FROM THE INDUSTRY
Similar recoveries are happening in other markets, with global passenger numbers expected, according to one estimate, to exceed their pre-pandemic level for the first time in 2024. As that happens, though, it’s fair to speculate that this won’t be simply a ‘return to normal’ for the travel industry and the vast infrastructure that it relies on, and that the various parties that enable travel experiences will be looking to return to an evolved, even transformed way of operating. Five years is, after all, a long time in consumer trends – and a very long time in what consumers expect of technology.
initial phase and sits on 47km 2 of land. Coming in at a cost of over £8bn, the airport began operations in September 2019. As a consequence, it’s possible to see Beijing Daxing International Airport as being uniquely of its time for the industry, a major greenfield installation, built around up-to-the-minute technology, perfectly positioned to show how travel can work in the post-pandemic era. Aptly, for a major hub in the international air transport network, the airport’s internal connectivity formed a key consideration in its overall architectural design. Considering what a modern airport’s networking solution has to enable, it’s not difficult to see why that’s the case.
For most professionals working in broadband and networking, the pandemic will have represented a period of peak activity. Never have societies been so reliant on the technologies we deliver, and never has the need to upgrade, transform and expand how we accommodate users been so urgent. Of course, every industry’s experience of that global disruption was, in its own way unique, but one which stands out most clearly as the opposite of ours might be the travel sector. Overnight, border closures left planes grounded and airports standing near-empty. As ABTA, the British travel industry association, explains in the most recent edition of its annual Holiday Habits report, that bottoming-out of the industry was not followed by an entirely challenge-free path back to full capacity, as economic headwinds and international uncertainties added further pressure onto the sector. Nonetheless, a recovery is now happening at pace: surveying UK travellers, ABTA found that 52% of people took a holiday abroad in the 12 months to August 2023, and that 64% expected to take a holiday abroad in the following year.
A new network for a new airport
That whole story might be found in microcosm in Beijing Daxing International Airport – and its approach to networking sits at the heart of a significantly modernised approach to air travel. “Microcosm”, in truth, feels like an odd word to use for the airport. Constructed over the course of five years, the facility’s 700,000m 2 main structure (nicknamed ‘the starfish’ for the long arms housing its gates) is the world’s largest single-building airport terminal. The overall complex, meanwhile, includes four runways in its
Its approach to networking sits at the heart of a significantly modernised approach to air travel.
MARCH 2024 Volume 46 No.1
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