While the expansion of Arlanda is being put on hold, there are completely new airport plans elsewhere in the country. The project is based on a collaboration between several major Swedish companies.
If successful, fully automated airports could become Sweden's next big technology export.
March 10, 2020. The chairman of the municipal board, Anders Teljebäck (S), announces that Västerås Airport will be closed due to lack of profitability, a fate that befell the airport in Oskarshamn a few years earlier.
And Ängelholm Airport is now being saved at the last moment from closure, after seven municipalities in North Skåne decided to buy the company that runs the airport.
The long-term trend has been clear: It is not profitable to operate smaller airports. Then the pandemic came and made the situation acute. But all hope is not lost. Swedish major companies are currently drawing up a rescue plan.
Per Ahl is CEO of Saab Digital Air Traffic Solutions (SDATS), a company jointly owned by Saab and the Swedish Civil Aviation Administration. In 2015, the company was the first in the world to remotely control air traffic when Örnsköldsvik Airport was controlled from Sundsvall.
”Sweden has driven development since day one,” says Per Ahl.
Even then, many smaller airports were struggling with red numbers. But that situation is nothing compared to what has happened in recent months. Around the world, many of them are more or less deserted.
Until now, large development resources have been invested in increasing capacity at the world's airports, but now the industry expects not to need to increase its capacity for eight to ten years. This frees up resources within the industry for digitalization and technical development.
The solution that SDATS is now working on together with the stock market giants ABB and Assa Abloy, the smaller companies HID Group and Combitech, and the Swedish Civil Aviation Administration can be summarized as the fully automated airport. The working name is Västerås Digital Airport.
Automatic lawn mowing and snow removal. Transport robots and drones that deliver bags to the aircraft and baggage carousel. Information flows directly into the fire department or security control center. Advanced biotechnology for check-in and security control. Cleaning robots. And of course the already mentioned unmanned air traffic control towers.
With what Per Ahl calls digital infrastructure, all of this can become a reality at the automated airport. According to him, not much technological development is required to make the dream a reality.
”"A lot of the technology already exists in other areas, what we are doing is stitching it together in a new way. There is also a lot that we have done on the military side that we are building over to the civilian side," says Per Ahl.
In addition to the obvious advantage – cheaper operation with reduced personnel costs – an advantage of an automated airport is that it can be scaled up and down in a completely different way than today's variants.
”For example, when it's tourist season or in a Covid situation,” says Per Ahl.
The pandemic has in many ways swept through the aviation industry like a wildfire. But in nature, forest fires are a necessity for biodiversity. The question is whether the metaphor holds true for the aviation industry.
”"It has been a traditional, conservative industry, which is now being forced to make major changes and realizes that the old way must change. Digitalization is not the least of these benefits. And with it, new opportunities for sustainable aviation are opening up," says Per Ahl.
The project in Västerås is still in its infancy, but the ambition is to establish a fully automated airport in the city by 2025. And the plans don't stop in Västmanland - the hope is that this will become Sweden's new technology export.
”"There is no doubt in the industry that this will happen. The question is whether Sweden will have the lead or not," says Bengt Simonsson, research and marketing manager at Teknikmarknad, an environmental technology company with origins at KTH that is coordinating the project.
He estimates that around the world there are 40,000 smaller airports that are threatened with closure, or that have already been closed as commercial airports. In Sweden, the airports of Oskarshamn and Gävle have already met that fate due to lack of profitability.
”"Sweden is a small country but we have the capacity to fix this. It will take some political decisions but could be a billion-dollar deal," says Bengt Simonsson.
Source: TT
