Times are challenging for many businesses – and few more so than airports. Covid-19, growing pressure to go green, a shortage of specialists, as well as rising costs and tighter public budgets are just some of the recent difficulties facing airports. That’s not all: airports are increasingly required to serve as regional mobility hubs and lynchpins in local economic development.

In this high-pressure environment, airports need a solid bedrock of profitability more than ever. No longer able to depend on external budgets, they must now generate enough profit to finance investments, while simultaneously remaining adaptable enough to cope with whatever the future throws at them. In a nutshell, airports must become future proof.

Building greater resiliency to weather future crises

How can management teams solve this conundrum? Two elements are critical: understanding which topics to address and taking the right approach to uncertainty. The key to success lies in the ability of an airport’s leaders to embolden and enable the organization to act consistently and proactively, without stopping and starting due to external pressures.

Roland Berger can help. Our consulting approach contains four tiers of transformation, covering a sliding scale of organizational change and profit-and-loss impact:

1. Functional excellence
2. Cross-functional collaboration
3. Value creation and breadth
4. New businesses

Underpinning these four levels of transformation are three further crucial areas: the organization and how it functions, the airport's approach to partnerships, and its use of scenario-based management to deal with uncertainty. Successful transformation across these areas can enhance profitability – and ensure resilience in the face of future crises.

How we create a successful future for your airport

Roland Berger provides comprehensive consulting services for airports and airport service providers across the entire value chain. Our primary focus areas include aviation (passenger, cargo, and ground handling services), retail & hospitality, parking, and real estate.

Our global team of more than 50 consultants combines in-depth strategic and operative knowledge with wide-ranging business and technical expertise to create practical, effective solutions for your airport project. These solutions bring growth, agility, robustness, sustainability and tangible improvements to efficiency.

By considering a wide range scenarios, we can react proactively to uncertainty. Our consulting approach will mobilize your organization to generate sustainable learning effects for future growth – for instance, how to optimize business models and processes using digitalization, automation and other innovations.

Together, we can create a successful future for your airport and reach the next level in efficiency and sustainability.