Airports use tech to take the hassle out of business travel

[PAXboy]

That is the title of article on an IT website that I still follow from my many years in that field.

It summarises the results of a survey by SITA (originating in 1949 as Société Internationale de Télécommunications Aéronautiques by 11 carriers) about pax 'self service'. I think the article a little too optimisitc (note British understatement) but the original report is of course not openly available to see how optimistic it is. Here I quote the article and bear in mind this is the airports talking not carriers:

Getting on a plane is about to get a lot easier according to a new report, which found that airports will increasingly automate passenger and security checks.

A lot easier, gosh that will be good news then.

Just over half of the airports questioned for the Sita Airport IT Trends Survey said they will increase the number of passenger check-in kiosks, with a quarter planning to add new features to kiosks such as the ability to print out bag tags and scan travel documents.

Oh goody, goody.

Whilst this is routine and to be expected:

Airports are hoping to reduce queues for checking in luggage, with more than half, 53 per cent, planning to introduce bag-drop desks that serve multiple airlines by 2014.

This is, I think, news to many of us pax.

Long queues for boarding and security checks could also be alleviated, as the survey found that by 2014 just over one-third of airports will have introduced electronic gates for self-boarding and 42 per cent will have e-gates that carry out security checks, such as confirming that a passenger matches their passport.

This is expected but long overdue (for some airports):

The way that passengers are notified about their flights is also changing, with just over 80 per cent of airports telling Sita they will offer flight information and other updates via mobile apps and text messages by 2014.

Then I found this gem:
Jim Peters, CTO at air transport IT supplier Sita

The grand vision is to be able to go into the airport and walk on to the plane without stopping. It is definitely going to happen as the technologies get cheaper but we have to get participation between lots of different groups for it to work - the airlines, airports, police, immigration and customs, federal agencies and the like.

You'll note that, in the list, he has forgotten to mention: The pax. Especially the pax who do not travel often/before and are not familiar with interacting with a computer.

Not to mention, I would like to see their contingency plans for when it all stops going round (RIM could share their experience of last week's Blackberry outage. )

So, once again, the plan is to make everything beautiful with machines and get rid of those pesky humans and make more money. Of course, nothing makes humans more irritated than being handled by machines that stop them or reject a routine request. This is a 'grand vision' indeed.

PS On RIM, I note the biggest criticism of them is the old one: They did not communicate with their customers. It took four days for their CEO to face the press. Sound familiar?

[Haven't a clue]

Long queues for boarding and security checks could also be alleviated, as the survey found that by 2014 just over one-third of airports will have introduced electronic gates for self-boarding and 42 per cent will have e-gates that carry out security checks, such as confirming that a passenger matches their passport.

It takes a matter of seconds for a human to check passport identity and boarding pass. It seems to take an age for the new UKBA machines to perform their facial recognition task, and (in my experience) for the LGW retinal scan machines to do their thing. The tech is going to have to get a lot smarter and quicker to beat the human speed, and even if they do, there is still the problem of SLF self loading.

At least in Asia the airports invest in multiple airbridges on each stand for wide bodied aircraft, unlike, say, BAA's spanking new state of the art T5.

[Hotel Tango]

If IT people didn't have dreams they wouldn't have jobs. I remember how ATC was going to be revelutionised over night some thirty years ago, twenty years ago, 10 years ago, and yesterday. I'm still waiting!

Of course there are definite improvements here and there, but they never materialise quite as quickly and efficiently as the IT dreamers predict.

I'll believe it all when I see it - if I'm still around by then!

[Smoketrails]

Ah! It would make things go faster at the international terminal in LAX though

[baselb]

I was in LHR a few weeks ago, flying with BMI. There was a guy blocking the entrance to the check-in desks and pointing people towards the automatic check-in machines, which all had queues.

I'm not normally a shouty person, but I ended up being allowed past when I stroppily pointed out that there were three check-in staff just sat there doing nothing

There were a group of Americal tourists behind me who had no such luck. 'Twas more than his job was worth to let them by.

I'm guessing that there'll be a nice statistic soon saying that a significant proportion of passengers prefer to use the machines.

[Hotel Tango]

And another statistic about loss of jobs!!! (at no advantage to the customer as they will now have to queue up for the machines).

[ZFT]

Ah! It would make things go faster at the international terminal in LAX though

I must be very lucky but I seem to breeze through Mr Bradley's terminal every time when departing. However they do get their own back upon arriving!!

[Businesstraveller]

baselb - so you've had an encounter with the rottweilers who guard the realm of BMI check-in desks.

I've encountered them myself, particularly at Manchester, where they don't have a segregated business/silver/gold check-in area. So when I'm asked in a sometimes supercilious tone 'are you flying business class?', I politely respond with a 'I have a gold card' as I continue to the desk without breaking my stride.

Although it seems a little gauling at times, I suppose its just a case of protecting the value of their commodity (in the same way that they wouldn't let you sit in a business seat just because it wasn't going to be occupied).