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International Airport Baggage Handling System

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Introduction:
The paper discusses a classical example of why projects fail. The Denver International Airport Baggage Handling System is one of the most telling failures of why projects fail when there is ineffectual decision making
The project:
The Denver airport baggage handling system was considered to be one of the world’s largest automated airport baggage handling system. Confronted with the need for greater airport capacity, the city of Denver selected to construct a new state of the art airport that would cement Denver’s position as an air transportation hub. Covering a land area of 140 Km, the airport was to be the largest in the United States and have the capacity to handle more than 50m passengers annually. The airport 's baggage handling system was a critical component in the plan. Thru automating baggage handling, aircraft turnaround time was to be reduced to as little as 30 minutes. Quicker turnaround meant more efficient operations and was a cornerstone of the airports competitive advantage.

The project failed because it was too ambitious. The project’s complexity resulted in so much of public humiliation that the opening was delayed by almost 16 months. During this intermittent wait the expenditures to maintain the empty airport and interest charges on construction loans cost the city of Denver $1.1M per day throughout the delay. The most important reason for the failure of the project and the long delay was due to ineffective leadership.
Leadership:

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