This radical new airport concept is based on the construction of a circular runway with a diameter of approximately 3.5 km around an airport terminal.
Innovations in the airport sector have been a constant feature throughout recent history. Their objective is always focused on improving the performance of airports and the companies that operate in them, within a framework of operational safety. In practice, we are constantly witnessing the implementation of new solutions that improve communications, signage, processes and the management of airports themselves.
However, if we focus on the design of the airfield, we can see that the concept is practically the same as that established when the first aerodromes were built in the early 20th century. It is clear that the geometric layout of airfields has hardly evolved, viewed from a large-scale perspective, of course.
That is why it is striking when innovative initiatives emerge which, without assessing their technical feasibility, open up the debate on possible new solutions to old problems.
One of these proposals, called ‘The endless runway’, was developed by a group of companies and organisations from several countries and aimed to assess the viability of a circular airport design. This was, of course, something completely new. According to their website, there are a number of advantages to this approach. Undoubtedly, many professionals in the sector will have some (or many) technical objections. But this innovative proposal has the great virtue, among others, of opening the door to debate on something that, in principle, seemed immovable.
You can access complete information about this project at https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/308292/ reporting or at https://www.nlr.org/newsroom/nieuws/the-endless-runway/
Some of Europe's leading aerospace research organisations are involved in this initiative: NLR (Netherlands), DLR (Germany), ONERA (France), INTA (Spain) and ILOT (Poland).
