Digital Technologies and Innovation in Airport services Assignment

Assignment Task

Comparison of airport’s digital innovation

Amsterdam Airport

Amsterdam Schiphol airport, one of Europe's busiest airports located in the Netherlands, is highly digitised and automation driven, both airside and landside. A large driver of landside automation at any airport is the understanding of passenger needs and wants, which is primarily to travel through the airport swifty and independently (Miskolczi, 2021). The intuitive nature of modern Al and artificial assistance decreases the need for human interaction, expediting the rate of travel from carpark to gate, a concept recognised by the Amsterdam airport. This 'one terminal' airport - an extension of Schiphol Central Plaza - facilitates an average of 1,269 flights per day, with an expectation of a 1,310 flight increase after the holiday duringMay (Schiphol, 2023). In 2019, Schiphol catered to a record 72 million passengers, 1.57 million tons of cargo, 102 airlines, 332 direct locations, and 496,826 air transport movements (Schiphol Traffic Review, 2019, p. 4). To expedite the rate of land side (in terminal) passenger movements, Schiphol uses at home check-in services, self-serve kiosks, and self-serve baggage drop (Schiphol, 2023). In areas where human monitoring is necessary, automation may manifest in the form of security scanning. High-tech, full body scanners at security, have replaced the need for human led, manual body scanning with a detecting wand. Schiphol uses a passenger screening system that detects untoward substances through using 'millimetre waves. These waves bounce off certain substances or materials that translate to a yellow highlighted area on the screen that the security personnel monitors (Schiphol Newsroom, 2017). This scanning and detection requires the passenger to remain in an 'arms out' position, which allows the machine to clearly pinpoint areas for further inspection. This automation has prevented security lane build up from the usual 1 minute wand scan and inspection, to a mere 2 seconds (Schiphol Newsroom, 2017), which has contributed to the expedited rate of passenger traffic through the airport.

Heathrow airport

The Heathrow airport is Britain's busiest, serving 19.4 million in 2021, which averages out to 128,178 passengers daily (Heathrow, 2021). Further data from Heathrow (2021) indicates that 87.6% of passengers were international, and 12.4% domestic. The demographics traveling through Heathrow were indicated as such: 62% travelled for leisure, and 28% travelled for business (Heathrow, 2021). When it comes to cargo, Heathrow supported 1.4 million tonnes, being UK's largest port, serving a network of 350 global destinations at minimum (Heathrow, 2021). This data requires Heathrow to operate efficiently which can be accomplished through digital innovation. Currently, the landside section of the airport uses self-service bag drops in their terminals, similar to Schiphol, allowing travellers "more time to do some shopping" (Anita, 2012, as cited in Heathrow, 2012). A major digital innovation that British airways trilled in Heathrow's terminal 5, is help robots that were deployed at customer service agents. Through the use of 360° cameras and sensor technology (Creedy, 2019), these robots assist customers with simpler issues, such as directions and locations, such that human customer service agents can tackle the more complex issues (Creedy, 2019). British Airways is also investing in autonomous driving carts to assist customers in transporting their luggage, making their travel through Heathrow more enjoyable (Creedy, 2019). Heathrow's business model is moving towards a more automated and digitised approach, with one major investment into security biometric systems for the purpose of determining the identity of passengers (ATKINS, 2019). It will fast track the passenger traffic flow by Ding passengers at self-baggage checks and autonomous gate boardings (ATKINS, 2019). When completed and implemented, the system will be built on the 'PASS2' program, which currently monitors passenger identification, incorporating the use of facial scanning cameras. As aforementioned, this technology will not only enhance safety and security measures but eliminate the need for human driven passenger checking systems, speeding up the check-in and boarding.

When it comes to airside digitalisation, air traffic control is at the heart of innovation, as it is integral to the proper functioning and safety of the passengers and flight crew. Armitage (2019) discusses Heathrow's potential use of Al (the exact system is undisclosed) to minimise delays resulting from low visibility due to the time air traffic controllers leave between take-off and departures for extra safety. Armitage (2019) adds that "during low visibility procedures, air traffic controllers are forced to rely on radar to know if an arriving aircraft has left the runway, giving extra time between each landing for safety." By implementing the use of 4K HD cameras and the Al system, air traffic controllers will be able to clear subsequent aircraft for take-off and landing faster as the need for visual reliance in low-vis environments is eliminated. Airside technological innovation at Heathrow airport has also manifested in the de-icing system used on runways. Heathrow has implemented the use of computer driven runway heat through inbuilt piping, using solar power systems (Kalder et al., 2019). The official system is called the interseasonal heat transfer, or IHT, where extra sunlight that hits the runway is stores in thermal banks, to then be used in colder weather to maintain the runway's thermal levels to above freezing point (Kalder et al., 2019). This technology is generally used for heating buildings in residential areas, however, Heathrow has implemented the IHT system in its runways to prevent the use of harsher de-icing chemicals, such as propylene-glycol that is heated to 150 degrees and sprayed over the aircraft and runways, with each application lasting only 22 minutes (Cathy, 2022)

London City airport

The London City airport is situated on a former Docklands property six miles east from the City of London and three miles from Canary Wharf. It is the city's fifth-largest airport and only Short Take Off and Landing (STOL) aircraft are permitted to operate there. More than 30 corporate centres in Europe and North America are served by the airport, which also provides services to a small number of leisure destinations in Europe. The airport, a significant hub for corporate aviation, also serves the London financial area (CAPA, 2023). Prior to the pandemic, the London City Airport carried 5 million passengers annually, the majority of them were business travellers going to cities in Europe including Frankfurt and Amsterdam (Young, 2021). More than 5,122,000 passengers passed through the airport in 2019, with over 490,000 passing through it in July of that same year (CAPA, 2023). Also in 2019, after extensive testing and live demonstrations of the ground-breaking technology during lockdown, the London City Airport became the first major international airport in the world to be entirely operated by a remote digital air traffic control tower. On the other hand, as part of City Airport's modernisation effort, the 30-year-old analogue tower, which needed a considerable overhaul, will be refurbished (NATS, 2021).Due to the digital tower innovation, the London City Airport won the Airport Council International's (ACI) award of Airport with best digital transformation in 2022. The award also mentioned that the success of the innovation is contributed by the collaboration of the London City Airport with NATS, SAAB, UK CAA airlines and local communities (ACI, 2022). The airport first considered building a remote tower in 2016 after realising that it would need to make considerable improvements to the ageing control tower in order to move forwards with a 500 million pound expansion plan to accommodate more substantial aircraft. Even though the new remote tower for London City Airport cost little under 20 million pounds ($28 million) to design and construct, it is not mainly intended to save money (Young, 2021). The cutting-edge 50m digital control tower is located in Swanwick, Hampshirewhich is 115 kms away from the airport and from here, the air traffic controllers give guidance to the taking-off and landing operations of all the lights at the airport (NATS, 2021). In order to acquire a 360-degree picture of the airport's airfield, the digital tower is outfitted with sixteen high-definition cameras and sensors positioned on the mast. The information is transmitted over a lightning-fast fibre link to a brand-new control room at NATS's Swanwick air traffic control facility. To guide aircraft movements into and out of the airport, a dedicated crew of controllers uses real-time video, an audio feed from the airfield, and radar data (NATS, 2021). The live view of the airport, captured from the cameras, is transferred to the digital tower and displayed on 14 HD screens in the Swanwick control room to provide a panoramic moving image. To offer a better image of reality, digital data can be superimposed on top of this. This single visual display can incorporate data like as call signs, the altitude and speed of every aircraft arriving at and departing from the airport, weather measurements, and the capability to follow moving objects. For detailed examination, pan-tilt-zoom cameras may magnify pictures up to 30 times (NATS, 2021). Moreover, the tower also includes metal spikes on top to keep birds away from the cameras, and each camera has a self-cleaning feature to prevent bugs and other debris from impairing the lenses (Young, 2021).

Istanbul airport

The greatest infrastructure project in Turkish Republic history, Istanbul Airport, which is 35 kilometres outside the city centre, began operations on October 29, 2018, according to CAPA (2023). In four phases, the airport's development began in 2015 and is expected to be finished by 2027, increasing the airport's capacity to 150-200 million passengers (Bodell, 2021). A terminal building to accommodate both domestic and international flights, five runways-three independent and two standby-and an air traffic control tower that would enable the airport to handle up to 90 million passengers were all added during the first phase of construction for the 76.5 million square mete airport (CAPA, 2023). Nearly 64.5 million passengers passed through the airport in 2022, a 24% increase from the pre-pandemic level of the year 2019 (CAPA, 2023). In terms of accomplishments, the airport received the "Digital Transformation Award" from ACI as part of the 16th ACI Europe Awards in 2020, recognising the airport's digital transformation and technical advancements that have helped it become one of the "smartest" airports in the world (Bailey, 2020). The Internet of Things (loT) technology, which acts as a tracking mechanism and was thought to efficiently monitor data to bring down operating costs and build a smarter, safer airport, was mentioned as a factor in the airport's winning this award (Bailey, 2020 & CAMARILLO,2019). 3,000 long-range, low-power sensors (also known as LoRa-based sensors) which would expand to 10,000 after the airport was finished, made up the Istanbul Airport's loT platform. The airport also put in place the LoRaWAN network and applications system to link all the aforementioned sensors, which other airport tenants and airline firms will also use. Istanbul Airport uses LoRa-based geolocation sensors to track the whereabouts of cars, people, and luggage without the need of a GPS. The LoRaWAN-based network architecture satisfies the requirements for interoperability and effective project management for both indoor and outdoor applications. By enabling predictive maintenance, precise asset monitoring, and reduced energy usage, data from the LoRa-based sensors lowers airport operational costs. Through the cloud loT platform of a third party, all data monitoring and analysis are carried out (CAMARILLO, 2019). One use for the system is to enable the security authority to pinpoint the specific location of dangers and eradicate them more promptly in the event of a security breach or other detected threats. From the perspective of the passengers, this technology would reduce the likelihood of missing the aircraft by shortening the overall line duration as well as guiding and directing passengers to the right gate (Mra, Badánik, Novák, 2021

Recommendations/Future

Challenges

The potential drawbacks by applying digital innovation were not only the key element for the airports to tackle, but also the challenges of current and future digitisation. Currently, the airports have to resolve the hurdle of how effectively humans can interact with the different new sophiacated machines and systems with lower human error. Such as the current air traffic control system deployed by SESAR in France. The International Civil Aviation Organization (2013) argued that from the shell model, the level of human interaction with hardware can have a significant positive or negative impact on aviation operation. Time can be another focal point for airports to overcome as the time required to implement and popularition of the digitisation of airports. The time required of the airports to offer proper training and educating for the employee to be more efficient to interact with the new technologies, as well as to ensure the employee obtained the new interdisciplinary qualification. (Zaharia & Pietreanu, 2018).

By implementing new technologies for the airports mean that there will be a new business model and organisational culture. The organisational culture in current aeronautical organisations display a main role to achieve success of digital transformation (Zaharia & Pietreanu, 2018). As a result, an important action is compulsory for the airports to promote positive organisational culture of the meaning of digitisation to all levels of the management. The future challenge will be the last challenge of the airport, as well as the long-term challenges for airports. Airports need sustainable effort over many years to address those challenges such as costs and regulatory requirements. As the time lapse, the costs of digitalisation may spurial up or regulation may be more complicated and volatile. According to the Frost and Sullivan (2020) report, the cost of digital transformation for airports was 4.8 billion dollars in 2020 and will reach 16.8 billion dollars by 2025. Another research from SITA report noticed that in 2019, air transport globally spent 11,8 billion dollars (SITA, 2019). Additionally, sustainable and societal responsibility for the airports (Zaharia & Pietreanu, 2018). Sustainable and societal responsibility is a complicated issue, such as the issue of a more severe environment impaired by the future development of the digitisation of the airports and how to offer a more inhabitable environment for the local community close to the airports (Zaharia & Pietreanu, 2018). Lastly, the issue of energy consumption and electronic waste of the airports digitisation. Yet, if airports viewed future challenges as long-term challenges, which could encourage them to generate more optimal strategie and lasting changes to address those challenges.

Recommendations

• How you foresee the future of airports and recommendations?

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