F
R

1
0
-
2
0
0
1

HANGAR DOCK FOR A380?

550 passengers and more in a single aircraft? In just a few years' time this will be the typical volume of passengers to be got into and out of a single aircraft at international airports served by the giant A380. To speed up the long drawn-out process of moving this mass of people around, the British inventor and architect, John Babarovic, has come up with a new approach to the subject of "boarding on double-decker aircraft".

Instead of leading the stream of passengers through only a few aircraft entrances accessed by conventional passenger ramps, Babarovic suggests using flexible platforms to access doors along the entire length of the fuselage, on both levels and on both sides, thus permitting faster and more convenient embarkation and disembarkation. Double-decker platforms, reminiscent of railway stations and similar to the maintenance docks that are already widely used in hangars, would spread out the flow of passengers and convey them over the wings of the aircraft for embarkation into up to 12 aircraft doors. Awkward movement between aircraft levels during entry and exit would be virtually eliminated.

In an exclusive interview with FLUG REVUE, Babarovic explained that, even if the initial computer images show the new platform concept combined with huge halls, he could also imagine free-standing, covered platforms without halls. These might be particularly attractive, but were not essential. This makes his idea feasible as an upgrade to conventional terminal facilities.

What is particularly interesting about Babarovic's idea which, under the designation "Airport 2005", envisages individual modularly constructed passenger handling docks, one for each aircraft, is the fact that it constitutes a return to the use of significantly more fuselage doors than are customary today. At the beginning of the 1970s, after the advent of the Boeing 747, experiments were in fact carried out at the John F. Kennedy airport in New York using complicated passenger bridges which could also be swivelled over the wings, but these elaborate contraptions never caught on around the world. Having worked for some years as an interior designer for American Airlines at the end of the 1960s, Babarovic is familiar with these problems.

The present A380 embarkation idea envisages passengers entering the fuselage through the two aft, port doors of the lower main deck. Passengers for the upper deck will then have to climb to their level up a staircase twice the normal width.

By contrast, Babarovic envisages passengers being conveyed either non-stop from the airport building or by lift directly to the platform in front of their particular cabin area. If the platform were widened and seating provided, it could also serve as a waiting zone. He reckons that the shortest possible time it might take to process passengers for a newly arrived A380 would be twenty minutes with luggage and ten minutes without. Emergency evacuation of his double-decker dock should be possible within two minutes.

Babarovic would like to see the platform system simultaneously used as lighting, cleaning and maintenance platform, as well as being fitted with foam nozzles for fire extinguisher equipment so that the aircraft can be refuelled without any danger while docked. To grant service vehicles better access, it should be possible for individual segments of the platform to be raised. This would also be important for loading of the baggage compartments. The go-getting inventor from London has already patented his ideas and is currently offering them around to airports, airlines and engineering companies for marketing.

From FLUG REVUE 10/2001, page 86