Enhancing Airplane Transportation

There are those who despise flights, others who love them. Some sleep through a 12-hour flight with no headache, while others watch four back-to-back movies to make those long hours pass. What’s worse, are the connecting flights and having to deboard a plane, wait in the terminal, and then reboard. But, what if there was a faster, more efficient way of transportation? This is where Hyperloop comes in. 

Connecting Expanding Cities with Hyperloop

Hyperloop acts as a catalyst to create new value for the airport. Using a hyperloop system to connect airports and city centers creates time savings for passengers, businesses, and airport workers, while expediting the movement of other goods. A report by the UK’s Airport Operators Association showed that a 5% improvement in journey times to and from airports results in 2.7% increase in passenger numbers, creating an additional £1.9 billion annual economic impact and 32,000 jobs for the UK economy. Evidently, transportation plays a significant role in moving people and goods, and hyperloop can help create immense economic value.

The Importance of Aviation - and why it’s not going anywhere

Undoubtedly, aviation significantly impacts economic growth. With commercial jets reaching speeds of up to 955kph, it currently is the fastest method of transport and helps us deliver goods or people quickly. Aviation has created economic opportunities and enables international trade, foreign investment, vast productivity improvements, and tourism. In countries like India, air travel is so valuable to the local economy that regional connector flights are being subsidized by the government to stimulate economic growth. There were 43,983 airports in the world in 2010 (according to the CIA) which employed over 29 million people globally, and new airports are continuously being built. 

Why do Airports Need Help?

Airlines are facing incredibly tight margins and over the past 45 years commercial planes have not innovated the way cars have for instance. However, many of the world’s largest cities still have two or more major airports; Paris has four, L.A. has five, London has six. The reason for multiple airports is it allows equitable distribution of the positive and negative effects. Faster shipment of goods are enabled, while noise and air pollution are distributed. However, as cities begin to grow and suburbs expand further, airports are becoming harder to access and the transportation of goods are becoming slower. Hyperloop solves this by providing a dedicated high-speed ground connection between airport-airport, or airport-urban center. This results in a more efficient use of energy and time, as airlines can dedicate their expensive fleet of planes to longer, more profitable flights.

Are Hyperloop Enhancements Feasible?

The general rule of thumb is that high-speed rail becomes competitive with air travel for journeys of four hours or less. For these short to medium distances, time is saved by avoiding lengthy airport screenings and check-ins. Additionally, train stations provide service to small as well as large towns and cities, which increases an airport’s catchment area. For example, Taipei’s Taoyuan International has a high-speed rail station near the airport, which has allowed more than 90% of the island’s population to get to the airport in under an hour. With common high-speed train lines reaching speeds of around 300 km/h, evidently airplanes will continue to serve as the fastest way of transportation. However, with the noise and air pollution being of concern in planes, there are always ways of improvement. Humans have always been driven towards innovation and reaching operational efficiency, and using hyperloop technology to connect expanding city centers to airports would be beneficial for the future of transportation.