Airport Experience® News - ACDBE Issue 2025

ONE ON ONE

Top Left : A new concourse at Spokane International Airport (GEG) was designed with multiple options for seating and working to meet diverse needs of the traveling public. Bottom: At Williston Basin International Airport (XWA), Alliiance assisted the airport in designing concessions spaces as part of an overall terminal design.

clients that have net zero operational carbon goals. The overall goal is that we need to design these buildings that meet the goals and give back more than they take. That includes working closely with the client to create strategies that support restorative measures, whether it be from conserving energy, creating renewable energy or using systems that are electric only in order to reduce carbon. On the social equity side, inclusive design and collaboration is really the best way to bring together diverse communities and diverse ideas, and to ensure that we’re enhancing accessibility for all. By bringing the sustainability and equal access together, that’s how we really build resilience. WARD: Can you expand on that using an aviation lens? PETERSON: We’ve always espoused sustainable approaches, irrespective of whether an airport is specifically looking for LEED certification or has an enunciated policy. Most of the large airports – because of community prerogatives – have published their goals, so it’s easier. In pretty much all of our projects … we talk more overtly about it. On the social aspect of this, over the last 10 - 15 years, there has been more purposefulness. It goes back to collaboration. What we’ve been doing over the last 8-10 years internally – in terms of our own training about how to listen better, to engage, to elevate voices internally – helps us when we’re working with the client to speak legitimately about it and encourage those things. In an era where DEI is getting targeted … I think it’s important for us to continue to advocate for a diverse population. [That population is] diverse in abilities, diverse in needs, diverse in cultural backgrounds, and don’t you want to have a great experience for all your passengers? We need to have this conversation irrespective of what is being said on some political stage.

different types of accommodation, work hubs, lounge seating, just more flowing, open, agreeable spaces for people because they have different needs. If we’re looking at the commercial program at the same time, we can start to gain not just the aesthetic and the passenger experience benefits of considering them together, but we gain operational and planning benefits. If you look at mid-size airports in particular right now, [many] are facing a little bit of a crisis with the up gauging of

aircraft. All of the sudden the gate hold is being overrun. The peaks are bigger than they used to be. When you start looking at things more holistically, you gain more flexibility in meeting capacity needs without necessarily building more space. WARD: Mamie, can you talk about Alliiance’s commitment to sustainability and social equity? HARVEY: I think our clients are every day more and more sophisticated relative to their request in sustainability. We have

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AX NEWS JUNE 2025