Airport Experience News Fall 2022

SUS TA INABIL I T Y SNAP SHOT

There are also some less common things that don’t happen at every airport, including partnering with beekeepers to develop apiaries on the airport property. We ran into a problem a few years ago where we were seeing a lot of swarms of bees around our airport. We have 8,800 acres of land just at Pittsburgh International Airport alone, and we were seeing these swarms throughout our terminals on the outside, getting on the jetways and passenger boarding bridges. So we worked with a local beekeeper to start developing apiaries and the impact that saving the honeybee population has had on the environment is huge. We’ve also developed our own in-house innovation lab in partnership with Carnegie MellonUniversity. We call it our xBridge and what we do there is start to test technology to improve efficiencies in our airport, and primarily those related to sustainability. An example that I have right now is a natural

air purifier that uses algae to reduce carbon dioxide and increase oxygen in the air. So that’s a concept we’re studying and figuring out how to implement in our terminals, including our new airport terminal, which we’re about a year and a half into constructing and two years from completion. KRAL: In what ways are you prioritizing sustainability with this new facility? HOBACK: It’s been a key focus from the start. Our new terminals are certainly going to be LEED Silver certified, if not LEED Gold—we’re very close to Gold and we’re going to do everything we can to push it across the finish line. We’re building this new terminal right on an old airport ramp area that has two-foot-deep concrete that had to be torn up, so we’re taking all 94,000 tons of that concrete and crushing it up and reusing it for sub base for all of our new roadway systems and everything. We’re also incorporating rainwater harvesting and water conservation efforts, so that that rainwater could be used to water the new outdoor terraces we’re building and the landscapes associated with that. And then of course we’re working with our partners and tenants on developing

energy saving programs—we actually have a sustainability committee that’s not just made up of airport team members but also all of our tenant teams, and we continuously drive this whole idea of making less of an impact on the environment over time. KRAL: What do you believe are the most important sustainability initiatives that all airports should be focusing their attention on in the immediate and long-term future? HOBACK: I truly believe that reducing emissions is the key to the aviation industry. It’s finding partnerships and working with our airline partners and our airport teams to electrify ground service equipment and airport fleets, moving away from fossil fuels for airplanes and helping in that next great advancement. Doing things like planning out where vertiports are going to be, working on partnerships with airlines on how we’re going to better serve the aviation industry through electrification and also with alternate fuels. It’s exciting work developing electric powered planes and those biofuels to power aircrafts, and we’re doing everything we can from an airport perspective to help lead the way in that.

Below: At Pittsburgh International Airport’s in-house innovation lab xBridge, the airport develops and tests new technology, often with a focus on sustainability.

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