SPECIAL REPORT: IT
Web wonders
What does the future hold for the development, use and application of airport websites? Jessica Twentyman reports.
F
or today’s passengers, the ‘airport experience’ begins long before they set out on their journeys, says Chris Thurling, managing director of 3Sixty, a UK-based digital marketing agency. “What I always tell our airport clients is that their website
represents their first big opportunity to make a positive impression on the travelling public,” enthuses Thurling. “Good customer service shouldn’t begin when a passenger
crosses the airport’s perimeter or sets foot in the departures hall. It should start when they’re surfing the web in their own homes.” Thurling is speaking from experience as his company has helped
develop the websites for Birmingham, Bristol and Leeds Bradford airports in the UK. In the case of Birmingham International Airport, its new-look website at
www.birminghamairport.co.uk was launched in May 2010 and was specifically designed to “improve customer experience, ‘stickability’ and commercialisation”. Senior management at BHX take the airport’s online presence very
seriously, says Thurling. “A few years ago, a digital marketing agency like ours would have primarily been dealing with the marketing department as the website was generally seen as their responsibility. Today, we’re more likely to be talking to the CEO, the finance director and the commercial director,” he says.
At Birmingham, for example, 3Sixty’s main point of contact is CEO
Paul Kehoe. “He takes a very active interest in our plans and suggestions for the Birmingham Airport site, because he sees it as an integral part of his overall strategy for the airport as a whole.” Other airport managers feel the same way and the reason is clear:
today’s websites don’t just offer a way to ‘push’ travel information and marketing messages to passengers. They also offer an outstanding opportunity to sell a whole range of services directly through a fast, convenient channel. Bristol Airport, for example, sells car parking services, executive
lounge passes and fast-track tickets through security, on its website. In the 2009 Airport Trends Survey, conducted by aviation
technology specialist SITA, almost a quarter (24%) of the 172 airports surveyed were already using their web presence to sell directly to customers; a further 18% were planning to do so by the end of 2010. As the revenue-generating potential of the airport website
becomes increasingly apparent, says Thurling, managers are starting to think about their online presences “less as cost centres, and more as profit centres”. That, he adds, is galvanising a new wave of website investment, even at a time where budgets are tight.
AIRPORT WORLD/OCTOBER-NOVEMBER 2010 47
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