A team of workers made more than 200 m2 of patching, despite the fact that the work was carried out in the "technological windows", which made it possible not to violate the air traffic regime of the airport.

.Thus, the repair work carried out by Aerodorstroy helped extend the life of the track by several years and became the basis for a larger-scale reconstruction of the airport's planar infrastructure in the foreseeable future.

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