Wireless communication strategies in Aviation

 

On top of all these systems, airport operators also need to support a growing number of voice and data services on mobiles, tablets and smartphones used by passengers.

 

As landlords, airports operators have a responsibility to deliver services, not only for passengers, but for all of the businesses operating in their facilities. Their challenge is to find the right balance between delivering a good service to customers and tenants; reducing operating costs; creating new revenue opportunities and achieving business advantage.

 

With such diverse groups of users, an airport’s mobile communications infrastructure will be complex. While a universal solution would be the most cost effective, finding a single solution that suits the different requirements of all mobile users is extremely unlikely.

 

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.

 

Airlines need to understand how to get the best value from using shared services provided by the airport operator. At the same time however, they may need to set up their own discrete networks for localised requirements.

 

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.

 

Yet, better use of mobile communications can create a significant business advantage by enabling airport businesses to move their functionality closer to the locations where the business actually functions. It can be used to help airport operators to process passengers more quickly and cost effectively, for example using self-service check-in kiosks. By offering WiFi in executive lounges, airports improved passenger experience at the airport and added value to the services offered to business customers.

 

The aviation industry has had a tough decade, caused by rising fuel costs and reduced profit margins, resulting in the postponement of many mobile communications update projects. So we welcome the findings of the SITA Airport IT Trends Survey, co-sponsored by Airport Business magazine and Airports Council International. The survey found that most of the largest airports in the world plan to retain or increase their IT investment budget, which currently average 4.4 per cent of revenues, increased from 3.6 per cent in 2009. The largest driver for IT investment was improvements to the customer experience at airports.

 

A key focus in airports’ IT plans was improving mobile services for passengers, to facilitate their journey through terminals, by introducing services such as check-in kiosks  to reduce queuing. More than 80 per cent of the airports that participated in the survey reported that they will provide flight information and operational updates via mobile devices by 2014. A major focus for IT and mobile investment is passenger flow monitoring, so that airport operators can quickly spot bottlenecks and implement measures to ease congestion.

 

Having worked with many airport operators to help them to develop a mobile strategy that will support the requirements of airlines, tenants, partners and passengers, C&C has identified three critical steps that airport operators need to take to clarify their strategy:

 

1.       Understand demand – develop a catalogue of mobile services and establish user profiles to define what tasks people use their devices for, where they need to use them and processes they need to follow. For example, it is critical to identify which users need to use mobile technology in an emergency or major disruption and who must have guaranteed service availability. The focus must be on what mobile services people actually need, rather than what they believe they need. Devices should be considered last. Look at requirements.

 

2.       Develop a roadmap – evaluate existing technology. Assess any constraints. Then, consider how to best use existing mobile infrastructure to support user demand, or business change. Few organisations can justify the complete replacement of existing mobile and wireless infrastructure. Regrettably, there is no single technology that can provide a universal solution to meet the user requirements for all airport-based businesses.

 

3.       Build the mobile communications strategy – a successful strategy depends on six critical points of priority: Coverage, capacity, resilience, flexibility, security and device management. Of course, any mobile communications technology deployed will also have to comply with the relevant communications legislation.

 

When developing a mobile communications roadmap for aviation clients we also have to factor in the integration of digital and IP-based communications with IT systems. This is a highly complex undertaking, particularly when some systems rely on public networks. Cellular is a standard technology that can be deployed privately in airports to support business and public services.  Airport operators can also consider private WiFi and emerging technologies such as 4G. However, the requirements-based approach will keep airport operators focused on what they actually need to support, as well as paving the way for advances in technology so that customer experience can be improved, while airport operations are safely delivered well in to the future.

 

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