After the September 11th attack, there has been a decline in the use of air transport where many passengers are scared of terrorist attacks. There has been also terrorists scare at airports in various cities such as Paris, London and New York. The terrorists’ scares have reduced the passengers who use air transport (David & Richard 2010, p.23). Though the number of passengers has decreased, the number of freight has increased. Most of the current airports have one runway that is not adequate to handle the passengers and cargo.
Runway determines the size of aircraft that can use an airport. A small runway means only the small passenger planes use the facility while the cargo aircraft cannot use the facility. Presently, most of the airports, for instance, the Tokyo airport has a single runway. A single runway causes traffic in the airport. Efforts by the government to expand the runway have been unsuccessful because the land adjacent to the airport belongs to small-scale farmers who have refused to sell it to the government. Not only in Tokyo airport but in many cities it has been quite challenging to expand the airport because the cities have expanded, so it is quite difficult to find lands to expand the airports. Though the passengers in the air transport have gone down, the number of cargo is increasing. Cargo transport requires big runway thus the need to expand the airport (David & Richard 2010, p.34).
In conclusion, there is a need to expand the current airports’ runways. Though the numbers of the passengers who use air transport have gone down, there has been an increase in freight transport. Freight transport requires big runways, so there is a need to invest more funds in the expansion of runways.
- David, Pierre, & Stewart, Richard (2010). International Logistics. 3rd Edition. Mason, OH: Thomson ISBN 13: 978-1-111-21955-0
