Beyond the Pandemic: How Smarter Airflow Can Boost Passenger Safety and Cut Airport HVAC Costs by 25%

As airports continue investing in modernization and passenger experience, one critical element often slips into the background: the air passengers breathe while waiting at gates or queuing at checkpoints. Though the COVID-19 pandemic is now years behind us, the lessons around air circulation and passenger safety remain relevant. In fact, new technologies are showing that smarter airflow design doesn’t just safeguard health — it can also reduce HVAC costs by nearly 25%.

That was the focus of a recent conversation with Richard Halsall, CEO of Exhale Fans, who has worked on innovative approaches to disrupting “viral plumes” in crowded airport environments. His perspective highlights both the operational risks of stagnant airflows and the opportunity for airport leaders to realize efficiency gains through circulation and destratification systems.

Viral Plumes: An Overlooked Passenger Experience Risk

Inside terminals, viral plumes — dense pockets of airborne particles generated by people talking, coughing, or simply breathing — tend to form between the floor and six feet above ground. This zone is precisely where passengers spend the most time waiting.

“The waiting area is where the highest density will be,” Halsall explained. “Everybody congregates there before boarding, and that’s where viral plumes are most likely to form.”

While HVAC filtration systems help, conventional designs have limitations. Traditional systems push air linearly, blowing cold or warm air into spaces and returning it through localized vents. This approach leaves large volumes of air stagnant, allowing particulate matter to remain concentrated around passengers.

Why Linear Airflow Isn’t Enough

Conventional HVAC has long been engineered as a two-dimensional system, delivering volume and force but not addressing how air actually moves within three-dimensional spaces. “We live in a three-dimensional world,” Halsall said. “And everything that we’ve been engineering is two-dimensional when it comes to HVAC.”

This limitation means filtration cannot always capture contaminants effectively, particularly in crowded gate areas. The result: uneven temperatures, humidity issues, and lingering airborne particles.

By contrast, destratification technology lifts and circulates air in all directions, dispersing viral plumes and enabling filters to capture particles more consistently. “What our approach does is dilute,” Halsall explained. “You circulate the entire volume of air so the filter has a chance to pick all of it up from every corner of the area.”

Energy Savings as a Secondary Payoff

The benefits of circulation systems go beyond air quality. By destratifying the vertical column of air in a terminal, airports can also cut HVAC energy usage significantly.

“By destratifying, you’re also saving energy,” Halsall noted. “You reach the set temperature more quickly, and the HVAC unit doesn’t work as hard. That means reduced blower speeds, lower compressor loads, and ultimately 22–28% in HVAC cost savings.”

With terminals often consuming massive amounts of energy to maintain comfortable environments for passengers, these savings add up quickly. Purdue University research into destratification found the energy draw of the fans to be negligible compared to the overall efficiency gains.

Practical Considerations for Airports

For airport leaders concerned about cost and disruption, Halsall emphasized that circulation devices can be retrofitted with minimal engineering modifications. Installations are relatively simple, and integration with building management systems (BMS) requires only a handful of data points, such as fan speed adjustments to account for high-density or low-density passenger flows.

Maintenance requirements are also straightforward. Most systems require quarterly cleaning, and motors are designed to last 15 years. Fans typically run continuously, drawing less than 60 watts at full power.

Beyond operational efficiency, these systems stabilize both temperature and humidity from floor to ceiling, addressing another passenger experience challenge. “You’ve solved the two biggest inabilities of normal HVAC delivery by destratifying,” Halsall said. “You stabilize temperature in the vertical column, and you stabilize humidity.”

The Leadership Question: Comfort, Cost, or Air Quality?

For Halsall, the decision for airport executives comes down to three interlocking priorities. “The triad is: Do you want to achieve customer comfort? Do you want to save money? And do you want to increase the indoor air quality of your airport?” he asked.

The value proposition is clear: better passenger experiences, measurable cost reductions, and healthier environments — all from the same investment.

“Why bother having an HVAC system at all if you’re not going to make it work to its full potential?” Halsall said. “This isn’t just a nicety. It comes down to money — can I save money through this installation? And the answer is yes. Can I offer a better experience in my airport? Absolutely.”

While discussions of viral plumes may feel like a relic of the pandemic era, the implications for passenger health, energy efficiency, and cost management are very real today. Gate hold areas and queues remain hotspots for airborne transmission, and addressing these spaces with smarter airflow design is as much about operational strategy as it is about safety.

For airports balancing modernization demands with budget constraints, circulation and destratification technology offers a rare combination: a healthier terminal environment, improved customer confidence, and a direct path to lowering OPEX.