World Business Partner
ACI World Business Partners: Innovating for airports By Tunde Oyekola, CEO, El-Mansur Atelier Group and Chair, ACI World Business Partners Advisory Board
ACI’s World Business Partners (WBPs), from well-established companies to entrepreneurial start-ups, are an invaluable specialist source of expertise for the world’s airports, providing solutions which are tailored to the airports sector. With their in-depth understanding of the everyday demands on airports they combine years of experience in the airport environment with leading-edge thinking, thereby ensuring the continued growth of the aviation industry. The panel discussion and presentations at the 2017 ACI Africa/World Annual General Assembly in Mauritius will highlight some of the various ways in which our WBPs are supporting and improving the aviation sector globally and in all ACI regions. ACI Africa (Tunde Oyekola): Alternative business models as a solution for the growth and sustainability of airports Airports are capital-intensive projects, and as such are usually undertaken and subsequently managed by government. However, the successful running of an airport requires money, skill and efficiency devoid of government interference. This has been a continued conflict in the region and a reason why many airports in Africa are not living up to their full potential.
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For example, several airports in the region depend almost entirely on aeronautical revenues and taxes as their main sources of revenue, which is clearly not enough to run the facilities, not to mention maintain and expand them. This has become very obvious over time and the owners are waking up to the need to explore and take advantage of all the other opportunities available, to not only ensure increases in revenue, but also tie this back into improvement of facilities and thereby the enhancing the overall passenger experience. For airports to thrive and grow, the imperative of having alternative business models as a means of generating revenues cannot be overemphasized. Many airports have begun to tap into the expertise provided by ACI WBPs to achieve this goal. ACI Asia-Pacific (Greg Fordham): Next-generation baggage handling concept Passengers will be able to drop their bags at an automated bag drop immediately after disembarking from their train, bus, limousine, taxi, rental car or private vehicle. From the dispersed bag drop units, baggage is fed directly to a “bag factory” in a simple, low cost building adjacent to the terminal. At an appropriate time