Tuesday, 24 January 2012

“Airport of the future to make flying fun again"


Flying is no longer a pleasant way to travel. It is stressful and time consuming.
To cater to travelers’ expectations, airports and airlines need to change their way of running according to a report from CAP Strategic Research, an aviation research and consultancy company. Below are some innovations that could be implemented by 2025. Key points from this report have been summed up in an article from CNNgo (a blog from the American TV Channel CNN), which aims at providing the latest trends in travel. The content of the article may be relevant in order to understand the impact of IT improvements on our travel habits and to get a better picture on the airport of the future.

© Istock Photo
Self-check-in will be generalized. Some airlines already propose their travelers to check-in at home or at the airport on specific machines (American Airlines, Easy Jet), Ryan Air even charges travelers who want to check in at the airport desk. By 2025, check-in desks are doomed to disappear.

Em/Immigration procedures will be made easier. In 2025, we can imagine no more queues at the immigration desk to check identity with travelers just swiping their ID or biometric passport. Some passes that already enable this (INSPASS in the USA or Iris Recognition Immigration System at Heathrow Airport) will be generalized to more locations.

Frequent travelers will be able to cut security queues. Travelers approved by police, security forces or government departments will be given a biometric pass allowing them to undergo security checking.

Only carry-on luggage may be authorized. A ban on check-in luggage may be inevitable to reduce the space, the weight and thus the costs (fuel and staff to handle luggage). Besides, it will speed up boarding. Passengers will be therefore encouraged to carry on their luggage on board and bigger luggage will be transported by cargo.

© Getty Images
Boarding will be quicker. Airlines experiment several ways to get travelers on board using science to time the most efficient one.

Showrooms will replace shops. The idea is to replace physical shopping by online shopping. Shops will be replaced by showrooms where travelers could test the products and then buy them online and be delivered at home.

Airports will run all night long. The increasing number of travelers and the new aircrafts such as A380 which are much less noisy may drive the governments to accept the airports to run 24 hours a day.

Some of these changes may be beneficial for both passengers and airlines companies. The new experiments made on boarding procedure, the disappearance of physical check-in desks and the quickening custom procedures will allow significant reduction in time spent in the airport. Moreover, the development of online shopping, home-delivery and other “do-it-at-home” procedures will avoid carrying on too many souvenirs in the plane and paying extra charges for passengers. Some innovations also represent consequent cost reduction for airlines that could be reflected in flight fares.

However, online procedures and automation of tasks may lead to a non-personalized service. Having the possibility to communicate with staff may be reassuring for some passengers when taking the plane; therefore, airlines should also focus on maintaining physical contact with their customers. Moreover, some of the above-mentioned changes may be inconvenient and also present dangerous threats: shipping luggage via cargo may create important delays between passengers’ arrival and luggage arrival. Thus, creating a special category of frequent flyers that over pass security control may represent an open door for the transport of weapons, terrorist attacks and/or bombing!

Please feel free to post any comment. We will be glad to share our ideas with you!

Key words: Airport, Innovations, Airlines, Check-in, Boarding, Security queues, Carry-on luggage, Showrooms, Immigration procedures.

CNNGo. (2011, December 14). 'Airport of the future' to make flying fun again. Retrieved January 17, 2011, from CNNGo: http://www.cnngo.com/explorations/life/airport-future-make-flying-fun-again-164787

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