Enabling growth

The latest data from ACI, which records a 2.2% growth in air travel demand in July 2013 compared to a year ago, suggests a continuing upswing growth for all regions, with emerging markets such as Asia-Pacific leading the pack.

According to ACI World’s PaxFlash data, passenger traffic across the Asia-Pacific region soared by 7.2% in July, ensuring that it is 7.7% up for the year.

IATA agrees – its June figures, measured in revenue passenger kilometres (RPKs), revealing that Asia-Pacific carriers grew by 5.5% on international routes alone, accounting for nearly half of the May to June growth.

Growth is good, but it does come with challenges. For airports, it means that they are continuously faced with the uphill task of tackling congestion, maintaining and balancing security, coping with increased competition, and keeping the airport business in profit.

Responding to the above challenges, airports in the region and elsewhere have been trying to beef up their operations in recent years, not only to help them process large volumes of passengers more efficiently, but also to cope with the requirements and expectations of increasingly more informed, more travelled, more sophisticated, and more demanding passengers.

Besides looking to further strengthen their physical and IT infrastructure, airports continue to invest in remote check-in services and facilities, as a means to reduce congestion at check-in counters. However, they will need to do more, particularly as many evolve and transform themselves into airport cities or ‘aeropolises’ with their own economies revolving around the airport.

Tomorrow’s airports will have to incorporate the latest infrastructures and technology to enable fast travel, and offer all the conveniences of everyday life, as people will live, work and play on site.

To take flight towards becoming airports of the future, they need to constantly re-assess their infrastructure, invest in new technology, and improve their business.

 

Airport transformations through IT

To continue to evolve, airports need to keep their businesses in shape by moving beyond aeronautical revenue and generating other revenue streams.

This is achievable by investing in relevant new technologies that can help quicken the transformation into ‘airports of the future’. For instance, technologies finding their way into some of the more advanced and forward-looking airports around the world include: efficient and reliable communication between air-to-ground crews; passengers on air and their loved ones; passenger tracking; seamless mobility through reliable Wi-Fi connectivity; and more advanced analytics solutions.

From a passenger processing perspective, airports will continue to look for technology products and solutions that support seamless travel.

For instance, near-field communications (NFC) and smart cards provide capabilities that will shift the check-in process out of the airport and into the hands of the passenger.

These technologies enable payment of airport and airline services through smartphones, enhancing passenger satisfaction/experience as the travel process become more personal.

Also, with the increasing sophistication and usage of smartphones, mobility solutions (as well as insights and analytics technologies), hard-copy boarding passes will soon be a thing of the past as all relevant information will be pushed into the passenger’s smartphone and saved onto smart cards.

This eliminates the need for queues, delivering efficiencies and enhancing passenger convenience.

With continued sophistication of global positioning systems (GPS) and other location-based solutions such as wayfinding, combined with insights and analytics technologies, gone will be the traditional paging and public address systems at the airport.

In its place will be a passenger tracking system that will send out relevant alerts to the passenger’s smartphone, such as how many more minutes to boarding time, boarding gate location, etc.

Depending on the passenger’s exact location and distance to the boarding gate, he/she will then be able to find out the nearest way to the gate.

Likewise, airlines will be able to tell if a passenger is able to make it to his/her flight in time, and therefore make relevant decisions. This will lessen, if not completely eliminate, flight delays caused by passengers who can’t make it to the boarding gate on time.

 

Fuelling growth beyond aeronautical revenue

Although there is a symbiotic relationship between airline growth and airports, the latter needs to look at generating new sources of income beyond aeronautical revenue.

Airports are continuing to invest in developing ‘aerotropolises’, which generate sources of revenue and economies within the periphery of the airport. These include renting out office space, building shopping malls and retail outlets, convention centres, hotels, food and recreation, theme parks and the like, all of which are aimed at generating non-aeronautical revenue.

Future investments in auto-boarding and auto-bagdrop systems will open additional opportunities for airports to partner with new tenants, airlines, clients and other business entities to help speed up check-in processes and reduce or completely eliminate queues and congestion.

With auto-boarding and auto-bagdrop systems in place, passengers will spend less time in check-in/boarding queues, and more time shopping or doing other things in different areas within the aerotropolis.

Airports will also benefit from auto-bagdrops by enabling passengers to interact with bagdrop mechanisms that calculate baggage weight and allow them to pay for excess baggage through bagdrop systems, using various payment methods such as credit cards or through their mobile phones.

With combined efficiencies made possible through the use of modern and relevant technology, airports should be able to reduce cost significantly by eliminating redundancies and using resources in other areas of need.

For instance, the Singapore government’s expansion plans for Changi Airport, called Project Jewel, underpins the ongoing evolution of airports into aeropolises. In time, revenue from Project Jewel will undoubtedly contribute a substantial amount to the country’s economy.

Already an aviation hub in the region, there will be even more reasons for passengers around the world to visit Singapore and/or make it a transit point to and from their final destinations.

More importantly, Project Jewel represents a radical transformation of the passenger experience at the airport, making it enjoyable, fast and seamless. The airport of the future, then, truly becomes an area where one can live, work and play.

 

Critical success factors

All technologies that drive the ‘airports of the future’ have their own roles to play. However, critical to every IT function within the system is a good balance of security measures to mitigate fraud and threats, from hardware to software, to the network infrastructure, to physical screening by relevant airport authorities.

Also, it is vital not to underestimate the importance of backup and redundancy systems, recovery plans, reliable network connectivity and seamless communications technology across the whole aviation eco-system connected to the airport.

As airport infrastructure continues to improve and results of IT efficiencies become clear, we’ll see retail areas expanding, and check-in areas shrinking. Ultimately, all these work towards enhancing passenger satisfaction.

With potentially many different things to do at airports in the future, passengers and visitors alike will surely no longer be able to claim that airports are boring!

Airports and airlines continue to invest in IT systems to cover passenger facilities and the ‘live, work and play’ areas. For instance, the idea of having bowling alleys, swimming pools, entertainment facilities, food and beverage areas, gardens and other recreation facilities, are all founded on a common goal: to encourage visitors to spend money.

Overall, as passengers become savvier, airports of all sizes and geographic locations will do well to recognise the role of IT and start planning now.

Fundamental to some airports’ strategic approach to improving their IT implementations and processes include outsourcing their IT function so they can focus on their core business.

These include Hong Kong and Incheon airports in Hong Kong and South Korea respectively, to name a couple. In this case, the role of IT partners is critical to an airport’s success.

Likewise, smaller airports also need to start investing in relevant technology to help increase tourism in any country.

ARINC will continue to play a major role in helping airports transform into the ‘airports of the future’ by delivering innovative and cutting-edge technology to fuel the growth of the aviation industry.

Enabling growth