Midfield Taxiways Spotlight: Inside the Heart of Our Journey With AUS

When you take off or land at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (AUS), the pavement under your airplane might be the last thing on your mind. But just beneath your feet, layers of careful engineering keep your flight safe and support utilities and connectivity across our airfield. As part of our Journey With AUS airport expansion program, the Midfield Taxiways project is paving the way for a bigger and better AUS via new taxiways, Texas-sized utilities, and more. Airfield Project Manager Samantha Pinto sat down with us and helped us scratch the surface of this foundational expansion project.

Conceptual rendering – Midfield Taxiways.

Can you tell us about your career background? What brings you to AUS?

Samantha followed a lifelong passion for aviation into an engineering career specializing in runway and airfield pavement design. “My heart beats for aviation; I love the airfield. I have jet fuel running through my veins,” she jokes. Samantha started her career as a Civil Engineer focused on airfield design and progressed into aviation project management later in her career. Before landing at AUS, she delivered projects at other major international airports, including Toronto Pearson and Hartsfield Jackson in Atlanta. “Austin has a really exciting program in terms of what we’re trying to build, and the speed in which we are trying to accomplish it all,” she says. “It's really exciting to be a part of that.” Samantha is thrilled by the “once in a career opportunity” presented by the Midfield Taxiways project and its massive scale, from the length of the new taxiways to the size and complexity of its utility elements.

Samantha Pinto, Airfield Project Manager.

What is the Midfield Taxiways project? How does it benefit AUS?

The Midfield Taxiways project is building two new parallel taxiways that connect the east and west sides of the airfield, as well as several smaller connector taxiways. Taxiways link aircraft with runways, the terminal, and other airfield facilities – “anywhere an aircraft would want to travel,” says Samantha. AUS’s current taxiways provide an east-to-west connection, but they are in the footprint of the future Concourse B, a new, 20+ gate midfield concourse designed to meet the airport’s long-term passenger demand. Relocating the taxiways allows AUS to construct Concourse B.

The Midfield Taxiways project includes a little over two miles of new taxiways. “The sheer size of the project is incredible,” says Samantha. “The volume of concrete paving is just huge.” 

But the project includes far more than the taxiways alone. According to Samantha, Midfield Taxiways “will be the heart pumping blood into the Journey With AUS program, the heart of what the airport requires to keep going,” as it sets the stage for improvements across the airfield with elements like two new aircraft-rated taxiway bridges, new utilities, sustainability elements, lighting, and more. Samantha shared highlights on some of these features, including:

Taxiway Bridges

The project’s two taxiway bridges add connectivity between vehicles on the airfield and support services. Once constructed, the bridges will allow two sets of planes to simultaneously travel on the taxiways while airfield vehicles cross underneath. As few airports have taxiway bridges or bridge structures on their airfield, Samantha shared that this feature is “really cool and kind of rare.”

Conceptual rendering: taxiway bridges provide connectivity beneath the new taxiways.

Utilities

Massive utility structures large enough for a person to walk through – or even drive a car through – will be placed under the new taxiways. “They say everything's bigger in Texas, and they weren't kidding…at least in terms of the size of some of the utilities that we're putting in,” Samantha jokes. 

Sustainability

The Midfield Taxiways project will construct a reclaimed water pipeline and bulk reclaimed water refill station, a sustainability-driven initiative that enables the use of reclaimed water at the southern end of the airport campus for construction of the taxiways, rather than potable water. Once completed, construction vehicles will fill up with reclaimed water for use in earthwork – work to relocate, place and compact soil, setting the stage for construction.

This new reclaimed waterline and refill station will be used throughout construction of the Journey With AUS program, helping achieve the program’s sustainability goals. The Midfield team is also seeking certification through a program called Envision, a framework for evaluating sustainability, resiliency, and equity in civil infrastructure. Working towards Envision certification helps identify opportunities for green ideas and community engagement.

Lighting

Did you know that all the lights and signs on our airfield provide critical information? “The colored lights and signs all mean something, and they help pilots navigate based on the instructions that they're given from air traffic control,” Samantha shares. “Once you know how to read them, it's really exciting, because then you know exactly where you are on the airfield.”

Fortunately, the Midfield Taxiways project includes a range of lighting elements, such as replacing AUS’s Surface Movement Guidance and Control System (SMGCS), a lighted path to help pilots travel from the runway to the airport in low visibility conditions.

The Midfield Taxiways also include new in-pavement taxiway lights – and like other elements of this project, these lights are supersized to be able to support large aircraft. 

Left: waterline  work on existing taxiway. Right: lighting replacement on existing taxiway.

Which major milestones has the project already completed? And which ones are still ahead?

Midfield Taxiways recently completed its design phase and is moving forward with City of Austin and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) permitting as the team prepares to enter construction this fall. 

From there, Midfield Taxiways will enter a multiphase construction process.  The initial phases include enabling work that lays the groundwork for the rest of construction, like rerouting roads and temporary utilities, site prep, and more. Leading up to the south terminal facility’s anticipated closure in 2026, the project team will phase construction and build a new parking lot and modify roadways serving the south side of the airport. 

Bridge and taxiway construction will take place in subsequent phases. Work will begin in the center and east side of the airfield. “That's where you'll see us in 2025,” Samantha says. The project will start building the foundation of the taxiway bridges and as construction progresses, the team will connect the new taxiways to our existing Taxiway Bravo and build the aircraft-rated taxiway bridges. These improvements will also support construction for Concourse B and add connections to Taxiway Charlie, linking the east side of the airport to the west side.

Will construction of the new taxiways affect flights traveling in and out of AUS?

Midfield Taxiways construction will not change flight schedules or the passenger experience, though you may observe construction on the airfield during your arrival or departure if you’re closely looking for it.  According to Samantha, this is part of “the magic of airfield design and construction… to build in a manner that airplanes don’t know there’s construction happening.” Samantha also shared the secret to keeping that magic flowing: close coordination with all parties, from our airport operations team, to Austin air traffic controllers, to various divisions within the FAA. This coordination helps the team design solutions to keep the work moving safely and efficiently. “It’s the quiet things that you often don't think about,” says Samantha. “But if you look out the window when you're taking off or landing, there's a lot of magic that goes into making that infrastructure possible, safe, and consistent.”

How does the team make design choices today that will serve our passengers for years to come? 

Samantha emphasizes that airfield construction involves “many unique considerations that vary from airport to airport in order to keep operations running smoothly.” It takes a lot of engineering, planning, and coordination to future-proof two miles worth of new taxiways and the utilities and structures below them.

During the project’s planning and design phases, the team drew from federal, state, and local regulatory guidelines and design standards. “We want to make sure that we're meeting or exceeding regulatory compliances,” Samantha says, “and looking ahead at where we anticipate the project is going to go.” Through detailed engineering calculations, the Midfield team then shaped how the project would be built, determining factors like the size and thickness of the taxiway pavement required to support all sizes of aircraft throughout its lifespan. Samantha shares that the “engineering team behind this design is really massive and diverse,” and praises their partnership with small businesses and minority-owned subcontractor firms to find creative solutions. “This project probably has one of the biggest multi-firm design teams that I've ever worked with,” she says, “and they've done a phenomenal job.”

The project’s massive utility structures were sized based on planning studies, examining needs to support buildings and facilities planned within the Journey With AUS program and future development at AUS. These utility structures will support the existing Barbara Jordan Terminal and future Concourse B, and they will also connect to broader utility improvements across AUS through our Journey With AUS Utility Infrastructure Campus-Wide project. “We're future-planning for how we anticipate that the airport's going to grow. And we’re putting a lot of that in the ground today, so that we don't have to come back and disrupt things when those buildings go online,” Samantha says.

As we explored in our West Gate Expansion spotlight, the Construction Manager at Risk project delivery method allows for close partnership between the design team and the construction contractor. Samantha says that the teams came together in several workshops throughout the design phase. “We gathered for multiple strategy workshops and worked through how we are going to build this project.” This collaboration helped the team better optimize cost and schedule, incorporating the contractor’s feedback and experience into the design.

How are airfield projects like Midfield Taxiways different from other civil engineering projects?

To design the Midfield Taxiways, the team considered similar factors to those required in other forms of civil engineering, like accounting for impacts on pavement over time and utility locations.

But Samantha describes airfield engineering as civil engineering on a larger and more complex scale. Elements within the airfield like pavement, drainage, utilities and lighting are scaled up to support heavy aircraft traffic in all operating conditions. “Airfield engineering means building massive and resilient infrastructure in a challenging operating environment,” she says.  Among other considerations, she shares that “from a design perspective, you’ve got dynamic and heavy aircraft loads, jet blast, fuels, and de-icing fluids that are all very damaging to pavement.” While cars and trucks typically have standard axle widths and traffic lane spacing, Samantha says that “the landing gear configuration of airplanes are all different,” which affects the design of the taxiway. Even site management – the process of organizing day-to-day construction  activities – can be more challenging for airfield construction, following stricter requirements to protect people and the environment. Phasing construction, calculating construction work limits, and securing and monitoring construction materials all require careful consideration as work moves forward.

Designing at this scale also presents unique engineering opportunities. “It's really cool to see what goes into building something that could support a Boeing 777, which is one of the largest commercial passenger aircraft,” Samantha says. And ensuring that pavement can safely support everything traveling on the airfield – aircraft, trucks and cars, tugs (vehicles that move aircraft) and people working – requires creative thinking. “It’s exciting, because you get to bring innovative solutions to the table, and that's where you end up with things like parallel taxiway bridges,” Samantha says.

British Airways Boeing 777 service at AUS, October 2015.

Airfield engineering requires a higher level of consistency. Pilots from all over the world “have to experience and understand the airfield the same way,” says Samantha, using signage, lighting, and other elements to navigate safely. “Compared to driving, it’s universal. You can drive between states or countries and roads look different. But for aviation, it has to be globally standard. It’s a cool way of connecting best practices all around the world.”

At the end of the day, solving complex challenges like these makes delivering the Midfield Taxiways even more exciting, Samantha says. “This project is going to supply something that will be around for a long time and will help AUS continue moving planes with ease… and that’s ultimately why we have an airport!”

Existing AUS taxiway at sunset.

Thanks to Samantha for connecting with us about this pivotal project! Learn more about our Journey With AUS here.