When it comes to releasing capacity and improving passenger flow in your airport, smaller changes can often make a huge impact on your operational effectiveness and revenue.
AiQ helps constrained and saturated airports worldwide face challenges through smart solutions and holistic approaches. Minor changes in technology, check-in and automation can make a big difference at peak hour to security and emigration.
Building your way out of a problem is not always the solution. Your airport needs to be smarter.
Sweating your Airport Assets
Early Bag Stores – The automation and efficiency provided by EBS doesn’t have to be a big operation. The EBS could be a small manual set up. With the right technology and just two or three workers on a small piece of land, in a small airport, there will be a massive impact on check in. Instead of building large queues of passengers waiting for check in to open, the 24/7 nature of EBS means that they can then turn up at any time, diminishing check in time and queues landside.
Self Service Bag Drop – SSBD works in a similar way, allowing passengers to check in any time by automating the technology. With SSBD, all of the floor space can be used for processing, rather than the traditional back wall. With check in taking place all over the concourse and the back wall for bags, queues are reduced and passengers can be processed airside in a quicker time.
Common Use Terminal Equipment – Airports can use CUTE to get more use out of their assets, check in desks, gates and MUPs as they are shared by airlines and owned by the airport. Instead of being restricted by the amount of equipment you can fit at that gate and having gates dedicated to airlines, for example, you can release capacity by airlines sharing gates. The technology itself is not necessarily cheap and easy, but it does not require building and airports can create more capacity and a better flow out of their existing footprint.
EGates – Electronice gates can process queues and reduces the reliance on people. They can also reduce delays. Where previously staff at check in would have to travel airside to man the gate, with EGates there is less reliance on this and the impact of possible check in delays are reduced.
The Benefits of Automated Technology
All of these small changes have the advantages of not only releasing capacity and improving flow but also increasing security. These actions reduce crowds landside and improves the process gets passengers airside quickly.
By having passengers able to check in whenever they want, and not tied to set times, your airport dispenses with the prequeue. Passengers are not hanging around for check in to open and creating the security risk of landside crowds. There’s also a big difference for revenue. Five extra minutes in the International Departure Lounge results in passengers spending more in their dwell time.
As well as improving security and performance, your airport will also improve passenger experience. All of the typical stress points for passengers, check in, security and gates are automated which relieves the queues and reduces passenger stress. The ability to check in at any time and control their process is a big factor in good passenger experience, but you do need flexible tech 24/7 to achieve this.
Airport Simulations
We can also use technology through simulation and modelling to improve airport capacity. Our team at AiQ can determine the appropriate level of modelling depending on the client and requirements, from simple pivot graphs to 2D, 3D and 3D VR, in order to present both problems and solutions. When capacity problems are presented in a visual way it gives a clear vision to the clients and supports effective decision-making. By presenting these changes first as a simulation, you also reduce the risk of investing in making changes to your process and airport footprint that may not work.
AiQ Consulting has worked with many airports to introduce new automated technologies and simulation to increase capacity and efficiency, including Leeds Bradford , Manchester, and Heathrow. Contact us today to see how we can assist your airport.