Terminal operations
Checked out at the check-in If you visit Phoenix Sky Harbor, you may be surprised by your experience. Park your car near the terminal and you won’t be greeted by an attendant. Instead, you’ll simply wave a contactless barcode and be shepherded through the gate. Once you reach the terminal, you don’t have to queue to get through security. Rather, you can reserve a time on a mobile app, then simply approach the checkpoint when your appointment arrives. Even straightforward identification works differently at Phoenix Sky Harbor. If you’re a local resident, you can verify your identity via your mobile, along the way saving the hassle of taking out your passport or driving licence. For Daver Malik, at any rate, these varied efforts can be seen as ways of improving the customer experience. As the assistant chief information officer at Phoenix Sky Harbor puts it: “We set out to see how we could use digitalisation to impact the security process and ease the anxiety for passengers.”
A fair point. Pulling out an app certainly sounds more enjoyable than standing in a queue, while as Malik says, 90% of passengers who tried Sky Harbor’s security reservation system said they’d try it again. Nor is the American airport the only place to use new technology to bolster customer experience. In Helsinki, for instance, new scanning equipment means flyers no longer need to remove electronics or liquids from their bags. Elsewhere, the airport’s customer care team uses chatbots to manage interactions with visitors. The point, says Leyla Akgez-Laakso, CIO at Finavia, is to offer a “smooth travelling experience” while also making “the whole operation more efficient”. It’s a similar story across the sector too: according to work by ResearchAndMarkets, airport digitalisation could be a $8.5bn business as soon as 2030. As Akgez-Laakso’s note on efficiency implies, keeping passengers happy isn’t the only concern here. On the contrary, experts in both Finland and the US are keen to emphasise that technology can also be vital to beat staffing shortages. This isn’t hard to understand, even just by returning to Phoenix Sky Harbor. From the contactless car park to the sharper security, the airport is able to drastically cut the need for attendants and helpers. And technology can be equally helpful in getting the most out of the workers that remain. As Malik explains, his airport now uses data analysis of passenger habits to help managers allocate workers to different concessions, a system that’s also proved useful in organising cleaning schedules. More to the point, Malik stresses that these arrangements are a godsend for hiring managers. “We are hearing directly from all business partners who are using this data,” he says, “that it has been an invaluable tool for them amidst staff shortages and tight labour market conditions.” It goes without saying, too, that sending fewer paychecks means happier
Future Airport /
www.futureairport.com
airport accountants – fortunate given European airports alone lost out on $39.7bn in revenue in 2021.
Paying off
All the same, it’d be wrong to suggest that technology is a silver bullet here. For one thing, any transformation requires the consent of passengers. Think about it like this: you can have the most sophisticated check-in system on earth, but if passengers don’t know how it works, an airport risks causing even longer queues – and increasing the need for additional workers to keep order. Nor is this merely a hypothetical danger. In 2018, to give one example, the crash of the flight information screens at Gatwick left thousands of travellers confused. No wonder, then, that airports are careful to temper technical innovations with thoughtful planning. Education is especially important here, with Akgez- Laakso describing how videos and explanatory signs accompany every technical tweak at Helsinki. Malik makes a similar point, noting that his team conducts monthly exercises to plan for digital hiccups. All this is doubtless useful. But from baggage handling to baristas, it’s not as if technology can banish the need for human staff altogether. And with airports the world over still battling to fill flesh-and-bone quotas – even Singapore’s technologically advanced Changi Airport faces a shortfall of 6,600 workers – it’s clear that managers must find ways to seduce employees. One obvious tactic is paying them more. At Changi, in fact, auxiliary police officers are now being offered a sign-on bonus of S$25,000 ($18,000), or around ten times the basic monthly salary. In Phoenix, Roybal says the Sky Harbor is running monthly job fairs to get people interested, adding that as of September 2022, “all but a handful” of airport food and retail spots have reopened. To keep them that way, however, you suspect operators will have to keep their wallets open for longer, and not just to pay for new technology. ●
Whether digitalisation impacts the security process or eases the anxiety of passengers remains unclear.
2.3 IATA $8.5bn ResearchAndMarkets 15
million
The number of jobs lost globally across the aviation industry due to Covid-19.
The expected global value of airport digitalisation by 2030.
BBbirdZ/
Shutterstock.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53
