Awareness of the potential impacts of climate events on airport infrastructure keeps growing, with evidence of more frequent and extreme episodes. Operators are tackling the emergency with risk assessments and contingency plans, but the key to ensuring safe business continuity, protecting passengers, personnel and critical assets, and contributing to long-term resilience is to define holistic adaptation plans and implement targeted measures that combine operational readiness with future-ready infrastructure design. This panel explores the challenges and achievements of two exemplary airports in a particularly exposed area in Northern Italy, their drivers, their goals and their approach.

• Climate is already changing, and events are projected to worsen: airport facilities resilience assessment and design need to follow
• What are the key climate change effects and impacts that airports need to understand and prepare for
• A methodology to derive adaptation plans from ISO/IPCC-aligned risk assessments, enabling the definition of priority targets and associated measures
• The need to take into account long-term climate profiles when refurbishing existing assets or adopting design parameters for new infrastructure
• The importance of internal and external stakeholder engagement, with the organization’s involvement and commitment at all levels