4 min read December 2023 — Invest: caught up with John Ackerman, EVP of Global Strategy and Development at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, about the major renovations and expansions in infrastructure and technology to continue providing world-class service to travelers. “It’s a very exciting time for the airport. At the end of the day, it’s about our community,” he said.
What is your assessment of the DFW transit ecosystem as it relates to the airport?
We closed our fiscal year with nearly 80 million customers and worked hard to build a world-class airport for our airline partners and travelers. One aspect people overlook is how they get to the airport. We have Trinity Metro that goes from Fort Worth, along with the Dallas Area Rapid Transit from Dallas. We also have the TRE train and a bus link for DFW, along with routes from the northern suburbs as well, including additional buses. We rely on these modes of access and work hard to work with local governments to assess roadways and ensure there is an integrated transportation plan that serves the airport well. Some airports over the years haven’t focused on access and it has greatly reduced demand for their service, and it really drains the local economy and creates more obstacles for travelers, which we are always seeking to mitigate.
What are the major highlights for the airport over the past year?
Terminal F will become our sixth terminal, with fifteen contact gates and seven ground-loaded gates designed for low-cost carriers. For context, our sister airport at Love Field has twenty gates, so we’re excited to grow and maximize our positive impact on our region. This is due in part to the airport concept that was developed over 50 years ago having the vision to feature land which we could expand on and fuel this economy for decades to come.
We’re also rebuilding Terminal C, one of our originals, and at about 40% of American Airlines presence at DFW, this represents one of their most important facilities in the country. Previously we’ve built gates in a modular fashion, constructing them on the non-secure side of the airport which is much easier to work in. We transport these modules across the airfield and slide them into place to construct the gate concept that we need. We’ve learned a lot doing that and saved 30% on time and cost, which is tremendous for the airport. We will use that technique to construct Terminal F as well. It will allow us to reduce disruption to customers and the cost of construction.
In addition, we have international parkways running north and south that bisects the airport. There are all left-hand exits along the way which is not a common feature in American roadways, so we’ve been in a process of replacing parts of it that are nearly 50 years old. We’re turning them into right-hand turns which will be safer and allow a bit of flexibility because we can still have the left-hand turns as we do construction. This will reduce obstacles and keep the traffic flow going, which is crucial because it is our main access spine.
With the advent of electrification, we’re making investments in our core infrastructure to ensure we have more capacity to meet this demand as the electric economy grows over the next decade. We’re working hard to improve our existing infrastructure along with the newer elements we’ve added so we can best serve our partners and customers. It’s a very exciting time for the airport. At the end of the day, it’s about our community and what we are doing will bring more jobs to Texas and serve more families. By building more capacity, we’ll be creating far more opportunities.
How is the airport implementing technological innovation to improve the customer experience?
If you come to any of our security checkpoints, there is a sign overhead that will predict the wait time, which utilizes AI and camera technology to run its calculations. It also tells customers the walking times to the next closest checkpoint and the corresponding wait times, so people can save a lot of time by having this information at hand. It’s a great way for customers to personalize their travel, reduce queues and move things along nicely. It’s a small thing but illustrates our commitment to technology and making travel easier.
We’ve also partnered with the National Renewable Energy Lab on a digital twin of our airport facilities. This is a digital model with real-time data of terminals and roadways, which allows us to simulate any time scenarios that might arise. For example, we can forecast temperatures and how we can manage our heating and cooling systems to maintain a comfortable temperature and reduce energy costs. We can also model checkpoints and see what would happen if we added or removed queues. It’s a great way for us to scale our services in a fast-paced manner. We’ve also partnered with a firm in Australia to commercialize the technology because the benefits could go well beyond the airport, and we’re seeing a lot of demand from the private sector, which is a great revenue generator.
We always want to do more with technology. In recent years, we’ve started selling parking online so customers can pre-plan their parking and purchase in advance, along with discounts. This is possible because of our data science team doing revenue management and creating a complex model to enable innovation. We are able to dynamically vary pricing based on availability and how far in advance the reservation is made. With that value, customer satisfaction has increased significantly.
How is the airport embracing sustainability now and into the future?
Sustainability has been a key focus for the airport and how we can make it better for employees and customers, and what benefit we can provide the region. With our $9 billion investment over the next few years, this will be a component. It’s not just what you do, but how you do it, and we want to do sustainability right. We are the largest carbon-neutral airport on the planet and that remains core. We will be carbon net zero by 2030 while the rest of the industry shoots for 2050. We’ll be 20 years ahead and we plan to continue making it a substantial part of our strategy. We have science-based targets to get us there and our biggest project is already underway. It’s not just smoke and mirrors, it’s a fact of our operations. Airports are a major industrial site and we recognize some of these aspects aren’t great for the environment, so we are continuing to provide tremendous economic benefit in a far more sustainable manner that brings great benefit to the region and industry.
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