SPECIAL REPORT: IT
Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport), which runs Boston Logan
International Airport as well as other transportation businesses and terminals in Massachusetts, recently introduced a real-time, live chat session called ‘Question the Authority’, in which members of the public got to pick the brains of CEO and executive director, Thomas Kinton. While down in Florida, Tampa International Airport this summer
launched a microsite –
www.flymetampabay.com – where the public can suggest their ideas about which non-stop routes they’d like to see introduced at the airport. A further major shift for airports is the move to mobile – that is, allowing
passengers to access services and information via their mobile phones. In this area, many of the airlines have a major headstart, stretching back
several years, but an ever-increasing number of airports are now scrambling to catch up. Some have delivered cut-down versions of their main websites, which
can be accessed from any mobile phone that has a web browser. Others are starting to adopt a more recent trend – mobile apps. These are mini-applications that are downloaded directly to
the passenger’s mobile device, where they are able to take full advantage of the powerful processors and abundant memory that ‘smartphones’ like the iPhone and BlackBerry contain. The difference is that, while mobile apps offer a faster and easier end-user experience than mobile websites, a different version of the app must be engineered for each different device. Copenhagen Airport, however, has embraced both approaches. In
January 2010, it launched a mobile site,
m.cph.dk, a mobile, mini- version of the CPH website, which by mid-year, was receiving up to 10,000 visitors per week.
50 AIRPORT WORLD/OCTOBER-NOVEMBER 2010
In July, however, it also launched a mobile app for the iPhone,
‘CPH Airport’, which delivers information on arrival and departure times, terminal maps, and the ability to book and pay for parking, directly to passengers that have downloaded it (for free) from Apple’s online application library, App Store. Passengers can also use their iPhones to submit comments
and suggestions on shops and food outlets at CPH and grade them by stars. “We want to meet our passengers on the move, and the iPhone is
one of the most widely used mobile technological platforms,” explains Iben Eiby-Johannesen, brand equity director at Copenhagen Airport. “We also know that many of our passengers look for information at
home, on their way to the airport, and when they are at the airport. Using the new iPhone, people can get information anywhere.” Now, Eiby-Johannesen is considering other device types, including
mobile phones based on Google’s Android platform. When asked in the SITA Airport IT Trends survey about their plans to
offer services to customers on mobile devices, almost one-third (32%) of respondents said they already offered notifications about flight status and delays in this way, and 18% had already optimised their websites for access by mobile phones. With the soaring popularity of iPhones, BlackBerries and
phones using Google Android, however, others will no doubt follow Copenhagen’s lead, and develop both mobile websites and mobile apps. This, then, is the likely future of the airport website: more
commercial, more ‘characterful’, more collaborative and more mobile than ever before.
AW
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