Page 26 - AAA JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2015 Online Magazine

FEATURE AIRPORTS

The rapidly developing
cutting-edge technology
is what airport executives
are turning to, to achieve
these demands and their key
business objectives

delivering a fast and smooth journey for most of IT investments. Over 90 per cent of passengers to tag and drop their own
travelers,” says SITA. airports will be providing check-in kiosks luggage in a process that takes less
The three key business objectives to by 2017, with some airports looking to than 30 seconds. Airports Authority of
make successful airports are – improving install them for a range of services as bag India (AAI) has installed Common use
the passenger experience, optimising tag printing, information about flights, Self-Service units in 25 airports across
operational procedures, and improving the departure gates and airport maps. the country including Chennai, Kolkata,
commercial and financial performances. Airports are also focusing their IT Pune, Chandigarh, Tirupati and Madurai
Delivering a smooth and efficient investments around delivering timely with its highly-advanced common-use
passenger movement is not as easy as it information to the passengers’ mobile passenger processing system to improve
sounds, especially in the wake of ever- devices. Mobile flight status updates could the experience of tens of millions of
growing and increasingly demanding increase to 90 per cent by 2017, it says. passengers.
passengers, which IATA forecasts to Moving forward, over 70 per cent of And Copenhagen Airport in Denmark
rise by a quarter to 1.5 billion in 2017, the top 50 airports are planning to invest partnered with SITA and Cisco to launch
the increased complexities within in cloud and geo-location technologies the world’s first augmented reality app,
the airport ecosystem and increased by 2017 and that 89 per cent airports using Wi-Fi positioning data. It helps
passenger expectations. The rapidly hope to have implemented business the airport track passenger flow, which
developing cutting-edge technology is intelligence systems. allows it to determine the right level of
what airport executives are turning to, SITA looked at five airports around staff needed for travelers. It also helps the
to achieve these demands and their key the world who are using technology airport monitor passenger movements
business objectives. to improve the passenger experience. from incoming flights so staff can be
Among the key concerns which the Miami International Airport is the first in positioned in the clearance and customs
passengers have shared in their surveys the world to have a complete and open areas.
with SITA are: baggage collection, deployment of beacons that broadcast under the agreement with AAI, SITA is
transferring to connecting flights and the identifiers in zones. The beacons can supplying 700 work stations together with
queues at check-in, security and boarding. be used by airlines, retailers and other multiple common use self-service (CuSS)
The introduction of the self-check- partners’ apps to trigger useful content to kiosks across the 25 airports.
in kiosks has been a quick win and a passengers and staff. SITA’s CuSS kiosks offer multiple
contributor to enhancing the passenger Orlando International Airport was the services to the passenger and allow these
experience. According to SITA, the “self- first to offer international travelers from airports to increase capacity during a
service kiosks can lead to a 25 per cent visa-waiver countries the option to land, surge in traffic. With the CuSS kiosks, SITA
increase in the speed of passenger touch and go using SITA’s automated provides an end-to-end managed solution
processing and generate average savings passport kiosks to self-process for complementing other airport check-in
per kiosk check-in of uS$2.50.” faster u.S. border clearance. The kiosks services available at the 25 airports.
Self-drop baggage units can process significantly reduce the time it takes to get
60 passengers versus 24 in an hour, thus through Customs.
making the system more efficient. Self- Australia’s Melbourne Airport now
service is where airports are making the uses SITA’s self-service units that allows
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