Denver International Airport Case Study Cis 517

Denver International Airport Case Study

CIS 517 – IT Project Management

The runway project for the Denver International Airport was the PMI case study I chose to study. The Denver International Airport Project Management Team faced many challenges to include budget, time, increased security due to 9/11 and unique challenges for construction due to the altitude and project parameters. The project started soon after the attacks on 9/11/2001 and many of the security requirements were a moving target. When a project has this kind of frequently changing parameters in even a small area of a project it can lead to many problems.

The runway project was started to allow Denver International Airport the ability to have larger International airplanes land at that airport. Before this runway was constructed Denver International Airport had the ability to land smaller international flights but was restricted from the larger trans-oceanic flights. For an airport that is in the top ten busiest airports in the country this was a limitation that was impacting on profitability and was considered a major inconvenience for many travelers.

With the goal in mind of building a runway that could land the larger trans-oceanic planes the planners started looking to the future. The up and coming jumbo jet that was in the works at the time was the Airbus A-380. The Airbus A-380 was still in the design phase but the Project team from the construction firm DMJM took the requirements for the Airbus A-380 into consideration when designing the runway. The Airbus A-380 needs significantly longer runway distance then the typical 737 that is one of the most common planes in commercial passenger use in the United States airline industry. In addition to the longer runway the Airbus also has a larger wingspan requiring wider than standard runway clearance. For any airport in the United States these alone would be significant challenges however the significant construction...