IT investment by airports is rising as airports
seek to meet the increasing expectations of passengers for
self-service and a hassle-free experience, according to a new
global survey.
IT investment, as a percentage of revenue,
rose to 4.4% in 2010 and 81% of airports expect IT budgets to
remain the same or increase in 2012. Top investment projects for
airports in the next three years are IT infrastructure upgrades
and mobile services.
The 8th annual SITA Airport IT Trends Survey,
co-sponsored by Airports Council International (ACI) and Airline
Business, tracks airport technology trends. It is based on
responses from almost 100 airport operators, representing the
views of 198 airports, including more than two thirds of the top
100 airports by revenue, responsible for 43% of global passenger
traffic.
The survey, which was launched today at the 20th
ACI North America Annual Conference in San Diego, found that
‘improving customer service’ is the top driver for new technology
investment in airports with 63% considering this their highest
priority.
Improving airport safety and security is also a high
priority (53%) with increased investment in technologies such as
biometric identification which is already implemented by 28% of
respondents at border control.
Reducing the cost of business was
ranked lower this year but remains a high priority for most
airports (46%).
Overall, almost six out ten airports are planning
major investments to upgrade their existing IT infrastructure to
support new passenger and workforce solutions.
Airport IT spend in 2010 rose to 4.4% of
revenues compared with 3.6% in 2009 with airports in Asia, the
Middle East and Africa leading the way, reflecting the level of
infrastructure investments in these regions. Airports in Europe
are more cautious about future investments, with most keeping
their IT spending static. The global outlook for 2012 looks
positive with 81% of airports expecting budgets to remain the same
or increase.
Ilya Gutlin, SITA Vice President Airport
Solutions said, “The survey shows airports are putting passengers
first when it comes to investment in IT. They are particularly
focussed on mobile services for passengers which ease their
journey through the airport by providing updates on departure
gates; flight information and delays; and other relevant
information. The passenger experience is further improved by the
wide availability of self-service options from check-in to
bag-drop; the growth in e-gates for boarding and check points; and
advances in passenger flow management. These all contribute to
SITA’s vision for the intelligent airport which aims to shorten
queues and take the hassle out of the passenger experience.”
Passenger self-service continues to grow.
Despite high levels of adoption, 53% of airports are planning to
increase the number of check-in kiosks. Some 25% plan to introduce
kiosks for new services including bag tag printing, flight
transfers, and self-scanning of documents such as passports. By
2014, some 38% of respondents will have introduced e-gates for
self-boarding and 42% will have e- gates for check points (9% have
them today), both of which will help to reduce queue times and
speed up processing. And 51% will have introduced common-use bag
drop locations by 2014.
The survey highlights the continuing growth of
social media channels to communicate with passengers and public
communities, particularly to handle complaints, give flight
information and emergency updates. Nearly half of respondents
already use mobile services to provide flight information and
operational updates with over 80% saying they will by 2014.
Mobile technology is having a big impact in
improving operational efficiency at airports with 84% of airports
investing in mobile services for staff. Uses include providing
wireless, handheld devices for baggage management (31% have
implemented and 22% plan to); remote updates to aircraft and gate
information (26% implemented and 33% planning) as well as ramp and
apron management, dispatch of buses and special passenger
assistance.
Another IT solution identified by airports to
improve operational efficiency is passenger flow monitoring. The
data enables airports to identify bottlenecks and queues so they
can take action to reduce congestion and wait times, which helps
improve the passenger experience. Some 22% of respondents monitor
passengers’ progress across the airport, but 49% have plans to do
so by 2014. Airports predominantly use 2D bar-coded boarding
passes to monitor passenger flow (69%) but other technologies are
also being considered for future use with 59% planning to use
Bluetooth, WiFi (56%) or video analytics (41%).
Investments in virtualisation and cloud
computing are gathering pace. Nine out of ten airports have
already implemented, or are planning to implement,
Infrastructure-as-a-Service by 2014. The top reason for choosing
virtualisation/cloud is to save costs (60%) followed by improved
efficiencies (48%) and increasing the implementation speed of new
applications (44%).
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