Scenario-based preference modeling to examine the robustness of airport mega projects initiatives

Airports are a high complex type of projects that are exposed to many disruptiveness. Proper management between airport expansion projects and airport operations is needed to ensure safety and efficiency of the project and the aviation. Scenario-based preference modeling is one of the robustness analysis techniques that describes the influence of disruptive scenarios on the project initiatives across different criteria. A scenario-based preference model was applied in this work to investigate the influence of different scenarios on Kuwait International Airport expansion. Scenario-based preference is a multi-criteria assessment, which allows the involvement of multiple stakeholders. The key target of the model was to illustrate the most and least robust initiatives, and the highest and least ranked initiatives over the scenarios. The analysis also ranked the scenarios based on their level of disruptiveness. The outcomes of this method can be used to mitigate the system and improve the project robustness by understanding each kind of risk impact. The results showed that the most and least disruptive scenarios were S₃, economic crisis, and S₅, compelling circumstance, and the most robust initiative was x1, completion of the main terminal building (T2). It is important to discuss the contribution and insights extracted from these analyses. For example, showing the most and least disruptive scenarios is not enough. It is important to mention what insights the readers can gain by knowing the importance of these scenarios. It is very important to highlight the significance of the results. The results showed that the most disruptive scenario was economic crisis. This indicates the fact that current Covid 19 pandemic had significantly affected the local economy, reduced country income that is based mainly on oil and consumed considerable budget on medical related activities. This had resulted in a lower expenditure on mega infrastructure projects as the airport, which caused considerable delay and interruption to major activities. Furthermore, the results showed that the most robust initiative was completion of the main terminal building (T2). This is mainly true due to the fact that the government is very keen to complete this major terminal in the airport as it will release the pressure on the old portion of the airport and increase the airport capacity. Based on these facts, it is clear that priorities in airport infrastructure activities and construction initiatives were affected considerably by the global and local circumstances and come first the global pandemic.