The future is simple ... just ring the changes

Michael Ibbitson, vice president, information and communication services for Abu Dhabi Airports Company (ADAC), is a man who has seen the future and embraced it.

Technology is moving at a rapid pace and, with the development of new major airports throughout the Gulf, the airport operating companies have had to move faster than most to second-guess where it will go next.

With responsibility for the IT at the five Abu Dhabi airports, Ibbitson has been watching the Simplifying the Business (StB) initiative from IATA and has been ready to back his instinct with investment.

ADAC has signed a contract with aerospace IT specialists SITA that will bring sweeping changes to all of the emirate’s airports, turning them into high-tech centres of passenger processing.

Abu Dhabi International Airport, which saw 11.7 per cent passenger growth in the first half of this year, will become the first major hub in the Middle East to benefit from the new IATA common use passenger processing systems (CUPPS). The agreement covers more than 350 check-in counters, 24 self-service kiosks for multiple airline use, and upgrades the baggage reconciliation system across Abu Dhabi Airport’s three terminals – Al Ain International Airport, Al Bateen Executive Airport and Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre (ADNEC) terminal and City terminal.

Ibbitson said: “We at ADAC want to be an early adopter as it will mean more efficient processes for passengers and lower operating costs for airlines.”

The move is a taste of what is to come.

The whole concept of the digital traveller will see a greater dependence on passengers’ own mobile phones and home or office-based computer access.

According to SITA, air travellers are typically ahead of the rest of the population in their adoption of technology. As “digital travellers”, they have growing expectations of the technology-based services that airlines should deliver to them.

SITA senior director of portfolio marketing, Jürgen Kölle, said airlines are aiming to increase the portion of tickets sold directly to passengers, allowing the airline to own a direct customer relationship.

Today more than 50 per cent of tickets are still sold through global distribution systems (GDS) and online travel agents but SITA believes this will decline to just above 40 per cent by 2013, while the airline direct will grow to the same percentage.

The airlines – and airports – are aiming to use increased mobile technology to keep in touch with their customers throughout the whole travel experience.

A survey carried out by SITA showed that 45 per cent of airlines already have, and another 41 per cent plan to have, notifications on flight status and delays available by 2013. That means that nine out of 10 airlines plan to have mobile notification available soon. Currently 28 per cent of airlines have online check-in available via mobile, with another 52 per cent determining to offer it by 2013.

More than three quarters of airlines will invest in IT projects to broaden mobile services during the next three years, including the use of mobile as a sales channel.

Enabling passengers to make ticket modifications/upgrades on their mobile phone is planned by almost 60 per cent of respondents in the next three years (from only six per cent today). “This clearly demonstrates the shift from using the mobile to ‘push information to the customer’ to viewing mobility as ‘the technology to perform business transactions and to generate revenue’,” said Kölle.

At the IATA AGM in Berlin earlier this year, the StB process using mobile technology was shown. Online check-in was done through the phone with a 2D bar code being displayed on the phone and scanned at the check-in kiosk, where bag tags were printed, allowing for a fast drop-off. With pre-recorded biometrics in place with the authorities, the digital passenger could pass through security and on to the aircraft by using just the mobile phone for a boarding card and passing through biometric screening machines.

And when baggage goes missing, passengers can be kept informed via SMS messaging and track their bag’s progress.

But it is in the airport, itself, that the technology is most in demand. Finding ways to speed-up airport border checks while keeping the skies safe has been a hot topic and has been exacerbated by silo thinking from the different stakeholders, such as the airlines, the airports and the government agencies responsible for immigration and security.

IATA is taking steps to address this.

“We have merged our StB programme with the simplified passenger travel initiative to form a cross-industry passenger experience group,” explained Stephan Copart, project manager of IATA’s fast travel programme “This allows us to address the big picture – to bring new stakeholders into the working group, like governments, to work with us on addressing the entire end-to-end passenger process.”

So, with security now part of the solution and not just part of the problem, can we expect the queues at airport checkpoints to disappear?

Not straight away, according to Thomas Marten, SITA’s vice president of business development. “The weak link in the system is validation of identity. Officials need to be sure that the person, who presents themselves at the airport, is the person they say they are. Today it is done manually, either by the airline check-in agent or by the immigration official. Tomorrow – or today in some countries – it will be automated using biometrics.”

“Securing airports by questioning every passenger is just not feasible,” said Bobby Varma, director of business development at iris recognition specialists Sarnoff Corporation. “ It would cost in the range of $62 billion to $150 billion – more than 10 times the current spend on airport security. We need technology to help process the low-risk passengers so that questioning can be focused on the high-risk.”

But, while biometric technology is crucial for verifying the identity of a passenger, it will not be enough on its own, said Varma. “It is all about advance risk assessment. To determine that, though, governments need to capture data on the passenger and make a decision about them before they arrive – high-risk, low-risk, or somewhere in between.”

In essence, a consolidation of data known on a passenger will determine the risk assessment, while the biometric data will make sure that assessment is applied to the right person.

It is the direction most countries are going in. But, to be truly effective, requires moving beyond national borders and working together at the international level, so that threats are thwarted, such as the Christmas Day 2009 attempt to blow up a US-bound flight.

Marten believes that is now widely accepted. “We are going to see a lot more co-operation between governments – we are already seeing this in the EU.”

The UAE – with both Abu Dhabi and Dubai investing in the technology – believes it has a mobile-savvy population that is ready to become true digital travellers.

“We have 176 per cent mobile phone penetration, which means that every adult carries two mobile phones and, generally, it’s a Blackberry for business and an iPhone for personal,” Ibbitson told the SITA IT Summit in Brussels.

“Our digital traveller in Abu Dhabi is looking for technologies that speed up the process of getting through the airport. They use web check-in predominantly, or with the mobile phone where possible; they’ll use kiosk check-in and they want it for all airlines; they want optional upgrade payments, document checking, frequent flyer management, bag tag printing, and a simple self-service drop-off for baggage."

“If there’s a registered security screening programme, our passengers will definitely register online and try to use it; they’re looking for mobile device applications for flight information, airport status and, if self-service boarding is available, they will try to use it."

“But there are also travellers that don’t want those services, who prefer to go to a counter for personal service, who want someone else to take the responsibility of handling the processes."

“For Abu Dhabi, as we develop our new terminal building for 2015, we need to stick to standards such as those for StB and we need to let the market decide before we adopt certain technologies."

“As building takes place we need to make important IT decisions that will impact not just our digital travellers of the future, but also the digital aircraft, digital ground-handler and digital baggage systems.”

A self-service boarding trial has been requested by the airport’s major airlines and the Midfield Terminal complex building has been designed with a space reservation for self-service boarding at every single gate, said Ibbitson. Depending on the success of the trial, the company will consider putting it into the final design of the building.

The digital airport – a CEO’s view

Chief executive of Dubai Airports, Paul Griffiths Paul Griffiths, has clear views on what the digital airport concept means – and how the various stakeholders need to work together to make it a success for the passengers and the investors. These were the key points from his presentation to the SITA IT Summit.

•   Airports should become the showcases and test-beds of the latest trends in technology and retail;
•   Airport buildings must be functional, designed around optimal flow and a faster rate of application of technology;
• Airport IT modules must work and communicate together, seamlessly.

These need to be developed through a partnership, with the supplier’s role changing to integrator and partner. It requires vision, collaboration, customer-focused processes and the smart application of technology. This needs to involve the airports, airlines, retailers, partners and other stakeholders work closely together – genuinely integrated – across the customer journey, from start to finish.

The cost of not doing this is far more significant as the complexity and volume of air travel continues to grow.

If we glimpse that future:

• The customer’s online booking, purchase, seat selection and API and biometric data are recorded well in advance;
•   Baggage is dealt with as early as possible in the process and returned to passengers at their destination;
•   Biometric data is captured quickly and used by all relevant agencies to confirm passenger ID, assess risk and link that risk to passenger name record (PNR);
•   Baggage and boarding passes are issued automatically, as scanning occurs simultaneously and unobtrusively for all the processes.

All of this occurs in a matter of moments, freeing up the customer to dine or shop.

Griffiths warned that the air transport industry still has an extraordinary misalignment of cost and benefit. “In the past decade, while the airlines have lost US$50bn, other partners in the overall supply chain have recorded strong profits.

“The trouble is that customer journey processes are in vertical silos, whereas the customer is asked to go through a horizontal process across those silos. There’s no easy fix to this but the role of supply technology needs to change. It needs to become not a supply chain, but an integration chain, where the supply organisations act as partners and facilitators.

“With the current expansion of airports in the Middle East, the industry must not simply replicate what we’re doing today on a grand scale. We’re asking the customer to go through a horizontal process across vertical silos, so no wonder the journey is very bumpy, very inefficient and often disjointed.

“Unless we co-operate and align all the different stakeholders, our technology solutions will reinforce the silos that exist across the customer journey,” he said. “The future is in the hands of those who can integrate this technology into real life, into a seamless process.”