Airport & airline collaboration
Airports and airlines have recognized there is an opportunity to rebuild post the pandemic to be more agile, data-driven, and creative than ever before.
A tipping point
Airports today face numerous challenges as passenger numbers fluctuate and operations are strained by cancellations, route changes, changing passenger needs, and modification of travel regulations. At this time airport and airline integration is more important than ever before.
Removing friction with a single system for automated document check
The past few years have highlighted the complexity of travel during the COVID-19 pandemic.
For many years, passengers have been used to applying for visas when travelling. Now, travellers often need to use an additional online portal to make health declarations or to provide vaccination status before travel. Airlines then have the new requirement to collect and review all of these documents before they transport the passenger from A to B – failure to do so often results in the costly repatriation of the passenger when they are denied entry.
In the future, technology can greatly simplify this challenge for both airlines and travellers. It will be likely to see individual government portals for entry documentation replaced by one, or far fewer, centralised portals. The traveller could interact with a single system to provide entry documents in advance of travel, with airline and airport systems including biometrics already integrated.
The past few years have highlighted the complexity of travel during the COVID-19 pandemic.
For many years, passengers have been used to applying for visas when travelling. Now, travellers often need to use an additional online portal to make health declarations or to provide vaccination status before travel. Airlines then have the new requirement to collect and review all of these documents before they transport the passenger from A to B – failure to do so often results in the costly repatriation of the passenger when they are denied entry.
In the future, technology can greatly simplify this challenge for both airlines and travellers. It will be likely to see individual government portals for entry documentation replaced by one, or far fewer, centralised portals. The traveller could interact with a single system to provide entry documents in advance of travel, with airline and airport systems including biometrics already integrated.
This would allow airlines to automatically receive advance confirmation that a passenger has the documents to enter a country and potentially remove the need for passengers to continually provide visa and health documents to airline agents during their journey.
Say goodbye to bags at the airport?
Airports would like to minimize processes like check-in, baggage, security and boarding to free up space, with technology helping to make these steps automated and fast. Processes should merge into the background so passengers can either arrive later or spend more time enjoying the airport’s facilities.
It’s hard to imagine an airport without check-in, security and boarding but perhaps there’s an alternative way to approach baggage. Rather than ask passengers to bring bags to the terminal so they can be processed and transported in the hold of the passenger aircraft, why not transport bags using the international freight network?
Moving forward, it is likely airlines will enter partnerships with logistics firms so a passenger’s bag can be collected in advance of travel and shipped to their destination, like any other package.
Tracking bags more easily
Airports would like to minimize processes like check-in, baggage, security and boarding to free up space, with technology helping to make these steps automated and fast. Processes should merge into the background so passengers can either arrive later or spend more time enjoying the airport’s facilities.
It’s hard to imagine an airport without check-in, security and boarding but perhaps there’s an alternative way to approach baggage. Rather than ask passengers to bring bags to the terminal so they can be processed and transported in the hold of the passenger aircraft, why not transport bags using the international freight network?
Moving forward, it is likely airlines will enter partnerships with logistics firms so a passenger’s bag can be collected in advance of travel and shipped to their destination, like any other package.
Predictive flight operations
Airports and the air travel networks are incredibly complex environments with many moving parts that need to come together smoothly to ensure optimal safety and on-time departures.
Amadeus offers an Airport Collaborative Decisison Making solution (A-CDM Portal). that provides a common situational view of when aircraft will be ready for departure, which has already made a significant contribution to improving operations across Europe. But in the coming years, there’s an opportunity to go further.
Today, the arrival times of inbound aircraft still vary by upwards of 30 minutes from what’s expected, which has knock-on implications for all companies involved.
The problem is that airlines, airports and Air Traffic Control still share information using message-based systems, without sharing the underlying data. In the future, sharing of big data and even the connection of databases via the cloud could greatly improve flight operations and enable a more integrated decision-making process.
This type of collaboration would allow machine learning algorithms to interrogate the data underlying the entire flight operation process, providing a more complete understanding for everyone. But what impact will this have? All players will gain a more precise understanding of when aircraft will actually arrive. Ground operations teams can prepare more effectively, reducing turnaround times.
Landing and take-off slots will be better optimized so the airport can increase the number of flights on a given day. When disruption occurs, passenger and flight schedule re-accommodation will be based on the entire picture, rather than any single airline’s own situation.
Predictive disruption management
It is likely to see the application of Artificial Intelligence in many more areas of the industry, such as disruption management.
By bringing data together from across the industry with external sources like weather, it is expected that it will become possible to predict disruption to flights days before they occur.
Imagine receiving a ping to your mobile alerting you to the fact your flight will be delayed and recommending alternatives you can select with a single click.
From an airport perspective, this advanced notice could help to better allocate both fixed and variable resources, like staffing schedules. It is likely to provide the time needed to shift airlines to new terminals if needed or to reallocate flights to neighboring airports if necessary.
“Ultimately, predictive disruption management promises to keep operations one step ahead of the disruption so problems can often be proactively solved before the occur.
Taking a step back, several technologies are combining to enable the trends raised here.
Primarily, airports moving their IT infrastructure to the cloud makes data far more accessible so it can be used in conjunction with technologies like machine learning, biometrics and APIs that help foster closer collaboration across the sector.
Despite the challenges that continue to impact airports and airlines, the industry – with support of technology – can rebuild to significantly improve how it operates.