is nearly five folds of the human population globally.
This level of inconvenience in the age of digital services where every segment is working hard to engineer the brilliant customer experiences, that is more than enough to ruin the airport’s reputation, make the traveler weary and bring losses.
According to a research, “The flight delays in the USA at the major airports is projected to cost up to $20 billion by 2020, where IOT can reduce the costs and create gains.”
It’s true that IoT comes to the rescue to every challenge aviation industry is facing from passenger arrival at the airport to on boarding to the successful arrival at the destination.Let’s see how airports can exploit the power of IoT and get benefited by seizing the opportunities:
Reinvent the passenger experience with plain sailing onboarding
As the passengers enter the airport, the long queues and minutes of waiting in the pursuit of parking availability, check-in, security identification and boarding eat up a lot of time and it’s frustrating as well. In addition, airport navigation is quite a task where the passengers can be seen struggling to find the way around the airport and racing from the terminal to terminal to know about the flight status. This discourages the passengers to preferthe air route. Here, IoT based smart airport can turn the table upside down.
With IoT beacons, the digital map of the airport can be created where the passengers will get real-time updates for everything such as knowing where they are standing at, know about parking availability, find the restaurant availability and the directions to reach there, and get the updates for the flight status with push notification right on the mobile in their hand. For the passengers reaching the airport lately, the NFC beacons help the gate agents to locate them and enable their expedite departure.
Besides, the satellite navigation available in Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) system that’s implemented at some of the airports enables check-in, security and customs procedures at the flick of the switch. With smart gates, the security identification of the passengers can be done without needing to stand in the long queues.
This way, with the elimination of confusion and waiting times, the passengers can spend the time before take-off to eat, shop or using other services, which in-turn upsurge the airport ROI. The smart airports will get two- ‘optimized traveler experience and increased revenue’ at the cost of one IoT solution investment.
Enable seamless luggage tracking and management
Although the airlines are bragging about the improvements in the baggage handling, the scene of bags mishandling, damaging, lost, or pilfering has not come to an end. It’s the major reason for passenger dissatisfaction and causing a loss of millions of revenue to the airline. That’s where the individual tracking of the luggage is an inexpensive option for the passengers and the airports.
Jeronimo Acosta, co-founder of ChillTravel stated, “Every mishandled bag costs $100 on average to the industry, but the worst part is the disappointed and angry customer that shares his thoughts on social media and doesn’t return. That’s where we are working on an affordable IoT solution that will protect, track and retrieve luggage and stuff.”
The RFID tag attached with every luggage helps the passengers in keeping tabs on the baggage in the real-time from the bag check-in to cargo-hold to the loading onto the right flight and then unloading at the right airport. The blend of IoT beacon and RFID technology gives a peace of mind to the passengers and translates to fewer lost bags, which means fewer dollars to spend on the passenger’s reimbursement for lost bags.
Enhance operational efficiency
The frequent air travelers are familiar with the flight delays which sometimes get extended from the minutes to a couple of hours. Chiefly, the weather conditions, natural calamities, sudden inspection and repairing needs or airplane health monitoring are responsible for the flight delays. This is an unavoidable situation, but it can be mitigated using IoT solution.
By integrating the weather monitoring beacons at every runway, the airports can monitor the condition and with computing intelligence to find out whether it’s safe for the flight to take-off or for how long it has to be stopped. The early information delights the passengers and prevents the airplanes from the unanticipated occurrences.
Going further, with ADS-B system, the airplanes can be inspected remotely and repaired if necessary, which alleviates the possibilities of accidents, and thereby the delays can be zeroed down at the gate.
Also, the shortest routes to the destination diminish the travel time, carbon emission and expenses on the fuel.By connecting the airplanes with each other and to the land, they can easily calculate the time in advance when the flight trajectories will be occupied and keep moving outside the air corridors by taking the free routes so that accidents can be avoided. The route optimization in an automated fashion lowers the cost incurred on the resources for the flight management and costs associated with technical problems.
“The aviation sector encompasses numerous activities that require significant investment in operations and maintenance projects. Through the incorporation of IoT-based solutions, key stakeholders of the aviation industry can minimize expenditure, resulting in higher profits,” says Avimanyu Basu, a lead analyst at Technavio for aerospace research.
Achieve financial success
The major chunk of the air travelers isthe Millennialswho are tech-savvy and prefer to stay digitally connected. This increasing demand of the digital passengers, the airport operators are heavily investing in the IoT technology.
SITA- the Geneva-based organizationis a good instance of it, which is providing IoT solutions to around 1000 airports globally for the betterment of the passenger’s experience, monitor airport operations, process baggage and operate onboarding gates. The increasing reliance on the connected technology brought $1.7 billion a year in revenue to the SITA from over 1000 airports.
It shows the airport operators are planning for hefty investment in the IoT solutions to enhance operational efficiency, better luggage management and heightensthe passenger experience, which in turn surely augment the return on investment if everything goes according to the devised strategy.
What’s next? IoT is in the air.
7.3 billion people will be traveling through airports by 2034, which is more than double the population of present time air travelers. It indicates we will have a need of double the global fleets as of now to service the passengers and a master plan to meet the needs of foreseeable future.
This is a good news as the airport will become the hotbed of technology innovations, trial and tests, and the implementations. Without exploiting IoT capabilities, meeting the future needs of the airports will be impossible.
“By 2021, the global aviationIoT market is projected to grow to $14.23 billion at a CAGR of more than 19%,” forecasted by Technavio research.
Without any doubt, the eradication of discomfort, inconvenience, and frustration out of the passenger’s journey and airport operations has become the reasons for the astronomical rise in the IoT app development and deployment at the airports. The world’s leading airports such as Helsinki, Miami, Birmingham, Dubai, and Denmark have already begun offering IoT based services to the passengers. We are likely to see more IoT applications and installations on the airports worldwide.
What’s your take? Is your airport also facing a challenge that you want to resolve through IoT solutions? If so, get connected with our technology consultants who will help you to set up the IoT network and get the custom solution that fulfills your airport needs.