How did you get into the airport industry?

I got into the airport industry through an ad in the newspaper. At the time, I was working for a tour operator in Greece. Three days before I returned to Austria, I saw this newspaper ad and said: “This is my next job.” I applied and two weeks later I started working at the airport.

Salzburg is a relatively small airport and you spoke on the panel about your specialised winter operations. Can you explain in more detail what this involves?

Of course, Salzburg Airport has landings, take-offs and lots of passengers all year round. As in Geneva, the peak season at Austria’s largest airport is in winter, when many thousands of people from Great Britain, Scandinavia, the Netherlands and many German airports come to Salzburg’s recreational areas. Our airport functions as the “Gateway to the Alps”!

You mentioned earlier in the panel that you are part of a relatively small team but have to collaborate with colleagues from the operations and infrastructure departments. Do you think that collaboration across different departments and backgrounds makes sense?

Yes, it is very useful. I have been working in the airport industry for 31 years now, we are a small international airport in Salzburg and the biggest advantage is that we know each other. We often have to work together. For example, if I need information, I get it quickly and in the format I want. However, it is a balanced relationship: if colleagues need information from me, I can give it to them too. We have simple and short routes for passengers, but also fast methods to get information between departments, so we can work together a lot across departments.

I usually need all the data by the end of February and that is our peak season. People on the team know what it takes to report all the information for our external environmental audits. In addition, to complete our annual review, we need to communicate to find out when such information can be shared – it’s peak season for them too! However, I think it’s in our DNA, we are like a family, we know each other and we help each other.

What innovation do you think will make the difference in the next decade?

In the future, it will have to be about alternative fuels and propulsion systems for vehicles on the ground and aircraft in the air. This applies both to research into fuels and propulsion technologies for aviation and to the creation of an infrastructure on the ground for the fuels of the future. Our goal is not to offset CO2, we have never done that. Instead, we always use the money (the necessary funds) to do new things at the airport that save or reduce CO2 emissions, in line with our goal of carbon neutrality by 2040.

A whole 10 years before the goal?

Yes, that is our stated goal. There are many small things we are working on, but also large projects, such as a PV system that we put into operation in January. This will supply us with one gigawatt of electricity all year round. We have our local energy supplier, which is proven to be CO2-neutral because most of the energy it produces comes from hydroelectric power plants. So our focus is on becoming CO2-neutral in heating and cooling, but also in the airport special vehicles and cars, where we still use some fossil fuels and natural gas. These topics are on our to-do list, and if we are honest, this will also help us with new technology in our new terminal project.

We always take small steps because this gives us a good overview and allows us to introduce new inventions when they are on the market. It is important to take your time and do research.

You said you were ahead of the curve with electric vehicles on the tarmac. Do you think passengers equate sustainability with an improved passenger experience?

Julie (Reeves, from SITA, also a panellist) said that people still print their tickets, which produces a lot of CO2. However, not everyone has a smartphone, so QR codes or digital tickets won’t work for everyone. I think this could be the way forward, which needs to be implemented now. We see it at our airport, new technology needs to be invented; it needs to be made available to passengers on a trial basis. However, the solution needs to involve everyone.

In your summary statement, you mentioned the three Ps: People, Planet and Profits and how these three pillars support all activities and planning. Looking back, do you think the emphasis on these pillars is different today than it was at the beginning of your career in the industry? Or has one of these pillars become more important in recent years?

30 years ago, the world was focusing on other issues than the environment, sustainability or social issues, and the weighting of the issues that moved the world was different. Today, the three Ps are the focus, and neither governments nor corporations can ignore the signs of the times. We revised our strategy about four to five years ago and have now – shortly after the outbreak of the corona pandemic – found a good basis for making the airport fit for the future with ‘People, Planet, Profit’.

We can’t always divide our efforts into three equal parts, there have to be priorities. Among the top topics we address in our strategy, we focus on employees. After the pandemic, we had to learn to work together as a team again. Almost two years ago, there were so many question marks for us: we didn’t know if the winter season as we knew it would start again or if there would be less air traffic, planning all operational processes, including the additional staff needed, was suddenly a gamble. So people from all departments were asked to help out in operations on Saturdays during the winter season. It was great! We were able to work together in operations every weekend!

Photo credit: Katja Jemec/V4+ Airports Association

About the interviewee

Claudia Typelt is Head of the Environment Department at Salzburg Airport – WA Mozart. After graduating from high school in 1989, Claudia worked in banking for four years before working as a summer representative for a tour operator. She then moved to Salzburg Airport, where she has held the position of Head of the Environment Department since 2018.