Airport Regions Council


Airport Regions Council - formerly known as Airport Regions Conference, is an association of regional and local authorities with an international airport within or near their territories, which was founded in 1994. The organisation represents the interests of its members and brings together a wide range of expertise in the fields of air transport, local and regional policies. A common concern of the organisation is balancing the economic benefits generated by the airports with their environmental impact.
The ARC has extensive experience in developing and implementing European projects, advocacy and representation at EU level, producing thematic studies and publications, organising events and developing communication campaigns.
The ARC cooperates with several European institutions, such as the European Parliament, the European Commission, the European Committee of the Regions, and with the European Economic and Social Committee. The organisation also collaborates with Eurocontrol on topics such as air-connectivity in Europe. The ARC also has the capacity to organise international events related to aviation and regional matters.
Currently, the ARC has more than 30 members, ranging from regions hosting the largest hubs in Europe to small but important regional airports. Any airport region can become an ARC member.
The ARC proposes two types of membership: full members and associate members. The full members are regional or local authorities who have an important international airport within or close to their territories. Other organisations active in airport-related areas may become associated members.
The governance structure of the organisation includes an Executive Committee, an Assembly and a Secretariat, which is based in Brussels, Belgium.

Projects

Current projects
The ARC is part of a number of European Union-funded projects. The organisation has established itself as a credible partner for communication, dissemination and exploitation of project results. The ARC is involved in projects dealing with the following key areas: economic development, territorial branding, economic impact, aviation noise and emissions, training and employment in airport regions, congestion and airport capacity, land use and airport expansion, intermodality, surface access, connectivity, decarbonisation of airport areas.
The ANIMA project is a people-oriented research project which started in October 2017. It aims to identify and disseminate best practices to lower the noise annoyance endured by communities around airports. The project also makes an effort to better understand the non-acoustical factors which influence noise annoyance, but also to improve the quality of life of communities surrounding airports. The project consortium is made of 22 project partners. The ARC is involved in the project as the communication partner, being the leader of the work package dedicated to communication, dissemination and exploitation of project activities.
ANIMA is financially supported by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. The project has a duration of 48-months and has a total budget of over €7.4 million. The project also partakes to Future Sky, a global initiative aiming at addressing major challenges faced by the European Air Transport by 2050.
LAirA is an Interreg Central Europe project aiming to reduce the energy use and the environmental impacts of transport activities in airports and its surroundings. It addresses the challenge of the multimodal, smart and low carbon mobility integration of airports into the mobility systems of Central European urban areas. LAirA integrates seven key thematic areas: electric mobility, air-rail links, walking & cycling, shared mobility, intelligent transport systems, wayfinding and road public transport.
The consortium is formed of 10 project partners and 5 associated partners. The ARC is in charge of the communication work package – the organisation's role is to lead the communication activities of the project, to disseminate the project outcomes and to engage with the potential end-users of the project results.
DREAAM is an Erasmus+ project with a total budget of €111,175. The 24-month project has started in October 2018. The strategic partnership of DREAAM strives to create knowledge and policy recommendations in order to develop the skills of the population residing in airport areas so that they meet the criteria of the employers, for instance airport companies.
The objective of the project is to foster an exchange of good practices on vocational education and training in airport areas. By focusing on regional branding, job attractivity, skills definition and mobility, DREAAM aims to facilitate the recruitment process for regions and airport platforms and to create more training and employment opportunities for the surrounding local communities.
The ARC is the communication partner of DREAAM project, but it also supports the development of the final best practice guide, which is the main outcome of this project.
By the end of the project, DREAAM project partners aim to deliver knowledge of other tools to promote airport areas jobs, a forum for debate and exchanges on employment and long-term benefits for airport companies and local communities.
Past projects
The goal of dAIR was to improve the surface accessibility to airport zones and the CO2 neutrality of airport operator activities. The project paid special attention to the optimal involvement of business R&D communities in creating well connected green airports.
dAIR looked at how can the carbon from surface access and airport operations be reduced. These two together account for about half of the carbon footprint. Through study visits and workshops, as well as stakeholder forums, the 14 member organizations were able to exchange experience and see what reduction solutions had been used and had worked at other airports and how they could be applied to their own. The ARC's role was to carry out the project communication.

ARC Members

In August 2019, these are the members of ARC: