Denver Airport Failure

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The failure of the Denver International Airport Baggage Handling System was examined in close detail. Despite the airport being highly anticipated, the way the building of the airport was carried out brought on a cascade of problems starting even during the design phase. The City of Denver was trying to build out an airport of considerable size and scale to accommodate their growing population of citizens and businesses since their currently running airports had antiquated systems, and had too poor of a design to handle the traffic it got. The disorganization, poor communication, and other things demonstrated that City of Denver was ill prepared for trying to take on a complex project (while building their airport) that hasn’t been done before …show more content…

557). Chief Airport Engineer, Slinger, was the chief negotiator and promoter on BAE’s behalf for the baggage system but he had died in 1992 just as the head of the DIA had left the project (p. 558). These events made it extremely difficult for BAE to continue to do it’s work uninterrupted or to gain access to the areas and equipment needed. In fact, there was not even reasonable access provided to the BAE workers. There were many times when the other construction workers blocked entrances to the sites where the BAE workers had to work, other times construction workers would displace the BAE workers by billing and creating clouds of rubble dust inhibiting the installation of the baggage system, and some other times where site conditions became too dangerous to work in for installation of the system. This caused Di Fonso to plead with the city to make it so they could go on with their work unrestricted and uninterrupted otherwise they won’t be able to do their work as agreed on. Access was impaired even before Slinger’s death when BAE workers had to get the permission of area managers whenever the implementation of the luggage system crossed into their area (p. …show more content…

While that would require legal actions that could cost millions, it would at least preserve their reputation and dignity. They could have a chance at winning the case provided they have gathered enough examples of circumstances and situations that impaired their ability at executing their end of the contract (building the functional system). A strong playing card DiFonso could’ve used against the mayor was the city’s violation of the contract. BAE had signed on with the promise that they were to be allowed unrestricted access and/or be uninterrupted but yet they weren’t (p. 557, p. 559). While the legal action against the City of Denver and Mayor Webb would cripple those parties, BAE would’ve been able to cover themselves and would’ve walked away from a disaster that they weren’t mainly responsible

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