How can airports avoid flaky mobile communications during snow disruption?

Last November heavy snows caused disruption to thousands of passengers, stranded at UK airports as flights were cancelled and airport operators battled to clear tons of snow from runways.

 

At the time I was struck by news reports that delayed passengers were being supplied with free food, hot drinks and free WiFi.

 

WiFi has become the third necessity for delayed travellers.

But what does this mean for airport operators when they suddenly have to support thousands of additional mobile devices on the same mobile communications infrastructure?

It has been calculated by the Civil Aviation Authority that around 570,000 people travel through UK airports each day, with 92 per cent carrying a mobile phone. Our largest airports may have up to 72,000 employees spread across different shifts, of which 30 per cent are using radios or mobile devices for work purposes. This means that more than half a million mobile devices  are connecting to airport communication networks on a daily basis.

It is a well-publicised fact that public mobile networks do not have sufficient capacity to meet demand in airports. So if they are crowded with additional passengers, whose flights have been delayed by adverse weather, incident response managers may find themselves competing for network bandwidth with passengers watching YouTube videos on their smart phones and updating Twitter and Facebook with travel complaints.

In its written evidence to Parliament, Gatwick Airport wrote that “During both snow periods, we placed high importance on communicating the latest information to passengers and their friends and families…..Twitter was a very important real-time channel during the snow periods…We provided free internet kiosks and WiFi access to enable passengers to rebook or make alternative travel arrangements. We also provided free mobile phone-charging points and distributed mobile phone chargers to passengers to help them maintain contact with friends and family.”

As landlords, airports operators have a responsibility to deliver services, not only for passengers, but for all of the businesses operating in their facilities. Airports are extremely complex operating environments. They have to be able to support numerous communications systems: ground to air, technical services, ground handling, baggage handling, airport police, border security and emergency services, retail outlets and passengers.  

Businesses working in and around airports are rarely unified in their approach to mobile communications. As a result it can be unnecessarily complicated for organisations to collaborate, even if they form part of the same supply chain.

This was one of the key factors picked up by Professor David Begg in his report on the Heathrow Winter Resilience Enquiry, published in March 2011: “There were failures in communication and co-ordination…which led to ineffective engagement between different parties, resulting in ineffective situational awareness and a delay in response and escalation,” he wrote. In fact, Begg found that crisis communications relied on SMS messaging and that these communication methods, “are not consistent with best practice and do not enable a complex operation to response optimally at times of emergency”.

Most airport-based companies depend on a mix of mobile technologies and devices. Over the years, new services have been added incrementally, to address short term requirements. These disparate systems and services have added to the layers of complexity of mobile and wireless networks and increased management costs for airport operators.

Rising fuel costs and eroded profit margins in the aviation industry have led to the postponement of many projects to update mobile communications. In addition, consumer adoption of smart phones is driving up bandwidth requirements. As a result, many mobile infrastructures struggle to cope with additional demands placed on them when passengers are delayed and have to spend long periods at the terminal.

Yet, better use of mobile communications can create a significant business advantage for airport operators. It can be used to help them to process passengers more quickly and cost effectively and to offer services such as WiFi in executive lounges, which add value to the airport experience.

In the case of snow or other unfavourable weather conditions, poor communication contributes to delays, disruption and customer dissatisfaction.

Last year’s flight disruptions clearly demonstrated that mobile communications infrastructures in airports must have the capacity to meet exceptional demand when there are excessive numbers of passengers in terminals. In these situations, public mobile networks can quickly run out of capacity. If the airport also depends on these public networks for crisis management communications, as the Begg report found, then this needs to be urgently addressed and a communications channel developed with high resilience and no single point of failure.

In response to the Begg report, Heathrow is an example of an airport that has gone to great lengths to improve its response to adverse weather. The airport has committed to investing £32.4 million to implement Begg’s recommendations. Measures include purchasing additional snow clearing equipment; improving the command and control centre; upgrading heated marquees and ensuring 950 staff now have secondary skills enabling them to provide additional support to keep the airport operational in the event of major travel disruptions.

Gatwick airport has invested £8million in new equipment and doubled its snow clearing fleet to 95 vehicles, bringing it to the same number as Oslo Airport.

Heathrow has outlined its snow plans in its “Winter Resilience Programme Update”, which include equipping staff in terminals with mobile devices to help them to provide passengers with travel updates, extending opening hours at retail outlets and increasing stocks of essential items such as baby food and medical supplies.

 Heathrow is also upgrading its heated marquees, which can be quickly erected so that larger numbers of passengers can be more comfortably accommodated in the event of widespread travel disruption. Electronic flight information panels will be provided in the marquees to enable passengers to gain timely travel updates. Free WiFi hotspots will also be installed in the marquees so that passengers can rebook flights and inform loved ones, while also being able to work, or keep themselves entertained, on their mobile devices.

By improving mobile communications infrastructure, airports can go a long way towards meeting their stated objective of improving the customer experience even when the weather is against us.

For further information on the C&C approach to developing a mobile communications strategy for airport environments, you can download the whitepaper here

References:
Sky News – Anger mounts amid warnings of more snow, 20th December 2010

 

UK Parliament document – “Impact on transport of recent adverse weather conditions – written evidence from Gatwick airport (AWC 20)” February 2011

 

Report of the Heathrow Winter Resilience Enquiry – Professor David Begg, March 2011

 

Heathrow Airport – “Update on Heathrow Winter Resilience Programme”, 29th Sept 2011