airport it trends survey 2011[1]

2 011Executive summary

2011 A joint ACI, Airline Business and SITA survey

The Airport IT Trends Survey

2 | The Airport IT Trends Survey | 2011

This year marks the eighth annual Airport IT Trends Survey, delivered in partnership by Airline Business, the Airports Council International and SITA, tracking key technology trends. The survey covers airports representing around 43% of total passenger traffic and includes more than two-thirds of the top 100 airports by revenue. The continued strong response illustrates the value of the survey’s global benchmarking to the industry. Alongside the traffic recovery seen in 2010 airports increased their IT&T spend as a percentage of overall revenues. And while the pace of the economic recovery remains uncertain, airports still expect their IT spend to increase in 2012. The survey shows top investment priorities focus around improving customer service, with passenger self service remaining a key part of airports’ investment strategy. In line with this strategy, airports continue to invest in mobile services for their passengers. Similarly, social media integration to support customer service also remains important to airports. Other priority investment areas include improving airport operational efficiencies, notably through real-time resource management and passenger flow monitoring systems. Many airports also plan to invest significantly in IT infrastructure upgrades to leverage these new technologies. This booklet provides a breakdown of some of the headline findings from this year’s survey and we would like to thank all of those airports and airport operators for taking the time to complete the survey and for your continued support of this key benchmarking survey. To purchase the full survey, go to flightglobalshop.com. You can also keep up to date with all of our IT&T industry coverage online at flightglobal.com/ITzone.

Max Kingsley-Jones Angela Gittens Francesco ViolanteEditor Director General Chief Executive OfficerAirline Business ACI SITA

Foreword

Purchase the full analysis at www.flightglobalshop.com


of airports expect the IT&T spend to increase or of stay the same in 2012

Despite sustained economical pressures, airports are taking a long-term view in terms of investments in IT and Telecom (IT&T). They are increasing their spend in readiness for future demand. The survey shows that the airport’s average full year IT&T spend in 2010 has remained buoyant at 4.4% of revenue.

IT&T spend in absolute terms is expected to rise further in 2012. Reflecting a continued positive outlook for next year, 49% of survey respondents expecting their spend to increase, while 32% expect the budgets to stay the same in 2012.

81%

Total IT&T spend as % of revenue

Outlook for 2012

Base: Those respondents answering - unweighted

Increase

Stay the same

Decrease

Increased

Stayed the same

Decreased

19%

32%

49%

Charter

LCC

Full

0%

2%

4%

6%

2010200920082007

4.4%

Management & Strategic Issues ❯❯


74%of airports plan to invest in refreshing their IT infrastructure by 2014

Respondents this year have ranked “improving customer service” as the No 1 driver for new technology investments. Reducing cost of business operations was ranked lower this year but remains a high priority for most airports (46%). Improving airport safety and security also remains a top investment.

Airports are moving forward with investments projects, often starting with pilots or R&D programs, rather than major investments. Mobile services investments for passengers and staff continue to top the airport investment priority list.

The survey also suggests that almost 6 out of 10 airports are planning major investments to upgrade their existing IT infrastructure.

Top IT investment drivers IT&T investment programmes in the next 3 years

Reducingthe cost

of businessoperations

Improvingairport safetyand security

Improvingcustomer

service63%

Top priority

53%

46%

No plansR&D/pilotMajor programme

Base: Those respondents answering – unweighted

IATA Passenger fast travel (end-to-end self service)

Integration of social networkingfunctionality for passenger service

Integrating electronic documents(e.g. boarding passes, bag tags)

Refresh of IT infrastructure(LAN, WAN, CAN)

Offering mobile devicebased services for passengers

Providing mobile (data-capable)device based services for staff

28%

35%

59%

23%

22%

52%

49%

15%

41%

44%

20%

15%

26%

36%

34%

23% 47% 29%



of airports plan to increase the number of kiosks they deploy (for any usage)

78% Passenger self-service continues to grow and is still expanding. Adoption of check-in kiosks has already reached very high global penetration. Despite the high levels of adoption, the vast majority of airports (53%) are still planning to increase the number of check-in kiosks, while others plan to introduce more kiosks for alternative usage (25%) such as self-scanning of documents and flight transfer.

Airports also plan to extend the self-service concept to other passenger touchpoints to help improve performance and speed of passenger handling throughout the airport. The adoption of e-gates is still in its infancy, with current implementation under 10%. However, airports continue to show interest in introducing e-gates by 2014 to reduce queues and speed up passenger processing, with the largest airports leading the e-gate adoption.

Common bag-drop locations also beginning to feature on the airport self-service wish list. Over the next three years, 47% of airports plan to implement common bag-drop locations.

Strategy for kiosks Self-service investments

53%

25%

13%

9%3%

1%


We do not have common use kiosks and do notplan to imprement common use

Keep total number of common usecheck-in kiosks the same

Increase total number of common use kiosks for otherusage (e.g. transfer, bag claim, info services, etc.)

Increase total number ofcommon use check-in kiosks

Keep total number of commonuse kiosks, but change their usage

Reduce the number of kiosks

No plansBy 2014Already done


common bag-droplocations

e-gates for self-boarding

e-gates for check points

Kiosk for �ight transfer

Kiosk for self-scanningof documents

44%

24%

26%

28%

47%

35%

31%

48%

48%

62%

9% 33% 59%

Passenger Operations ❯❯


60%of airports want to target passengers with retail promotions

Services on mobile devices and via Social Networks are set to support the airport’s customer service vision.

Airport provision of services to passengers’ mobile phones are especially focused on easing and augmenting their journey through the airport environment. Notification of flight status and delays on passenger mobile phones remains at the top of the airports mobile investments. Utilising mobile phones to direct passengers around the airport is beginning to attract airport investments with 44% of respondents planning for such services by 2014. Airports also have a strong desire to offer retail services through the passenger’s mobile phone (60% with plans by 2014).

Although the provision of services to passengers via Social Networks remains experimental for many respondents, the majority of airports are open to using Social Networks to provide enhanced passenger services. Most airports expect Social Networks to make a contribution as an additional communication channel.

Investments in mobile services for passengers

Reason for usingsocial networks



Navigation togates/points

of interest

Targetpassengers withretail promotions

Noti�cationabout �ight

status/delays

10%

48%

44%

33%

51%

60%

18%

30%



Disruption andemergency

updates

Flight informationand operational

updates

Customerrelationship handling

e.g. complaints

36%

37%

40%

35%

34%

37%

28%

27%

26%



76% of airports have or will have systems for better real-time resource visibility and planning by 2014

Improving airport efficiency depends on the availability and intelligent use of information to optimise processes and make timely decisions. This requires systems and stakeholders to share information in real-time. The survey shows that 28% of airports have already invested in business intelligence solutions for real-time visibility and planning of resources, while another 48% plan to invest by 2014.

Real-time visibility of resources and assets at airports depends on the availability of data from across the airport. The respondents of this survey suggest that the two biggest challenges for improving business and operational intelligence is the current lack of data availability, and cite poor integration between disparate systems or the resistance of airport stakeholders to share data as the main barriers for adoption.

Investments in business intelligence systems

Challenges for the introduction of real-time resource visibility and

planning


Already done

No plans

By 2014

No plans

By end of 2014

Already done

28%25%

48%

Charter

LCC

Full


Lack of automatedplatform and

data warehouse

Lack of cooperationto share data

amongst stakeholders

Lack ofintegration amongst

disparate system

25%

20%

18%

25%

36%

16%

Major barrier Rank 1 Rank 2

Airport Operations ❯❯


71%of airports plan to invest IT solutions to monitor passenger flow e.g. check-in wait times by 2014

Airports are beginning to utilise passenger flow monitoring technology to optimise their resource utilization, enhance planning capabilities, and ultimately improve the passenger experience. 22% of this year’s respondents currently monitor passengers’ progress across the airports, but 49% have plans to do so by the end of 2014.

Reducing congestion is the primary motivation for adopting passenger flow monitoring solutions cited by 59% as the most important reason. Better resource planning through the utilisation and integration of passenger flow data is the most important reason for 43% of the respondents.

Airports predominately use 2D bar-coded boarding passes to monitor the passenger flow today (69%), but various other technologies are being considered. Among the most popular technology choices are Bluetooth, Wifi or video analytics.

Investments in passenger flow monitoring solution

Reasons for implementing passenger flow monitoring


Already done

No plans

By 2014

No plans

By end of 2014

Already done

22%30%

49%

Charter

LCC

Full

Reduce congestionto increase

non-aeronauticalrevenue opportunities

Integrate information withother systems to improve

airport staff andresource planning

Reduce congestionsto improve

passenger experience59%

Top priority

43%

34%



91%of airports have or plan to have infrastructure virtualisation/services implemented by 2014

Investments in Virtualisation are gathering pace. The survey confirms that airports are accepting the benefits of Virtualisation & cloud computing for their organization, as 9 out of 10 airports have already implemented or are planning to implement Infrastructure-as-a-Service by 2014.

The focus is to introduce virtualisation technology where it can bring cost benefits, with 6 out of 10 airports suggesting cost savings as the main reason for adoption.

Virtualisation & cloud computing strategy

Top reasons for choosing virtualisation and cloud

IT Infrastructure

No plansBy 2014

Already done


Desktop as a networkservice/desktop

virtualisation

Software as aservice/application

virtualisation

Infrastructure as aservice/server and

storage virtualisation

31%

16%

19%

57%

29%

27%

18%

21%

25%

Under evaluation

22%

27%

9%

Increasingimplementation

speed ofnew applications

Generating greaterefficiencies/

improvements inairport business

processes

Generatingcost savings

60%

48%

44%


The statements below have been selected as they reflect issues or projects frequently mentioned by all respondents in this year’s survey. Please note that these statements are directly taken from the survey responses and reflect the opinions/wording of our respondents.

Major IT successes of the last 12 months

l Airport collaborative decision making; e-gatesl Expansion of business intelligence offering and beginning to adopt passenger customer

relationship managementl Deployment of free public WiFi, WiFi at the gates, in-bound bag tag scanningl New enterprise resource planning system, disaster recovery concepts and network security

Major IT challenges over the last 12 months

l Enterprise resource planning implementationl Improve productivity and efficiency versus cost reductionl Migration to cloud e-mail; building support for common-use implementation; working with

reduced budgetl Sales transactions at kiosks and bag tag print at kiosks

Future challenges in the airport IT environment

l The use of new technology such as cloud, social network and mobile servicel Wireless local area network roaming and connectivity on tarmac/outdoors, working stable

and with enough performance together with applications and mobile equipmentl The centralised airport operational control centre implementation with collaborative decision

making and business intelligence functions in co-operation with airlines and tenantsl Passenger tracking, we are still looking to adopt a robust passenger tracking system within

the next 12-18 months

Technologies making the most impact on airport environments in the near future

l Passenger self-service processing and location-based (geographic information system) enterprise information systems

l Enterprise resource planning – reduces multiple databases and conflicting data; streamlines approval processes; and improves data integrity via stronger validation

l Mobile devices, remote/self-service check-inl Social media and collaboration – business applications and social technologies and their

intersecting. Those who do so first will gain a competitive advantage in at least the short term

Verbatim Responses



The survey objectives are to monitor key IT trends within the airport industry including:

l Management & Strategic Issuesl Passenger Operations & Processingl Airport Operations & Securityl Successes & Challenges

The survey was first launched in 2004 and comparisons are made where appropriate with previous surveys, although the sample may vary between years. Research is focused on senior IT executives at the top 200 airport operators, with the aim of polling around a quarter of this group.

A comprehensive 100+ page PDF report is available to purchase, this will include commentary & analysis covering all of the following survey questions:

l Priorities for investment decisionsl Key technology investment trends in the next 3 yearsl Long-term strategy for implementing of virtualisation technology l Evolution of self-service technology (including e-gates)l Strategy for mobile-based services for passengersl Plans for passenger processing l Plans for 2D Barcode Boarding Passes

For further details:www.flightglobalshop.comwww.sita.aero/surveys

Methodology & Further Analysis

www.sita.aerowww.flightglobal.com/airlines

www.aci.aero

airport it trends survey 2011[1]

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