Airport World, Issue 2, 2015

In the spotlight: Customer service Airport report: Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta Special report: ASQ winners Plus: Chinese airport development & security

Words are not enough April–May 2015 Volume 20 Issue 2 www.aci.aero

OPINION ;OL THNHaPUL VM [OL (PYWVY[Z *V\UJPS 0U[LYUH[PVUHS

Airport World Editor Joe Bates +44 (0) 20 8831 7507 joe@airport-world.com Design, Layout & Production Mark Draper +44 (0) 20 8831 7504 mark@airport-world.com Erica Cooper+44 (0)20 8831 7562 erica@aviationmedia.aero Website Design & Production José Cuenca +44 (0) 20 8831 7517 jose@aviationmedia.aero Sales Director Jonathan Lee +44 (0) 20 8831 7563 jonathan@airport-world.com Advertising Manager Kalpesh Vadher +44 (0) 20 8831 7510 kalpesh@airport-world.com Andrew Hazell +44 (0) 20 8831 7518 andrewh@airport-world.com Subscriptions subscriptions@airport-world.com

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Charm

offensive Airport World editor, Joe Bates, reflects on the importance of going the extra mile for good customer service.

B

y the time you read this the UK will have a new government as the nation went to the polls on May 7 to decide who will be in power for the next five years.

Don’t worry, I am not going to bore you to death with any party political broadcast; I only mention it because I have been intrigued and somewhat amused by the ‘charm offensive’ of politicians and the big political parties in the build up to the big event.

True, this pre-election phenomenon is nothing new as we are all familiar with the pictures in our history books that show politicians across the world kissing babies, patting dogs or helping grannies across the road during election campaigns. However, probably like many of you out there I cannot help feeling a little angry about why they don’t show us this kind of ‘love and attention’ all the time.

Why, for example, do we have to wait four years for a live leaders’ debate on TV about hugely important topics that will potentially shape the future of our countries for a generation, or for the local politician to knock on our door, introduce themselves and ask how we are feeling about things?

It is, of course, all a bit of a sideshow and unbelievably something politicians seem to be able to get away with for now. Just imagine if airports took this same kind of complacent attitude towards passengers and customer service.

Thankfully, they don’t, and we have seen the results over the last decade as customer

satisfaction levels have soared to new heights as an ever-increasing number of airports have gone that extra mile to become more passenger-friendly and service-focused.

This evolution has taken many forms, of course, ranging from new and innovative airport design, IT enhancements and unique or X-factor facilities such as ice rinks, cinemas, museums and art galleries to sense-of-place retail/F&B outlets and a simple smile.

You can read about some of the latest innovations in this ‘customer service’ themed issue of Airport World, which also includes the 2014 ACI Airport Service Quality (ASQ) customer satisfaction survey results and news, views and comment from some of this year’s winners. My congratulations go to all of them.

Elsewhere in this issue we interview Miguel Southwell, aviation general manager at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the world’s busiest passenger gateway, and have a special report on Chinese airport development.

We report on the highlights of February’s Airport Economics & Finance Conference & Exhibition in London, hear from ACI World’s director general, Angela Gittens, and discover more about Birmingham International Airport’s energy-saving initiatives.

Baggage handling and security also come under the microscope in this action-packed edition.

It might not be politically correct to say it, but I hope you find this issue a AW jolly good read!

AIRPORT WORLD/APRIL-MAY 2015

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CONTENTS

Issue 2 Volume 20

In this issue 3 Opinion Airport World editor, Joe Bates, reflects on the importance of going the extra mile for good customer service.

8 Money matters Lively debate and a record 300 delegates from 56 countries helped make the seventh Airport Economics & Finance Conference & Exhibition one to remember, writes Joe Bates.

10 ACI news ACI’s preliminary traffic figures for 2014 confirm that Dubai (DXB) is now the world’s busiest airport for international passenger traffic ahead of London-Heathrow, writes Patrick Lucas.

13 View from the top Angela Gittens, director general of ACI World, discusses the role that customer service excellence plays in ensuring the economic viability of airports.

14 The job creation business Aviation general manager, Miguel Southwell, tells Joe Bates about the economic importance of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and how its success is vital to the entire region.

20 Winners all Airport World reviews the highlights of ACI’s 2014 Airport Service Quality (ASQ) awards and talks to some of the award-winning gateways.

25 Putting people first

Airport International Group CEO, Kjeld Binger, talks to Joe Bates about the customer service philosophy of Amman’s Queen Alia International Airport.

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CONTENTS

Director General Angela Gittens Chair Fredrick J Piccolo (Sarasota, USA) Vice Chair Declan Collier (London, UK) Immediate Past Chair Yiannis Paraschis (Athens, Greece) Treasurer Stefan Schulte (Frankfurt, Germany) ACI WORLD GOVERNING BOARD DIRECTORS Africa (3) Pascal Komla (Lomé, Togo) Bongani Maseko (Johannesburg, South Africa) Robinson Misitala (Livingstone, Zambia)

28 Tales of the unexpected New initiatives, services and innovative design continue to raise the bar on customer service levels at airports worldwide, writes Joe Bates.

33 On the menu Airport World highlights the latest retail/F&B-focused customer service initiatives introduced by Gebr Heinemann and Stansted and Helsinki airports.

34 Planning ahead Skanska USA’s MacAdam Glinn reflects on how the quest for greater efficiency, flexibility and a better customer experience is driving renovation projects at US airports.

37 Watching brief Airport World reports on the trial, development and installation of a handful of new security technologies.

39 China in their hands With major new airports being built in Beijing, Qingdao and elsewhere and dozens of existing gateways adding new state-of-the-art facilities, these are exciting times for China, writes Joe Bates.

43 On the case New installations, contract wins, reports and the launch of a hybrid luggage drop system have ensured a busy few months for airport baggage handlers and technology suppliers.

47 Going green Sharing accountability for energy savings has led to Birmingham Airport saving over €450,000 on energy bills in the past two years, writes Matt Whitehead.

49 ACI’s World Business Partners 50 People matters Dr Richard Plenty and Terri Morrisey provide their thoughts on: The customer service role of frontline staff.

Asia-Pacific (8) Kjeld Binger (Amman, Jordan) Dennis Chant (Gold Coast, Australia) Kenichi Fukaya (Tokyo, Japan) Saud AR Hashem (Jeddah, Saudi Arabia) Seow Hiang Lee (Singapore) Kerrie Mather (Sydney, Australia) Emmanuel Menanteau (Phnom Penh, Cambodia) PS Nair (Delhi, India) Europe (7) Declan Collier (London, UK) Arnaud Feist (Brussels, Belgium) Michael Kerkloh (Munich, Germany) Tonci Peovic (Bol, Croatia) Stefan Schulte (Frankfurt, Germany) Sani Sener (Istanbul, Turkey) José-Manuel Vargas (Madrid, Spain) Latin America & Caribbean (3) Martin Eurnekian (Buenos Aires, Argentina) Héctor Navarrete Muñoz (Merida, Mexico) 1 vacancy North America (7) Thella Bowens (San Diego, USA) James Cherry (Montréal, Canada) Fredrick J Piccolo (Sarasota, USA) Mark Reis (Seattle, USA) Maureen Riley (Salt Lake City, USA) Tom Ruth (Edmonton, Canada) William Vanecek (Buffalo, USA) Regional Advisers to the World Governing Board (8) Aaron Adderley (Hamilton, Bermuda) Haluk Bilgi (Tunis, Tunisia) Howard Eng (Toronto, Canada) Deborah Ale Flint (Oakland, USA) Xue Song Liu (Beijing, China) Tan Sri Bashir Ahmad Abdul Majid (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) Andrew O’Brian (Quito, Ecuador) Zouhair Mohamed El Oufir (Rabat, Morocco) Observer World Business Partner Board Chairperson Greg Fordham (Airbiz) Correct as of April 17, 2015

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CELEBRATING 20 YEARS OF AIRPORT WORLD

EVENTS: ECONOMICS & FINANCE

Money matters Lively debate and a record 300 delegates from 56 countries helped make the seventh Airport Economics & Finance Conference & Exhibition one to remember, writes Joe Bates.

I

n her opening address, ACI World’s director general, Angela Gittens, reflected on passenger growth and the economic performance of the world’s airports in 2014.

Noting that global passenger growth increased by 4.9% in 2014 and industry income by 5.4% in 2013 to $131 billion, she told delegates: “The traffic headline is the overall resilience in the demand for air transport in the face of the economic, geopolitical and health risks that prevailed in 2014.

“The growth story over the last few years has really been about emerging markets and developing economies, and this is still true, although this growth is more muted than in years past and some of the advanced economies are showing improvement.

“The economics headline is that while the industry as a whole looks profitable, this is primarily true for the world’s major commercial airports. The majority of airports are small and that majority is loss-making.”

Citing the Preview Edition of ACI’s 2014 Economics Survey, premiered at the event, she revealed that Europe’s airports hold the greatest proportion of global airport income (38%) – despite the weakest year-on-year growth in overall revenues of just 2.3% – followed by Asia-Pacific (28%) and North America (22%).

Retail continues to be the leading source of non-aeronautical income for airports at 27% of the total followed by car parking (20%) and real estate (18%).

ACI’s global leader also didn’t waste the opportunity to remind the legislators, politicians and decision-makers in the audience that 67% of the world’s airports operate at a loss.

“While the airport industry as a whole is profitable, with airports posting net profit margins in the realm of 16% in 2013, 67% of airports globally operate at a net loss,” said Gittens.

“Eighty per cent of airports with fewer than a million passengers lose money. Looked at another way, of the airports that reported a net loss in 2013, 93% have fewer than a million passengers.

“Industry profitability is primarily driven by the 20% of airports that carry the bulk of passenger and cargo traffic. Size still matters.”

Outlining the opportunities and challenges facing Asia-Pacific’s airports, ACI Asia-Pacific’s regional director, Patti Chau, remarked: “The biggest challenge faced by airports in our region is coping with growth.”

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CELEBRATING 20 YEARS OF AIRPORT WORLD

She cited the growth of low-cost carriers (LCCs) across the region as a significant factor in the continued rise in demand as they had helped make air travel more accessible to millions.

However, she also noted that their growth – LCCs today account for 25% of the market compared to just 5% a decade ago and provide 60% of all aircraft seats in South East Asia – had created a series of operational, infrastructure and capacity challenges for airports.

And she announced that she expects the LCCs to continue to set the pace for the foreseeable future, particularly as the Chinese government recently changed its policy to become more supportive of LCC development.

Chau concluded by noting that private sector influence on airport development continues to grow throughout the Asia-Pacific region through airport concessions, BOT projects and PPP transactions delivering significant economic benefit to cities and regions.

She predicted that up to 49 new airports could be privatised or benefit from private sector funding to upgrade their facilities in the next five years, naming countries such as India and the Philippines as nations open to third-party investors.

In an upbeat presentation, ACI Europe director general, Olivier Jankovec, told delegates that 2014 had been a strong year for the continent’s airports in terms of traffic recovery despite the political and financial unrest in parts of Europe.

He also spoke of the importance of the EU’s new aviation package, which is due to be introduced later this year.

Going into more details about it in a press conference, Jankovec stated: “We are expecting a paradigm shift in the EU’s aviation policy to boost connectivity for Europe and unleash the value of aviation for the economy and job creation.”

He said that if the aviation package followed the lead of the Juncker Commission this would mean less regulation as opposed to the tendency to over-regulate, but “doing more when it can add value”.

Jankovec noted that the fact that the aviation package is one of the top 23 priorities of the European Commission “represented a major change in attitude towards aviation and recognition that it is good for the economy”.

“This is a new and welcome development because if you look at the treatment of aviation by previous commissions, it seems as if they were more interested in capping its growth rather than supporting it,” he said.

EVENTS: ECONOMICS & FINANCE

London City Airport CEO and next ACI World chairman, Declan Collier, reminded everyone that these are exciting and pivotal times for London’s airport system.

“In just a few months’ time the Airports Commission will decide the future of the London airport system in terms of where the capacity will be put to serve the capital for the next 30 to 40 years,” he commented.

“It is currently the world’s busiest airport system, welcoming 140 million passengers last year. However, we are running out of capacity and the decision where any new capacity goes is critical.

“In Europe alone, the aviation industry is responsible for €680 billion worth of GDP per annum and employs more than 12 million people. In the UK a million people are employed and £52 billion worth of GDP is created every year by aviation. We are a big and important industry.”

The conference began with a keynote address from the World Bank’s senior director for transport, information and communications, Pierre Guislain, and ended with an exciting retail/F&B-focused debate about ‘supercharging non-aeronautical revenues’.

In between there were a number of interesting and informative sessions on everything from ‘future structure of the airline industry’, ‘regulatory frameworks – best practice and new thinking’ and ‘managing risk’ to ‘the economic multiplier’ moderated by the World Bank’s effervescent lead air transport specialist, AW Charles Schlumberger.

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ACI WORLD NEWS

World in motion ACI’s preliminary traffic figures for 2014 confirm that Dubai (DXB) is now the world’s busiest airport for international passenger traffic ahead of London-Heathrow, writes Patrick Lucas.

B

ased on reports from 1,095 airports worldwide, ACI’s preliminary passenger traffic results for 2014 show that the top four ranked positions with respect to the world’s busiest airports in overall passenger traffic have not changed as compared to 2013.

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta (+1.9%) continues to be the world’s busiest airport with over 96 million passengers in 2014. While Beijing Capital (+2.9%) was expected to close the gap, it no longer has double-digit growth as in previous years, placing it in second position.

London-Heathrow (+1.4%) remains in third while Tokyo-Haneda (+5.7%) preserves fourth position. However, Los Angeles (+6%) and Dubai (+6.1%) have moved ahead of Chicago-O’Hare (+4.6%), occupying the fifth and sixth rank respectively.

Although Dubai (DXB) is the sixth busiest airport in the world in overall passenger traffic, it has actually become the world’s busiest in terms of international passenger traffic ahead of London-Heathrow in 2014.

Dubai was just shy of reaching the 70 million international passenger mark by the end of 2014.

Istanbul Atatürk (+10.7%) remains one of the fastest-growing airports among the world’s top 20 airports for passenger traffic, moving from 18th to 13th rank ahead of Amsterdam Schiphol (+4.6%).

The world’s largest air cargo hub continues to be Hong Kong (+6%).

Memphis (+2.9%) is in second followed by Shanghai (+8.6%) and Incheon (+3.8%) in third and fourth rank respectively. Anchorage (+3%) moves up ahead of Dubai (-3.1%) to fifth position.

Chicago-O’Hare (-0.2%) has become the world’s busiest airport for aircraft movements following a drop in movements at the second ranked Atlanta (-4.7%) in 2014. Los Angeles (+1.7%) and Dallas/Fort Worth (+0.3%) maintain the third and fourth ranked positions respectively.

Beijing Capital (+2.5%) moves ahead of Denver (-2.9%).

ACI World’s economics director, Rafael Echevarne, commented: “The airport that continued to make its mark in 2014 was Dubai International.

Summary: Preliminary results for 2014 as compared to 2013 Total Passengers: +5.1% Total International Passengers: +6% Total Cargo (includes mail): +4.5% Total International Freight: +5.4% Total Aircraft Movements: +1% The airport has solidified its status as the world’s major international connecting hub.

“Dubai is the fulcrum that connects long-haul international flights from east and west, north and south. That being said, its sister airport, Dubai World Central, under the same Dubai Airports organisation, is poised to surpass these feats by becoming the world’s largest global gateway with capacity of more than 160 million passengers per year and a multi-modal logistics hub for 12 million tonnes of air cargo.

“Since the commencement of its operations the airport has become the 29th busiest air cargo airport in the world, handling almost 760,000 metric tonnes of cargo in 2014. With its astonishing capacity and growth, aviation’s nucleus certainly has moved eastward.”

WORLDWIDE AIRPORT TRAFFIC REPORT SUMMARY Preliminary results 2014* Stats regions Africa Asia-Pacific Europe Latin America & Caribbean Middle East North America ACI

PAX 172,027,124 2,179,889,392 1,820,048,380 532,726,988 306,639,724 1,622,163,041 6,633,494,648

% change 4.8% 5.9% 5.2% 6.3% 10.1% 3.3% 5.1%

* Global extrapolation based on 1,095 reporting airports.

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CELEBRATING 20 YEARS OF AIRPORT WORLD

Cargo 1,835,153 39,276,009 18,417,362 5,062,631 7,074,584 28,798,584 100,464,251

% change 2.5% 6.0% 3.4% 0.1% 8.9% 3.3% 4.5%

Movements 2,754,875 19,062,419 21,095,380 8,417,041 2,619,072 28,969,504 82,918,291

% change 2.0% 3.9% 1.6% 1.3% 4.9% -1.3% 1.0%

ACI WORLD NEWS

ACI events

2015

2015

2015

2015

2015

October 4-7

August 31-Sept 2

October 20-22

June 24-26

September 16-18

ACI-NA Annual Conference & Exhibition Long Beach, USA

ACI World and Latin America & Caribbean Annual Conference & Exhibition Panama City, Panama

ACI Africa Assembly, Conference & Exhibition Hammamet, Tunisia

ACI Europe General Assembly, Congress & Exhibition Prague, Czech Republic

The Trinity Forum Hong Kong, China

ACI offices ACI World Angela Gittens Director General PO Box 302 800 Rue du Square Victoria Montréal, Quebec H4Z 1G8 Canada Tel: +1 514 373 1200 Fax: +1 514 373 1201 aci@aci.aero www.aci.aero

ACI Fund for Developing Nations’ Airports Angela Gittens Managing Director Tel: + 1 514 373 1200 Fax: +1 514 373 1201 acifund@aci.aero

ACI Africa Ali Tounsi Secretary General Casablanca, Morocco Tel: +212 660 156 916 atounsi@aci-africa.aero www.aci-africa.aero

ACI Latin America & Caribbean Javier Martinez Botacio Director General Panama City, Panama Tel: +507 238 2691 jmartinez@aci-lac.aero www.aci-lac.aero

ACI Asia-Pacific Patti Chau Regional Director Hong Kong SAR, China Tel: +852 2180 9449 Fax: +852 2180 9462 info@aci-asiapac.aero www.aci-asiapac.aero

ACI Europe Olivier Jankovec Director General Brussels, Belgium Tel: +32 (2) 552 0978 Fax: +32 (2) 502 5637 danielle.michel@aci-europe.org www.aci-europe.org

ACI North America Kevin Burke President & CEO Washington DC, USA Tel: +1 202 293 8500 Fax: +1 202 331 1362 postmaster@aci-na.org www.aci-na.org

As of January 2015, ACI accounts for 590 regular members operating 1,850 airports in 173 countries. In 2014, airports worldwide welcomed 6.6 billion passengers and handled 100 million metric tonnes of cargo and 83 million aircraft movements. ACI is a non-profit organisation whose prime purpose is to advance the interests of airports and to promote professional excellence in airport management and operations.

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ACI VIEWPOINT

View from the top Angela Gittens, director general of ACI World, discusses the role that customer service excellence plays in ensuring the economic viability of airports.

A

irports are no longer simply places where planes land and take off; they are sophisticated businesses in their own right.

In an era of intensifying competition and challenged financial margins, we recognise that the term ‘sustainability’ must include more than environmental stewardship. In addition to the top priorities of safety and security, financial sustainability cannot be taken for granted.

Increasing non-aeronautical revenue has become an area of concentration for airports looking to remain economically viable and finance the costly infrastructure projects required to accommodate their communities’ demand for access to air service.

It has been known for some time that satisfied, comfortable travellers tend to spend more on the concourse at retail and food and beverage locations. As such, ensuring customer service excellence from curbside to boarding has necessarily become a high-priority objective for airports around the world.

ACI’s Airport Service Quality (ASQ) programme gives airports the tools they need to achieve excellence in passenger satisfaction.

As the industry’s most comprehensive customer service benchmarking tool, the ACI ASQ Survey covers 34 key service areas and includes eight major categories such as access, check-in, security, airport facilities, food and beverage, retail and more.

All participating airports use the same survey questions, creating an industry-standard set of responses that allows participants to track and analyse their performance, as well as benchmark results against airports across the globe.

Moreover, all participating airports can view the ASQ Survey results of all other participating airports on a confidential basis.

As we enter this second century of commercial aviation, we can see that airports are committed to going over and above passengers’ expectations with innovations and service.

The many criteria to solidifying customer loyalty are intertwined and pose challenges that ASQ airport participants are facing head-on by gaining fact-based intelligence to guide efforts and optimise investments. In this competitive landscape, the ASQ Survey is a tool that provides data to assist all airports to identify gaps, put in place corrective measures and raise the bar in customer service excellence.

I hope you enjoy this special customer service-themed issue of Airport World. Much like the ASQ programme, it has been crafted to give you insights on the latest developments and innovations in this fast-changing field so you can put this deceptively simple equation – better service, improved traffic and a healthier bottom line – to work at your airport.

AW

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AIRPORT REPORT: ATLANTA

The job creation business Aviation general manager, Miguel Southwell, tells Joe Bates about the economic importance of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and how its success is vital to the entire region.

W

hen Miguel Southwell was appointed aviation director at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in May 2014, some could have been forgiven for thinking that he could now put his feet up as he had made it to the very top.

After all, Hartsfield-Jackson is the busiest airport in the world, handling in excess of 96 million passengers, and has a well-established management team in place that is used to getting the best out of the 63,000 employees at the gateway.

Georgia’s gateway to the world is also still reaping the benefits of the May 2012 opening of its Maynard H Jackson Jnr International Terminal, which continues to win rave reviews from passengers.

However, with the last phase of development over, Southwell and his team are tasked with the responsibility of coming up with new business ideas and formulating a new master plan that will shape the airport’s development for the next 15 to 20 years.

He is also more than aware that he has big shoes to fill after becoming only the third aviation general manager at Hartsfield-Jackson in 15 years, succeeding former airport veteran Louis Miller and the long-serving Benjamin DeCosta, who previously spent 12 years in the hot seat.

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CELEBRATING 20 YEARS OF AIRPORT WORLD

So has he found his new role a little daunting? “No, I wouldn’t say that,” laughs Southwell. “I’d use the words exciting, challenging and an incredible opportunity.

“You do feel an enormous amount of responsibility combined with a great sense of humility, actually.

“Every airport is different, of course, and fortunately for the city of Atlanta the airport has had some really great leaders, so the challenge for someone coming in, such as myself, is how do you build upon what they already have.

“We have an amazing management team and an amazing facility.

How do you further improve that? I see this as my obligation and a fantastic opportunity, although I know it won’t be as there is already such a high level of performance.”

It helps that he is also no stranger to ATL, having previously spent 11 years at the gateway in various leadership positions — including serving as the interim assistant general manager for business and finance — before joining Miami International Airport in 2001 as its deputy general manager of business.

Southwell believes that an airport is constantly evolving and cites Hartsfield-Jackson’s security operation and the gateway’s aesthetics — he feels some areas could benefit from being brighter and lighter

AIRPORT REPORT: ATLANTA

— as areas where he thinks improvements can be made from a customer service perspective.

Existing and future infrastructure He also notes that before an airport spends billions of dollars on building new infrastructure it first should concentrate on “taking care of the facilities it already has”, which in Atlanta’s case is a handful of mostly 35-year-old terminals.

In line with this philosophy, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) is embarking on a terminal modernisation programme to make its facilities more appealing to today’s new breed of more savvy passengers.

“Now is our opportunity to enhance our existing terminals to provide passengers with the type of facilities that they want and expect from us,” says Southwell, noting that the airport has learned much more about the travel psyche of passengers since its terminals were designed some 40 years ago.

Explaining a little more about this greater understanding of its passengers, he admits that today ATL accepts the fact that most people find travelling a stressful experience, and that anxiety levels can be eased or worsened by the airport experience.

“Simple things like letting more light in to the terminal, for example, can have a strong positive impact on passengers, regardless of how much of a road warrior they are,” remarks Southwell.

“So, as we look to modernise the terminals, we shall look to remove some of the solid walls and replace them with glass. We shall also introduce brighter lighting and new seating with a power supply that allows people to recharge the computers and cellphones that nobody had 35 years ago.

“There is actually quite a lot we can do and that makes this a really exciting time to be at Hartsfield-Jackson.”

Today, ATL boasts 6.8 million square feet of terminal space spread across a Domestic Terminal, Maynard H Jackson Jnr International Terminal and concourses T, A, B, C, D, E and F, which between them boast 207 gates, including 40 dedicated for international operations.

The new 1.2 million square feet Maynard H Jackson terminal and 12-gate Concourse F is arguably the jewel in its crown and is the most environmentally friendly facility based on its cutting-edge LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification.

In terms of future expansion, Southwell lists the next priority projects as being new car parking facilities and the addition of a $75 million outer taxiway that will boost airfield efficiency by ensuring that aircraft no longer have to taxi across active runways to get to the terminal buildings.

A total of $600 million has been set aside for new car parking facilities, which will be built on the site of its existing north and south car parking complexes, and the modernisation of car parking facilities A and B. Next on the agenda is a 10-gate Concourse G and new cargo facilities, which Southwell wants to boost freight activity at ATL — an area he feels is still underdeveloped despite more than 600,000 tonnes of cargo being handled at the airport last year.

Cargo development “Our number one priority from a commercial point of view is to grow cargo at the airport, and it’s more about growing the number of jobs we are producing at the airport than raising volumes,” says Southwell.

He believes that cargo is ripe for development because of Atlanta’s route network, its “favourable location” within a two-hour flight of 80% of the US population and the fact that the airport is hugely under-utilised after the final daily passenger flights take-off or touch down at around 11pm.

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AIRPORT REPORT: ATLANTA

“We have 63,000 employees on the airport campus and during the day it is really exciting to watch this kind of economic activity, but all this changes after about 10.30pm to 11pm each night.

“What we are trying to do is have an economic engine that runs 24 hours a day, and cargo fits this model perfectly, as it is an activity that traditionally happens overnight.

“We are not necessarily looking to compete with any airport per se, but because we want to drive more jobs.”

ATL’s cargo throughput in 2014 cemented its status as the tenth biggest cargo gateway in the US and the 35th busiest in the world.

He concedes that it will be difficult for ATL to move much higher up the world rankings because it doesn’t have the dedicated cargo airlines of airports like Hong Kong or Shanghai Pudong and isn’t the global hub of an express freight giant like FedEx, which is based in Memphis, but he still believes that ATL can become much more of a “significant” cargo player.

ATL’s cargo volumes have actually declined in recent years, but Southwell believes that the airport can address the balance by concentrating more on specific growth areas where it can offer a specialised service.

One such area is the ‘perishables’ market, which in the case of Atlanta covers everything from cut flowers, frozen meats and fresh fish to pharmaceuticals.

And in a bid to make it happen, ATL is investing in a range of new refrigerated facilities for perishable consignments, which Southwell hopes will convince more shippers to use the airport.

“We think that from a logistical point of view we have a superior location for increasing activities with perishable goods, particularly with items like flowers, most of which are driven past Atlanta today on refrigerated trucks heading to the north-east region of the country,” he says.

Customer service Although ATL hasn’t yet won an ACI Airport Service Quality (ASQ) award for customer service excellence, Southwell insists that this is in no way reflective of the customer service standards offered at his airport or its passenger-focused philosophy.

“I constantly receive feedback from people telling me how well they have been treated at the airport and firmly believe that hospitality is

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CELEBRATING 20 YEARS OF AIRPORT WORLD

part of the culture in Atlanta and Georgia, so have no qualms in saying that we already do a good job in terms of customer service, which remains one of our A priorities,” he says.

“The challenge is how do we make things better. We have studied this very seriously and have decided that we will no longer treat exceeding customer expectations as our ultimate goal. Instead, we will concentrate on what the customer expects and then delight and surprise them.”

He notes that this new approach to customer service begins from the moment passengers enter the airport property and extends throughout the terminal building and airport site, covering every area of the business from speed of check-in to the condition of restrooms and availability of luggage carts in the baggage hall.

And the airport is set to hire a new customer service director from the hospitality industry to drive this forward.

There is certainly no denying that the airport’s ASQ scores among passengers have risen since the opening of Maynard H Jackson Jnr International Terminal, and with the number of overseas passengers increasing by around 7% per annum, it appears to have come online at a perfect time.

At the moment, international traffic only accounts for around 10.7 million or 11% of ATL’s total passenger throughput, but according to Southwell it is the “brightest and fastest-growing segment of the business”.

In fact such has been the growth in recent years that Southwell admits that at certain points in the afternoon the main international pier — Concourse F — can get quite congested.

If the growth rates continue, he tells Airport World that Concourse G might be something the airport gets “sooner rather than later”.

As it stands, ATL is looking at a six to eight year timeframe in terms of beginning the construction of Concourse G, although with the number of international passengers edging closer to the 10 million barrier each year, it seems almost certain this will have to be brought forward.

Atlanta Aerotropolis Alliance Hartsfield-Jackson’s commitment to being a key economic engine and major employer for the Atlanta region means it should come as no surprise to learn of its key involvement with the Atlanta Aerotropolis Alliance.

AIRPORT REPORT: ATLANTA

The alliance is a collaborative effort to enhance the metro Atlanta’s position as a leader in the global economy by driving the co-ordinated development of commercial facilities, businesses and real estate on and around the 4,700-acre ATL site.

The initiative — which will ultimately lead to the development of the Atlanta Aerotropolis comprising the airport and a series of carefully planned commercial and social developments around it — is supported

by ATL, the City of Atlanta and a host of surrounding cities, communities and economic development agencies as well as major companies such as Delta Air Lines, Georgia Power and Porsche Cars North America.

Southwell comments: “I share the view of Atlanta mayor, Kasim Reed, that an airport is more than just a place where people go to catch a flight.

“Indeed, Hartsfield-Jackson is the city’s chief tool for creating jobs and wealth for the people and businesses of Atlanta so we are constantly looking at ways of how we can use this great asset to create those jobs. Creating an airport city is just one way.

“Historically, in the US the commercial facilities that have been built around airports have tended to be warehouses and logistics operations for freight forwarders together with select or two-star hotels.

“We aim to change this in Atlanta by attracting more commercial and some residential developments. We expect the commercial developments to include four and five-star hotels, office blocks and shops and restaurants.”

Its efforts in collaboration with the Atlanta Aerotropolis Alliance and others have already persuaded Porsche Cars North America to relocate its US headquarters to Atlanta, and others are expected to follow.

Among the projects in the pipeline for the airport site are a four-star, 300-room hotel close to the international terminal and a service centre for cars with a light retail mix, while a two million square feet area has been set aside for mixed-use developments that are expected to include new offices, additional hotels and residential properties.

Southwell tells Airport World that six companies have expressed an interest in developing the two-million square feet site, which would generate $400 to $600 million for the airport.

“We are excited about being a part of this as it will escalate the development of the airport environment,” he enthuses.

“We will, of course, also continue to welcome the addition of new warehouses and other facilities more traditionally associated with an airport as it all leads to greater economic activity in and around Hartsfield-Jackson.”

Although Southwell doesn’t want to be drawn on any timescales, he reveals that he hopes the new 300-room hotel and service station will be built within the next 30 months.

What is ATL’s role in and goals for the alliance? “The airport is at the heart of everything and the goal is simply to spark economic development and attract investment into the community from within the States and overseas,” he says.

“Did you know that we now have 1,500 German companies in Atlanta. Porsche Cars North America recently moved its US headquarters to the airport and Mercedes-Benz is doing the same elsewhere in the city. This simply would not have happened if it hadn’t been for the airport and the ability to fly to Germany on a number of different airlines every day.”

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SPECIAL REPORT: CUSTOMER SERVICE

Winners all Airport World reviews the highlights of ACI’s 2014 Airport Service Quality (ASQ) awards and talks to some of the award-winning gateways.

S

ir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam International Airport in Mauritius (Best in Africa), Iceland’s Keflavík International Airport (Best in Europe) and Queen Alia International Airport in Jordan (Best in Middle East) are a few of the new gateways to be honoured in ACI’s 2014 Airport Service Quality (ASQ) customer satisfaction survey.

Other new additions to the customer service hall of fame include Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport (Best by Size in the 25-40mppa category), Russia’s St Petersburg–Pulkovo Airport (Best Improvement: Europe) and Las Américas International Airport in the Dominican Republic (Best Improvement: Latin America).

There were also three new winners in regional categories for airports handling less than 2mppa – Culiacán International Airport in Mexico (Latin America), Murcia–San Javier Airport in Spain (Europe) and Victoria International Airport (North America).

Customer service king, Incheon International Airport – named best airport in the world for seven successive years before ACI decided to discontinue the category in 2012 – won the Best by Size in the Over 40mppa category and retained its Best in Asia-Pacific title for the tenth year running.

Singapore Changi, Beijing Capital, Shanghai Pudong and Hong Kong completed a clean top-five sweep of Asia-Pacific airports in the Over 40mppa category.

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CELEBRATING 20 YEARS OF AIRPORT WORLD

Incheon’s president and CEO, Park Wan-su, says: “Incheon started small as an airport in north-east Asia that no one took much notice of, but not anymore as we have achieved some notable successes that include the almost miraculous record of being named the world’s leading airport for customer service for ten years in a row.

“I am humbled and thankful for the efforts and contribution of the 40,000 Incheon Airport employees.”

Keflavík International Airport attributes its success to a decision to adopt a more passenger-focused business strategy a few years ago.

As part of the philosophy, operator Isavia reveals that its focus is very much on providing travellers with “outstanding services” at Keflavík International Airport.

In addition to the levels of customer service offered by staff, the airport has launched development projects to extend the south side of the terminal and enlarge the arrivals lounge on the ground floor of the north building.

Changes to the shopping and catering areas in the departure lounge on the second floor are also underway.

Keflavík was also inducted into the ACI Director General’s Roll of Excellence in 2014 for its continuous success in the ASQ programme since 2008.

SPECIAL REPORT: CUSTOMER SERVICE

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AIRPORT WORLD/APRIL-MAY 2015

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SPECIAL REPORT: CUSTOMER SERVICE

Let the band play on: a musical interlude at Incheon.

Isavia’s managing director, Bjorn Oli Hauksson, enthuses: “Our staff, other operators and police, customs and immigration have yet again demonstrated the high level of service at Keflavík, despite an enormous increase in the number of passengers.

“The performance is consistent and last year we were inducted in to the ACI Director General’s Roll of Excellence for having been among the five top airports for a number of years. It is particularly pleasing to see that we have been able to maintain such high standards despite the pressures of the busiest year in the history of the airport.”

Delhi Indira Gandhi International Airport operator, DIAL, called the capturing of the ASQ award for the world’s best airport in the 25-40mppa category an historic day for Indian aviation.

Its 2014 success is based on an all-time high ASQ score of 4.90, which is a remarkable achievement considering its 3.02 rating as recently as 2007.

DIAL CEO, I Prabhakara Rao, has no doubt about stating that the customer service transformation has occurred since the GMR-led consortium took over responsibility for operating the airport.

He adds: “It’s an unprecedented achievement and an historic day for Indian aviation. The award represents GMR’s commitment to providing passengers with the best customer experience and is a clear testimony of how the DNA of service centricity has been absorbed in Indira Gandhi International Airport’s culture.”

Talking about St Petersburg–Pulkovo Airport capturing the Best Improvement: Europe award, Sergey Emdin, CEO of operator, Northern Capital Gateway, says: “We have invested significant means into the development of Pulkovo Airport.

“We are happy to see that our investment has demonstrated such return already in the first year of operation of the centralised passenger terminal.”

Another to enjoy the sweet taste of success in 2014 is Indianapolis International Airport (IND), which claims that its legendary Hoosier hospitality is the reason behind its ASQ success.

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CELEBRATING 20 YEARS OF AIRPORT WORLD

The gateway has been named North America’s best airport four times in the last five years after previous successes in 2010, 2012 and 2013.

“At Indianapolis International Airport, it is crucial that we focus on meeting and exceeding passenger expectations in every way and receiving this award for the fourth time only solidifies that we are doing just that,” says Michael Wells, IAA board president.

“I have to thank our dedicated employees and business partners for working tirelessly to help us reach this incredible honour.”

Airport executive director, Mario Rodriguez, adds: “This award is a reflection of the people who work here. They are the heart of the airport.

“There may be larger terminals, but the secret formula for IND is not the facility, not the bricks and mortar. It’s Hoosiers, the Hoosier work ethic and Hoosier hospitality.

“We also have a great community of people in Central Indiana who fly in and out of our airport and they convey a kindness that travellers, worldwide, notice.”

Reflecting on the 2014 ASQ results, ACI World’s director general, Angela Gittens, notes: “Airports are more than simply points of departure and arrival. They are complex businesses in their own right. As such, a focus on serving the passenger has become increasingly important to ensuring success.

“In the fast-changing landscape of worldwide aviation, ASQ is the key to understanding how to increase passenger satisfaction and improve business performance.”

She adds that it was good to see so many top performers doing well consistently over a number of years as it proves that the benefits of the ASQ programme are “long-term and far reaching”.

• Indianapolis, Gimpo and Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji airports were inducted into the ACI Director General’s Roll of Excellence on April 16, 2015.

“A focus on exceeding passenger expectations is crucial in the competitive global aviation industry. These three Airport Service Quality Roll of Excellence inductees have taken steps to ensure they are going above and beyond in this regard,” says Gittens.

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SPECIAL REPORT: CUSTOMER SERVICE

Putting people first Airport International Group CEO, Kjeld Binger, talks to Joe Bates about the customer service philosophy of Amman’s Queen Alia International Airport.

Q

ueen Alia International Airport (QAIA) is fast gaining a reputation for delivering quality customer service to match the best in the business.

Indeed, Queen Alia’s customer-focused philosophy – which Kjeld Binger, CEO of operator Airport International Group (AIG), believes together with the airport’s “fast and efficient transfer process” helps set it apart from other gateways – was recognised by the two awards it won in ACI’s 2014 Airport Service Quality (ASQ) survey.

The airport was ranked Best in the Middle East and Best Improvement: Middle East in ACI’s annual customer satisfaction survey.

Binger proudly reveals that Queen Alia was the top Middle Eastern airport in all 36 different categories measured in the 2014 ASQ programme, a magnificent achievement he attributes to AIG’s customer service focused philosophy.

“Our focus is on the provision of high-quality facilities and services and this is reflected in our mission statement, which is for Queen Alia to contribute towards the prosperity and pride of Jordan and our stakeholders by being among the world’s top 20 airports in each ASQ category,” he says.

“Ongoing training programmes, wellness sessions, always looking to make improvements by analysing the survey results and having quality on the agenda of everything we do has created a passengerfocused corporate culture across the airport.”

He is particularly proud of AIG’s efforts to make the security process more customer-friendly, which started by simply persuading army staff on security duty to ditch their military uniforms for less intimidating blazers and trousers.

Binger is also among the first to admit that the airport’s impressive new 100,000sqm terminal – phase one opened in 2013 – has played a major part in the airport’s ASQ success.

A host of new retail and F&B outlets, which have included a number of local brands and concepts to help create a sense of place, and a huge duty free walkthrough store operated by World Duty Free have also helped contribute towards its popularity.

Retail and F&B operations currently account for 20% of the airport’s non-aeronautical revenues.

“Passenger satisfaction levels have soared since the new terminal opened,” enthuses Binger. “All I really need to say is that before it opened the old terminal ranked 186 in the world in ACI’s ASQ survey.

Today it ranks 34 in the world and this needs to be seen in context as we currently bus 40% of our departing passengers to aircraft parked at remote gates. Its impact has been truly remarkable.”

New terminal When AIG was awarded a 25-year concession to operate QAIA it pledged to build the new terminal to better equip the gateway to handle rising demand, and it has been as good as its word.

However, the need to continue to use the old terminal while the new one was being built meant that it had to be constructed in phases, with the main terminal building – opened in 2013 – initially being followed by two piers built on the site of the old terminal.

With the old terminal now demolished, work is underway on the new $200 million pier extensions that will effectively complete the first phase of the new terminal and equip QAIA to handle 12mppa.

When they open in 2016, the 46,500sqm piers will boast 13 fixed link bridges – four of which will be capable of simultaneously accommodating either two narrowbody or one widebody aircraft and, if required, both arriving and departing flights at the same time – and 17 contact gates.

The additional gates will also ensure that AIG no longer has to bus 40% of QAIA’s departing passengers to aircraft parked at remote gates.

“We are currently gate constrained because we only have the capacity to serve around 60% of our departing passengers from contact gates. We don’t like this as it is a challenge and it is not the best customer service,” remarks Binger.

“Thankfully, it will be a thing of the past from 2016 and when it is and we are able to provide all our passengers with top quality services from the moment they step inside the building until the moment they leave, I expect our terminal to be ranked as one of the best in the world in the ASQ survey.”

Completion of the expansion programme will take AIG’s investment in Queen Alia past the $1 billion mark since it took over responsibility for operating the gateway on January 1, 2008.

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Tales of the unexpected New initiatives, services and innovative design continue to raise the bar on customer service levels at airports worldwide, writes Joe Bates.

N

ew arrivals at airports this year include Middle-earth at Singapore Changi, a giant lily at Denver, sleeping pods at Helsinki and HappyorNot kiosks in Bahrain. Who ever said air travel was boring and predictable?

While knowing what to expect from an airport can and does have its advantages, particularly if people’s expectations are based on previous good experiences, it is beginning to feel like being predictable is no longer on the agenda for airports, which seem to be going to ever-increasing lengths to ‘wow’ passengers with new customer service innovations.

One such innovation, albeit only temporary, was the recent Middle-earth exhibit at Singapore Changi’s Terminal 3, which truly did amaze and surprise airport visitors because it was so unexpected.

It included a Hobbit Hole from the Hobbiton movie set in Matamata, New Zealand, and offered visitors the chance to meet Gandalf the Grey and learn about the various scenic terrains that make up The Shire, Erebor and Hobbiton Woods.

The tribute to the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit Trilogies was part of an exhibition organised by Changi Airport Group (CAG) and Tourism New Zealand to celebrate all things New Zealand.

Flower power Over in the US, Denver International Airport (DIA) celebrated the arrival of spring by unveiling a giant 28ft-high ‘Denver Lily’ in the middle of the Jeppesen Terminal.

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The giant flower sculpture by local artist, Ted Davis, is made from recycled steel and more than 8,000 one-inch nuts. Its stem is painted green and the flower is pink and white.

“Our goal is to surprise and delight passengers during spring, while showcasing a local artist and his talent,” says DIA’s art and culture manager, Chris Stevens. “This bright sculpture is monumental in height, which also highlights the scale of Jeppesen Terminal’s iconic tent-roof architecture.”

Hope you’re feeling happy now A more permanent customer service innovation can be found at Bahrain International Airport, which has introduced HappyorNot kiosks to find out more about passenger satisfaction levels.

Located in the arrivals and departure halls, the digital kiosks provide users with the opportunity to leave feedback about their airport experience based on the facilities and services encountered.

Questions asked by the first-of-its-kind technology for Bahrain cover everything from the airport shopping experience, the F&B offering and the efficiency of check-in and immigration services to more general issues such as the cleanliness and upkeep of the communal areas.

Operator, Bahrain Airport Company (BAC), told Airport World that it expects the technology to become a key tool in its bid to enhance customer satisfaction levels at the airport.

Its CEO, Mohamed Yousif Al-Binfalah, says: “We take customer service very seriously and use the feedback to monitor and, if

SPECIAL REPORT: CUSTOMER SERVICE

necessary, improve performance levels across the airport and then benchmark it against the highest industry standards.

“When it comes to customer service we listen to passengers but also to our staff and their suggestions as we are always looking for new ideas and ways to innovate and improve the business.”

Al-Binfalah, who describes the HappyorNot kiosks as a customer-friendly tool for capturing feedback from passengers on a daily basis, believes they provide much more accurate results than manual surveys.

PODS away While Heathrow’s unique, on-demand spage-age pod system for transporting passengers between Terminal 5 and its nearby Business Car Park has been impressing customers for years, sleep pods are a relatively new addition to airports.

The latter version, in effect a seat that can be transformed into a bed inside a self-contained pod, was first unveiled at Abu Dhabi International Airport two years ago, and earlier this year Helsinki Airport became the first gateway in Europe to introduce them.

And the airport has no doubt that the new additions, supplied by Finnish company GoSleep, will ensure that it maintains its status as one of the world’s most “sleep-friendly airports” as chosen by followers of the SleepinginAirports.com website.

Talking about the pods, Heikki Koski, vice president at Finavia, Helsinki Airport, says: “We wish to provide passengers with an opportunity for stress-free travel and a nap between flights. Helsinki Airport has many transit passengers, who may not have had any

sleep for a day or are suffering from jet lag. I believe that the service will have genuine demand.”

For the record, based on the four Cs of comfort, conveniences, cleanliness and customer service, SleepinginAirports.com rates Helsinki as the third best airport in the world for a snooze after Singapore Changi and Seoul Incheon. Munich and Vancouver take fourth and fifth places respectively.

Airport design One gateway aiming to impress by design is Perth Airport in Australia, which recently launched a A$1 billion development programme that it claims will change the travel experience for passengers and visitors.

The 12-month project is designed to transform the front of Terminal 1 and includes the construction of an expansive landscaped forecourt that will improve access to the complex.

The T1 Forecourt Project is part of a A$42 million make-over of the terminal forecourt that will lead to the construction of a spacious 27-metre entry plaza.

The first section of the expanded forecourt, directly in front of the entry to the new domestic pier and international departures area, will be completed to coincide with the opening of the pier later this year.

The airport claims that the paved forecourt area will provide a more pleasant environment for passengers, with new facilities such as a bus station, improved pedestrian access and pick-up/drop-off areas, covered walkways and seating.

Other features will include full Wi-Fi coverage, additional lighting, public art and landscaping incorporating plants native to Western Australia.

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Brisbane Airport is believed to be leading the way with the trial of an innovative Digital Departure Card for international passengers.

IT revolution The IT-driven customer service evolution taking place at airports today includes a host of apps that let users do everything from ordering food at departure gates and getting duty free shopping delivered to their doorstep to getting assistance in clearing customs and immigration queues.

Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, for example, recently became the third US gateway to introduce a mobile app designed to expedite passengers’ journeys through the US arrivals process.

The Mobile Passport Control (MPC) app is part of a joint initiative by the Port of Seattle – Seattle-Tacoma’s operator – and the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency to speed up the processing of US and Canadian passengers.

Much like Automated Passport Control (APC), the app does not require pre-approval, is free to use and does not collect any new information from travellers, who, according to Sea-Tac, can expect shorter wait times, less congestion and faster processing.

“CBP remains committed to making a traveller’s entry into the United States as secure, paperless and efficient as possible,” says assistant commissioner for the office of field operations, Todd Owen.

CBP is committed to expanding the programme to the 20 US airports with the highest volumes of international passengers by the end of 2016. The first-of-its-kind app was developed by ACI-NA and its vendor in partnership with CBP. “We’re very pleased to have Sea-Tac come on board as the third airport to launch Mobile Passport,” says ACI-NA president and CEO, Kevin Burke.

“Mobile Passport has had a fantastic response at Atlanta and Miami, which has significantly cut the time in the customs line for thousands of eligible travellers entering the United States. We look forward to additional airports coming online throughout 2015.”

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Meanwhile back in Australia, Brisbane Airport is believed to be leading the way with the trial of an innovative Digital Departure Card for international passengers, which removes the age-old necessity of handwriting the official ‘outgoing passenger card’ (departure card) required for immigration purposes.

Developed in-house with support from a number of partners, the new Digital Departure Card is built within the scope of the airport’s popular mobile app, giving passengers the ability to enter and save personal information for the departure card onto their mobile device prior to their arrival at the airport.

This information is converted into a QR code that is scanned and printed at bespoke kiosks located in the International Terminal.

The personalised and custom-printed card is then signed by the passenger and collected by customs officers during the normal departure process.

Passengers are also able to save their profiles (as well as the profiles of other family members with permission) within the app so that they do not have to enter their personal information every time they travel internationally from Brisbane (BNE).

Julieanne Alroe, CEO and managing director of Brisbane Airport Corporation (BAC), comments: “The result is an Australian if not a world-first digital solution that will save time, streamline processing and help reduce anxiety associated with departure formalities, especially for non-English speaking travellers.”

What next for customer service innovation at airports?

After the opening of everything from ice skating rinks and butterfly gardens to 5D cinemas over the last decade, your guess is as AW good as mine!

SPECIAL REPORT: CUSTOMER SERVICE

On the menu

Gebr Heinemann’s eye-catching grand shops at Istanbul Atatürk Airport.

Airport World highlights the latest retail/F&B-focused customer service initiatives introduced by Gebr Heinemann and Stansted and Helsinki airports.

D

uty free giant, Gebr Heinemann, has launched a new app in a bid to improve its service to customers, boost sales and engender greater customer loyalty.

It claims that the app will help it expand the range offered by its airport Heinemann Duty Free outlets and make shopping easier and more convenient than ever before.

The app also allows users to fill in a form to book a personal shopping assistant at a location of their choice, free of charge (participating Heinemann Duty Free shops are Hamburg, Frankfurt, Cologne, Salzburg, Vienna, Budapest and Oslo).

“The launch of the new Heinemann app is a further service we are adding to the concept of duty free shopping,” says Markus Ettlin, marketing director at Gebr Heinemann.

“Our new services packages meet the needs of customers for flexible and mobile services while creating additional points of interaction that enable us to understand them even better.”

Meanwhile another Heinemann customer service innovation, a home delivery service for German-based shoppers, continues to grow, although not as quickly as the duty free operator had anticipated.

“It is enjoying nice growth, although the overall percentage of the business, around 0.5% of our German turnover, remains small,” admits Kay Spanger, Heinemann’s executive director for purchasing and logistics.

In other news, Heinemann reveals that its arrivals duty free shops in Turkey and Norway are hugely popular with passengers, the outlet in Oslo Airport enjoying the status of the biggest wine shop in the world based on the daily sale of 12,000 bottles of wine.

It has certainly been a busy and successful start to 2015 for Heinemann, which has won major tenders for retail concessions at Sydney Airport and the new Istanbul Airport (scheduled to open in 2017) – courtesy of its 60.8% stake in Unifree Duty Free – in addition to acquiring a controlling 60% stake in Schiphol Airport Retail.

The deals mean that the company, which anticipates investing €130 million in different projects in 2015, will operate 150,000sqm of retail space globally by 2017 – more than double the 70,000sqm it had just a year ago.

The new Istanbul airport contract alone, where it will have up to 80 outlets covering 53,000sqm of retail space, is expected to have a turnover of €1 billion in its first year.

Airport expansion Elsewhere, London’s Stansted and Helsinki airports have launched major revamps of their retail/F&B facilities in a bid to increase passenger appeal.

A brand-new premium bakery concept, James Martin Kitchen, new Pret A Manger – with 50% more seating – and Halo, a new concept fizz bar created especially for the airport, are the latest new additions at Stansted as the airport enters the final stages of the second phase of the £80 million revamp of its international departure lounge.

MAG retail director, Beth Brewster, says: “The transformation at Stansted is about giving passengers greater choice. All the new tastes joining the Stansted menu offer something a little bit different and the openings widen that choice even further and will be very popular additions to the Stansted menu.”

In Finland, Helsinki Airport operator, Finavia, believes that new F&B outlets such as the Arctic Bar and Nordic Kitchen will bring more of a Finnish feel to Helsinki Airport.

Indeed, Finavia states that retaining a strong Finnish feel in terms of its F&B offerings will be a key focus as it enhances the airport’s growing, and ever more international, range of commercial services.

“The starting point for our commercial operations is that, regardless of the supply becoming more international, the Finnish feel will remain a strong part of the overall experience,” says Finavia’s vice president, Jukka Isomäki, who is responsible for commercial operations at Helsinki Airport.

One of the newest restaurants opened at Helsinki Airport is the Arctic Bar, operated by HMSHost. The speciality of the bar, located at Gate 29, is its roofless outdoor terrace, where departing and transit passengers get to go outside and feel the Finnish weather as it is – whether that means snow, sleet, rain or sunshine.

The idea came from wanting to offer transit passengers a small piece of authentic Finland. Elsewhere, the classic Wine & View bar operated by SSP at Helsinki Airport has undergone a complete transformation, which, according to Finavia, ensures that a more stylish and spacious wine bar now awaits passengers at Gate 26.

They will be joined by Pier Zero later this year, a two-storey café-restaurant that Finavia promises will “offer a leisurely break with a treat amid the hustle and bustle of the airport, as well as a magnificent, unrestricted view of the air traffic area”.

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Planning ahead Skanska USA’s MacAdam Glinn reflects on how the quest for greater efficiency, flexibility and a better customer experience is driving renovation projects at US airports.

T

he US is home to nearly half of the world’s 30 busiest airports and an aviation market that handled some 756 million passengers on domestic flights in 2014.

It is, of course, one of the world’s most mature aviation markets, yet its airports continue to break records for both the volume of flights and passenger traffic.

Chicago O’Hare International Airport, for example, recently claimed the title of the world’s busiest airport for air traffic movements based on handling nearly 900,000 flights during 2014.

While Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport remains the busiest airport on the planet in terms of annual passenger traffic, accommodating just over 96 million passengers last year.

Looking ahead, the FAA anticipates that by 2035 more than one billion passengers will board a plane at a US airport each year.

And growth is just as robust, if not more so, elsewhere in the world.

In 2014, for instance, Dubai International Airport overtook London’s Heathrow Airport as the busiest for international travel, when it handled a record 70.4 million international passengers.

This year looks just as good with IATA predicting that around 3.5 billion passengers will fly globally this year.

But is our global aviation infrastructure up to the challenge of accommodating these rising numbers? Airports are facing the need for renovation and expansion as passenger traffic increases, and so far construction has not kept pace.

Communication during the design and build process is vital to each and every renovation project. One communication tool that aviation builders use extensively is modelling project phasing virtually, prior to construction, in order to demonstrate an approach that minimises the impact of construction on the passenger experience.

Our team utilised this approach at Philadelphia International Airport in August of 2014, where six months of planning and virtual modelling of the project paid off as we completed a complex bridge erection project overnight.

With intense co-ordination with all stakeholders, we erected the 91,000lbs, 100-foot-long pre-assembled baggage-conveyor bridge over the main airport departure road in less than eight hours.

In this case it made sense to use prefabrication, effectively minimising impacts to the departure roadway.

Funding these types of renovation projects is one of the biggest hurdles to updating the US’s airport infrastructure. While the

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CELEBRATING 20 YEARS OF AIRPORT WORLD

controversial idea of raising the cap on the passenger facility charge (PFC) is one way to help fund new construction and upgrades, airlines are strongly opposed to an increase.

Indeed, they strongly prefer utilising revenue sources that they can have more direct control over, such as concessions upgrades, which besides raising revenue can also add to the passenger appeal of their hubs.

What is not in dispute is the fact that US airports generally have to work within tight budgets when it comes to upgrading infrastructure, which experts predict will require $14 billion worth of investment per annum between now and 2017.

Below are some key trends in airport design and construction that we see emerging in the US as airports build for the future.

Greater efficiency Starting with the tarmac, airports can maximise efficiencies by building for larger aircraft that hold more passengers. For instance, the B737-900ER is a fuel-efficient option with a 25% bigger wing area, a 16-foot longer wingspan and 25% more seats than the B737-400.

And what about the impact of those increased passengers? With more seats available per flight comes the need to accommodate more travellers. Airports are upgauging in response, building for bigger planes and incorporating bigger waiting areas by design.

Furthermore, airports are anticipating the needs of more travellers by upgrading and adding more and larger amenities, from restaurants to restrooms.

At Los Angeles World Airport (LAX), Skanska USA is creating space to allow for a new terminal that will accommodate larger, longer-range aircraft such as the B737-800.

This process includes in-depth site investigation to identify and then relocate various airfield utilities while finding any system conflicts with the future terminal site.

Replacing an inefficient ground loading area through accelerated work will prepare LAX for a new midfield concourse that will be a more efficient facility for larger-gauged aircraft of the future.

SPECIAL REPORT: CUSTOMER SERVICE

Aside from maximising facility efficiencies on and off the tarmac, contractors should also carefully communicate and co-ordinate with all stakeholders during the renovation process to facilitate a more efficient project.

Increased flexibility Airports are also seeking more flexible spaces – both for the sake of efficiency and the customer experience while travelling.

Reconfiguring security checkpoints to be centralised is one way airports are adapting through design. We recently worked to consolidate existing security checkpoints within Terminal C at Boston–Logan International Airport (BOS).

Passengers previously had to leave the secure area and be re-screened in order to walk to a gate at a different pier. By consolidating TSA checkpoints, we created a corridor behind the ticket counters that allows a passenger to walk between aircraft boarding piers without the hassle of rescreening.

An emphasis on flexibility in airport construction goes hand in hand with making operations more efficient, as owners and operators can save on costs while passengers benefit from reduced wait times as a result of these changes.

For example, airports have increasingly moved toward common-use gates, which have traditionally been subjected to strong air carrier opposition. During renovations or as new terminals are built, airports can choose to cluster activity around certain gates – accommodating more airlines through temporary reconfigurations and saving on cost.

Better passenger experience Many airport renovations are fuelled by an interest in upgrading the customer experience, with a corresponding benefit in the increased revenues that can come from those improvements.

In our work at Tampa International Airport (TPA), we’ve seen this emphasised through the redevelopment of the airport’s concessions as well as improvements to wayfinding signage and seating.

At TPA (pictured above) we are leading the main terminal and airport concession redevelopment programme, bringing 200,000-square-feet of renovations to the main terminal and airside buildings. We can compare the work being done at airports like Tampa to the mall experience, where amenities such as the family restroom have become common in recent years.

The modern airport terminal will focus on creating a passenger experience that is attractive to customers, in which they feel comfortable and enjoy spending time and money on state-of-the-art concessions.

Addressing an airport’s complexities head-on is important in each renovation or expansion programme. Since aviation construction often takes place in the heart of an airport and can be highly invasive, construction firms need to co-ordinate with airport authorities, air carriers, concessionaires, the TSA and FAA and passengers in order to minimise any impacts during the renovation and expansion process.

Getting stakeholders involved, beginning with design review, is an important consideration.

Behind the scenes of costly airport renovations and expansions, contractors are emphasising efficiency and flexibility while making improvements to the passenger experience in order to meet the needs of airports and airline carriers while exceeding the expectations of travellers.

From the smallest regional facilities to international hubs, airports are making changes to benefit passengers and improve the customer experience.

Upgauging, focus on operational efficiency through flexible design, and passengers’ interest in new retail and restaurant options will continue to drive changes in the way we design and build airports and are ushering in an exciting era of aviation construction.

AW

About the author MacAdam Glinn is Skanska USA’s national aviation director and senior vice president. He leads all business development and marketing for Skanska’s aviation pursuits and provides aviation construction market analysis throughout the United States.

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SECURITY

Watching brief Airport World reports on the trial, development and installation of a handful of new security technologies.

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incinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport (CVG) claims that its newly introduced security system has exceeded its expectations by raising customer satisfaction levels and reducing security wait times by a third.

The security system in question utilises the BlipTrack Analysis Platform and sensors that collect non-personal data from passengers’ mobile phones and tablets to monitor queue and wait times at the airport’s security process area.

CVG, in co-operation with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), was the first airport in the United States to utilise the Danishmade technology to understand and improve the traveller’s experience and to better plan and allocate mutual resources.

The solution, implemented by BLIP Systems’ airport partner Lockheed Martin, has also allowed the airport to display TSA pre-check queue wait times on information screens and the airport’s website. A development it claims has helped reduce passenger frustration and made for a more stress-free and pleasant transit experience.

“Our use of BLIP Systems’ technology has proven quite successful,” says the airport’s CEO, Candace McGraw, noting that it introduced it last summer.

“It has enabled CVG to continue our close collaboration with TSA to ensure that the passenger experience at CVG is one that enhances the journey experience not detracts from it.

“Our customers have come to appreciate the quick accessibility to real-time information via our monitors and website, seeing that queue times are consistently well managed.”

CVG initially partnered with Purdue University in 2011 for technology proof-of-concept testing prior to research and acquisition of BlipTrack.

The Purdue team returned in 2014 to quantify the security wait time improvements in the reconfigured terminal and the impact of the new pre-check lanes: • In comparison to standard wait times in 2011, wait times were reduced by nearly 4¼ minutes in 2014.

• In comparison to standard screening wait times, TSA pre-check saved more than 26,000 person hours in wait time over Nov-Dec 2014.

• “As air travel is continually on the rise and airports often have limited space to expand, the pressure on border authorities to balance security with a good passenger experience grows. This leads to significant bottlenecks, with delays that frustrate travellers,” remarks Peter Knudsen, CEO at BLIP Systems.

• “Being able to utilise performance data enables a dynamic management of resources, reduces costs for all operational stakeholders, optimises passenger satisfaction and ensures a first-class airport image.”

Meanwhile in Europe, Toulouse-Blagnac Airport has announced its intention to deploy Checkpoint Evo, a newly launched software solution that its creators claim greatly enhances the inspection and integration capacities of security checkpoints.

Developed by Smiths Detection in partnership with Canada’s Optosecurity, it will connect individual sensors to a fully networked checkpoint system to provide real-time data collection, distribution and management that improves both the inspection process and operational efficiency.

A centralised remote screening, claims Smiths Detection, will help speed up inspection of hand luggage because image evaluation and alarm resolution from X-ray scanners can be centrally monitored away from the noise and distractions of the checkpoint.

Advanced recheck functions electronically mark suspicious areas in bags to enable a more focused search for illegal items by on-the-spot operators, resulting in faster throughput and reduced queuing times.

Its developers add that the system’s data management capabilities offer real-time and historical data for analysis and reporting, which allows airport operators to share information and monitor the entire screening operation via remote portable devices, such as tablet PCs. Toulouse-Blagnac will become the first French gateway to use the system when it comes online this summer.

Informing passengers about expected security wait times is also something that San Antonio International Airport aims to address with a new video-based system that measures the length of time it takes passengers to get through security in Terminal A. Funding for the new system, which will allow the airport to display wait times in Terminal A and on the airport’s website and mobile website, was approved by San Antonio City Council on April 3.

The system uses video analytics to monitor passenger numbers and processing times and will involve the installation of a number of new cameras at the entrance and exit of Terminal A’s security checkpoints to calculate the time it takes for the last passenger in line to move through the security checkpoint.

Added benefits of the system, according to the Texas gateway, include historical data capture and report generation to empower airport partners to make staffing changes and anticipate crowds.

The new additions should come as no surprise as new analysis from Frost & Sullivan reveals that the global market for airport security technology earned revenues of $8.22 billion in 2014 and estimates that this will reach $12.67 billion by 2023.

The study covers the segments of perimeter security, command, control and integration, cybersecurity, communications, surveillance, access control and screening.

The report claims that cutting-edge technologies in the screening, big data and integration markets are particularly driving upgrades and new investments in the airport security market. It predicts that over the next 20 years cybersecurity spending will rise at the fastest pace.

AW

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CHINESE AIRPORT DEVELOPMENT

China in their hands With major new airports being built in Beijing, Qingdao and elsewhere and dozens of existing gateways adding new state-of-the-art facilities, these are exciting times for China, writes Joe Bates.

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eijing’s new $14 billion international airport is a step closer to reality following the release of the designs for its much anticipated Terminal 1.

ADP Ingénierie (ADPI), the wholly-owned subsidiary of Aéroports de Paris, that won the international competition to design the complex, claims that it was inspired by Chinese architectural traditions.

Located at Daxing, 60 kilometres south of Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, the new Beijing International Airport will eventually have seven runways and the capacity to handle over 100mppa making it one of the largest airports in the world.

Upon opening in late 2018, Terminal 1 will boast a 700,000sqm surface area and five-kilometre-long façade, ensuring that it is initially capable of accommodating up to 45mppa.

The first planned expansion phase will raise that capacity to 72 million passengers per annum.

As the competition winner, ADPI has fine-tuned the design supported by Zaha Hadid Consortium as part of a mixed team managed by Beijing New Airport Construction Headquarters (BNAH).

Underpinning ADP Ingénierie’s concept is the decision to stack the international and domestic levels vertically instead of spreading them out horizontally.

This innovation led to the design of a compact terminal serving radial boarding piers. The centralised single-terminal concept is said to ensure that it is efficient and economical to operate as well as offering an enhanced passenger experience courtesy of its many shops and restaurants and intermodal ground transportation facilities.

Given the terminal’s compact design, the distance between the terminal centre and the farthest boarding gate is around 600 metres, less than Asian and European terminals with similar capacity.

According to ADPi, passengers can easily find their way within the open interior layout of the terminal, gravitating naturally to the grand skylight central area where shops and services are located, and then walking straight ahead to their gate.

ADPi says that it was inspired by Chinese architectural traditions and as such has reshaped many symbols in a contemporary style, which it claims will result in a modern design that blends naturally into its surroundings.

The goal, it reveals, was to create an iconic airport “reflecting unprecedented levels of environmental management and sustainability to bolster the airport’s leading low carbon status”.

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Shanghai Pudong’s new satellite concourse. Image courtesy of Corgan.

CHINESE AIRPORT DEVELOPMENT

Other new gateways

The X-factor

Another huge project is the planned construction of a new $10.3 billion airport in Chengdu.

The new Chengdu gateway will reportedly have three runways and be capable of handling 40 million passengers upon its completion in 2025, according to local newspaper reports.

Chengdu’s existing Shuangliu Airport, built in 1938, is the fifth busiest airport in the country handling 37mppa as it serves as a hub for inland China destinations for carriers such as Air China, AirAsia X and Korean Air among others.

Elsewhere, reports in China suggest that the world’s largest off-shore gateway, the $4.3 billion Jinzhou Bay Airport, could open in the first half of 2015.

Located on a 21-square-kilometre man-made island off of the coast of Dalian, in north-east China, the airport is expected to initially be equipped with two parallel runways and a 200,000sqm terminal capable of handling up to 20mppa.

It will join other gateways built offshore, such as Japan’s Nagasaki Airport, New York La Guardia Airport, which is built of steel piles into the seabed offshore, and Japan’s Kansai International Airport in Osaka.

Jinzhou Bay will be joined by a new $5.5 billion airport in Qingdao following its recent approval by the China National Development and Reform Committee (NDRC).

Atkins and the China Southwest Architectural Design and Research Institute (CSWADI) have carried out conceptual planning and design for the new gateway, which is expected to serve as a regional hub.

Qingdao, in Shandong Province, is an important economic centre and seaport along the eastern coastline and an important gateway to Northeast Asia with extensive trading relations with Japan and South Korea.

Chris Birdsong, Atkins’ CEO for Asia-Pacific, says: “Our partnership with CSWADI, one of the leading design institutes in China and the largest in western China, will allow us to unlock opportunities to deliver our multidisciplinary, high-end engineering services in China.”

Upon completion in 2017, Qingdao will be able to process 38mppa in 2025 and 60mppa by 2045.

The largest airport on the island province of Hainan, Haikou Meilan International Airport, is also set to get a facelift with the addition of two new terminals in the next decade.

A brand-new Terminal 2 is currently being planned and is set for completion in 2020, while a plan for a new third terminal is also under consideration.

ADPi has designed the planned new 290,000sqm Terminal 2, which is the key project of a $136 million investment programme.

Located opposite Terminal 1, ADPi says the 18mppa capacity T2 will be designed to provide a “high level of functional and aeronautical quality”.

According to ADPi, its X-shaped design will feature South Asia’s architectural styles and boast coconut trees in lounge areas and an inner courtyard.

If built, a third terminal would raise the airport’s annual passenger capacity to 62mppa by 2040, says ADPi.

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CELEBRATING 20 YEARS OF AIRPORT WORLD

The world’s largest satellite concourse Arguably the most high profile project in China at the moment is the planned construction of the world’s largest satellite concourse at Shanghai Pudong International Airport as part of the Shanghai Airport Authority’s (SAA) bid to make it the premier international hub in Asia.

Designed by US architect Corgan, in association with Chinese partner IPPR, the complex is expected to boast 100 boarding gates when fully operational.

The concourse is needed so the airport can keep pace with the growth of China’s largest city and financial capital.

The budget for the development has yet to be announced and the SAA says it aims to welcome 80 million passengers and handle 4.7 million tonnes of cargo annually by 2020, making it Asia’s primary aviation hub.

Corgan’s concept will focus on maximising passenger flow and experience in an efficiently organised building that is designed to be “beautiful yet efficient in both its operation and maintenance”.

Jonathan Massey, principal for Corgan’s aviation design studio, says: “Our mission is to take the passenger experience to a higher level.”

Another important aspect of the design of the satellite concourse is that it can grow and change with the aviation industry and city.

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BAGGAGE HANDLING

On the case New installations, contract wins, reports and the launch of a hybrid luggage drop system have ensured a busy few months for airport baggage handlers and technology suppliers.

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CM Airport Technics has announced the roll out of its Auto Bag Drop technology at Paris Charles De Gaulle Airport.

The first-stage deployment saw 20 units become operational in terminals T2E and T2F for Air France customers flying on domestic and international routes.

A further 15 Auto Bag Drop units will be installed later this year in terminals T2E, T2F and T2G in a move airport operator, Aéroports de Paris (ADP), hopes will help significantly reduce check-in times and ease peak-time congestion in crowded terminals.

According to ICM Airport Technics, the units integrate cutting-edge scanning technology with ergonomically friendly design and ‘plug’ directly into existing airport baggage handling infrastructure.

They also facilitate real-time monitoring and fault recovery with the 24-hour support provided by ICM’s central control team.

Nicolas Champeaux, procedures and operations manager of Paris CDG’s BHS Unit, says: “The installation of ICM’s units is a definite win-win situation as they boost our check-in capacity and passengers are taken with the innovative technology and the simpler and faster process for checking-in.”

Changi record breaker Meanwhile in Singapore, Changi Airport Group (CAG) has selected Vanderlande to supply the baggage handling system (BHS) for Singapore Changi’s Terminal 1 Redevelopment project.

The decision is a significant landmark in Vanderlande’s history as it is its largest ever baggage handling contract in the Asian market.

The upgrading of the baggage handling system at Changi Airport T1 is a brownfield project to replace the entire system while the terminal remains in operation.

The system will be equipped with VIBES smart controls, two tilt-tray HELIXORTERS, high-speed carriers system ICS-TUBTRAX, a crane-based Early Bag Store and will feature 2,600 drivers.

The contract includes a renewable operations and maintenance (O&M) agreement during the phasing-in of the new BHS, which

will be operated from a control room and maintained by a team of staff starting from 2016.

CAG’s executive vice president for engineering and development, Fong Kok Wai, says: “The upgrading of the T1 baggage handling system to a fully automated system is an important part of our expansion plans for the terminal.

“It supports our plans to implement self check-in, self bag-drop functions and early check-in facilities at the terminal enabling us to improve productivity for airlines and ground handlers as well as increasing the check-in capacity at T1.”

Elsewhere, Vanderlande has successfully delivered a state-of-theart baggage handling system for the new Terminal 2 at Nanning Wuxu International Airport in China.

Lost luggage The air transport industry has cut the rate of mishandled bags by 61.3% globally since 2007, creating $18 billion in total estimated cost savings, claims a new report.

According to the SITA 2015 Baggage Report, the rate of mishandled bags in 2014 was 7.3 bags per thousand passengers, down from a peak of 18.88 bags per thousand passengers in 2007.

This decline comes despite a significant rise in passenger numbers over the same time period, peaking at 3.3 billion in 2014.

Francesco Violante, CEO, SITA, said: “This improvement in baggage handling over the past seven years is largely a result of strong technology investment and innovation in baggage systems automation and processes.

“However, rising passenger numbers will continue to place pressure on baggage infrastructure and processes, so the industry cannot afford to become complacent.

“With IATA forecasting continued passenger growth of around 7% in 2015, all industry partners will need to continue to invest, collaborate and focus on baggage management.”

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BAGGAGE HANDLING

Heathrow security

Big Down Under

Morpho Detection is to supply 45 high-speed CTX 9800 DSiT explosive detection systems (EDS) to screen baggage at four of Heathrow’s five terminals.

The gateway chose the CTX 9800 to enhance its screening capabilities at terminals 1,2,4 and 5 after a period of “competitive testing”.

The move ensures compliance with Department for Transport regulations in the UK mandating Standard 3-approved EDS to screen all hold baggage by September 2018.

Under the terms of the agreement, Morpho will provide logistical and service support and MUXT multiplexing software to enable central station and airport-wide networking capabilities.

After deployment, Heathrow will operate the largest fleet of CTX 9800 machines outside of the US. “Morpho is thrilled that one of the world’s busiest airports has recognised the CTX 9800 as having the operational capabilities to meet their traffic and security demands,” says Karen Bomba, president and CEO, Morpho Detection.

“By reducing false alarms and time-intensive manual inspections of checked luggage, CTX 9800 is delivering on Morpho’s commitment to help airports prepare for approaching regulatory mandates and security challenges.”

Capable of screening more than 1,000 bags per hour (BPH), the high-speed CTX 9800 enhances operational efficiencies by screening bags faster and with fewer false alarms.

Down Under in Australia 25 international airlines have signed a four-year agreement with Unisys Australia to continue providing an advanced baggage reconciliation system at seven international airports at Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Cairns, Perth, Adelaide and Gold Coast.

The Board of Airline Representatives Australia (BARA), an industry representative organisation for airlines, manages the engagement with Unisys on behalf of the airlines.

Olivier Houri, president and general manager of worldwide transportation for Unisys, said: “We are delighted to continue our relationship with BARA to provide a solution that combines business efficiencies, industry security compliance and an improved passenger experience for international travellers to and from Australia.”

The Unisys baggage reconciliation system team provides a fully managed service that includes managing the network infrastructure and security architecture; training and on-site support; application management; and round-the-clock help desk support.

From Russia with love Moscow’s planned new gateway for charter and low-cost flights, Ramenskoye International Airport, will boast a BHS provided by WeKey Consulting when it handles its first passengers in early 2016.

Known as Ramenskoye aerodrome today (formerly Zhukovsky Airfield) and primarily used for cargo services, the former aircraft testing site with the world’s second longest public use runway (5,402m) is seen by Russian President, Vladimir Putin, as a reliever gateway for Moscow’s Sheremetyevo and Vnukovo airports.

WeKey Consulting will supply and oversee the installation of the BHS, which will be capable of handling up to 3,600 items per hour, as well as its associated inspection equipment and explosives detection systems.

Airport operator Ramport Aero – a joint venture between Rostec State Corporation and the Avia Solutions Group – expects the airport to serve around 1.8 million passengers in its first year of operations.

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CELEBRATING 20 YEARS OF AIRPORT WORLD

Hybrid solution Finally, Crisplant – part of the BEUMER Group and a leading global supplier of automated baggage handling systems – has launched a new hybrid check-in system called MyCheck.

It says the flexibility of the new solution ensures that it can be used as a fully automated check-in and bag drop for the passenger; as an automated check-in by the passenger and bag drop at a manned counter; or as a conventional check-in and bag drop at a manned counter.

It adds that the multi-functionality of the system will ensure high levels of usage and provide airlines with the ability to switch between different check-in options to better manage queues in the departure hall during peak periods.

Security and safety features include tamper detection to prevent bags being switched during check-in; double detection to ensure that every bag is checked; and motion detection to monitor for the presence of a child or passenger on the conveyor.

“It represents a significant advance in the flexibility which airports can expect from their check-in systems and will enhance the efficiency and productivity of the check-in procedure in even the most space-constrained airports,” claims Crisplant’s managing director, Klaus Schäfer.

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ENVIRONMENT NEWS

Going green Sharing accountability for energy savings has led to Birmingham Airport saving over €450,000 on energy bills in the past two years, writes Matt Whitehead.

Lighting was retrofitted to LED, where possible, and smart meters installed, alongside the installation of other new energy-efficient technologies. The airfield lighting was reconfigured and different heating and renewable power generation options were assessed.

This phase achieved an €118,000 saving, which although respectable and honouring payback projections, represented just a quarter of the savings achieved 12 months later as a result of the ambitious people engagement programme.

Communications culture

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ike other airports, energy is one of Birmingham Airport’s largest controllable costs. The company is two years into a site-wide energy reduction partnership that has so far resulted in energy bills tumbling by 7% or €450,000.

Now into year three, Birmingham’s energy cost graph continues on a downward trajectory, long after the effects of ‘initiative fatigue’ might be expected.

So what is making an airport, with its fluctuating flow of passengers, complex zones and technology and access restrictions, succeed where so many large estates have failed?

According to Birmingham Airport’s chief financial officer, Simon Richards, it’s because everyone in the organisation now feels accountable for energy.

Organisation-wide attack on waste The energy manager role has become de rigueur in recent years, and it can work well. However, huge opportunities can be lost if one individual is made responsible for an entire site’s energy budget.

As part of a strategy to deliver improved accountability, consultants LCMB alongside senior managers at Birmingham Airport supported and encouraged each department to take on its own energy budgets and targets.

First, an Energy & Carbon Reduction Group made up of senior managers from engineering, airfield, car parks, terminals, accommodation, communications, IT and sustainability was formed.

Good communication was key. Regular reporting brought to life the energy spend in each business unit and included recommendations on how that could be reduced. This added a level of healthy competition between business units.

The first year saw widespread change. New systems and processes, controls and automation were brought in to ensure plant and equipment operated to optimum schedules and temperatures, within zones.

Birmingham Airport’s strong leadership enabled momentum and commitment from all staff, building a communications culture, which is reaping rewards today.

A key strategy has been to make energy savings personal, for example with the slogan, ‘I Save Energy’. This is linked to a suggestion scheme, which to date has gathered over 230 ideas ranging from no-cost modifications to invest-to-save schemes at varying stages of delivery.

Energy communications are everywhere at Birmingham Airport.

Energy performance reports, toolkits, workshops and projects, newsletters, posters, competitions, noticeboards, energy treasure hunts, surveys and departmental energy champions who are empowered to make changes, guarantee this programme is top of mind for everyone.

The team is careful to ensure that every voice is heard and that awareness of savings made is high. Importance is placed on making changes wherever possible to enhance both energy use and passenger and employee comfort, for example when reducing temperatures.

“To achieve £240,000 [€332,000] savings in one year, after the experts have investigated the more obvious interventions, is incredible and great testament to the power of staff engagement,” remarks Richards.

“So much energy consumption is within the control of our people, whether it’s turning things off or running them properly.

Not everything can be automated. You can have grand plans but if AW they are not acted upon, they mean nothing.”

About the author Matt Whitehead is head of carbon and energy reduction at Low Carbon Maintenance & Buildings (LCMB), a consultancy that optimises its clients’ building performance for people productivity, energy and cost.

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WBP NEWS

The latest news from ACI’s World Business Partners

Provero Location: London, UK Contact: Alexander Springer, CEO Email: alexander.springer@prevero.com Website: www.prevero.com Prevero is a leader in integrated planning, analysis and reporting software. It enables you to integrate the strategic concept of your airport into all key areas of planning using one single technology platform. Vital data from all popular source systems can be seamlessly integrated with ease and speed, giving you optimal control over your business.

TransCore, Inc

Dufry becomes world’s biggest travel retailer

Dufry has agreed to acquire a 50.1% stake in rival World Duty Free (WDF) from the Benetton-controlled Edizone Group for €1.3 billion.

Following completion of the transaction it will launch a mandatory tender offer for the remaining 49.9% stake in WDF at the same share price of €10.24 per share, effectively valuing the company at €2.6 billion.

The deal will create the world’s biggest travel retailer operating one in every four airport duty free shops with global sales of €7.6 billion.

Indeed, the combined entity will comprise a geographically diversified concession portfolio with operations in 67 countries and close to 400 locations, providing a balanced exposure to developed and emerging markets and spanning five continents.

Julián Díaz, CEO of Dufry, commented: “The acquisition of WDF is a truly unique and highly transformational transaction for Dufry and is equally a milestone for the travel retail industry overall.

“The transaction further enhances our global position and with a market share of 24% in airport retail we plan to drive our business to new levels in term of capturing global passenger flows, execution capabilities and efficiencies. WDF’s business is highly complementary to our existing footprint and will reinforce our leading position in the Mediterranean, the Americas as well as the Middle East and Asia.

“At the same time, having access to one of the most diverse passenger flows in Heathrow, combining attractive emerging and developed market customer profiles, will allow us to leverage our existing expertise on all the customer groups and to further develop our global offering.”

London calling

International aviation consultancy, Airbiz, has opened a London office, its first in Europe, which will serve as a base for new general manager for Europe, Pieter Coetzee.

A qualified architect with a particular interest in terminal design and concept development, Coetzee brings a wealth of experience to Airbiz after previous stints with Atkins, Arup, Pascall+Watson and SOM. His expertise is in airport master planning, terminal planning and airside planning and, according to Airbiz, his “unparalleled knowledge of the European sector will be an invaluable asset” to the company.

Nice deal

SSP has secured an 11- year deal to run 10 outlets at Nice Côte D’Azur Airport. Among the new outlets are a restaurant called L’Estivale, created in partnership with two-Michelin-starred chef Mauro Colagreco, and the first Jamie’s Italian in France.

The company took over the operation of two units in Terminal 1 in February and will open new outlets in both Terminals 1 and 2 respectively during the course of 2015 and in 2017.

Commenting on the win, Gérard d’Onofrio, managing director SSP France, Belgium, Netherlands, said: “The airport has ambitions to become one of the major platforms in south Europe, with a genuine focus on the passenger experience.

“Following the successful development of our business at Nantes and Bordeaux airports, this new business represents another major step in the airport sector for SSP France, and secures our position as the leader in the French market.”

Location: Carrollton, Texas, USA Contact: Forrest Swonsen, director, airport systems & services Email: forrest.swonsen@transcore.com Website: www.transcore.com Nine out of the top ten busiest US airports use TransCore’s Automatic Vehicle Identification (AVI) solutions to maximise their non-aeronautical revenue and improve their operations by identifying and creating new revenue sources, optimising kerbside use, controlling movement of commercial vehicles, expediting access control for known and trusted vehicles, as well as providing hands-free revenue collection, automatic billing and operator compliance.

Airport Retail Group Location: Oslo, Norway Contact: Roel Huinink, director and board member Email: roel.huinink@airportretail.no Website: www.airportretail.no Airport Retail Group (ARG) is a large Norwegian fashion and duty free operator with business activities in the Nordic region and the UK. The company has concentrated the majority of its business at airports, and is separated into two divisions: Duty Free and Fashion. Its vision is to become the leading operator of retail outlets at airports and department stores.

AIRPORT WORLD/APRIL-MAY 2015

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HUMAN RESOURCES

PEOPLE

matters The good, the bad and the ugly Dr Richard Plenty and Terri Morrisey provide their thoughts on: The customer service role of frontline staff.

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eemingly insignificant events can result in long-lasting memories and stories to be told, both favourable and unfavourable.

Two recent personal interactions brought home to us how attitudes and behaviours of frontline staff towards the customer can lead to totally different customer experiences – and ultimately influence future commercial decisions.

In the first case, the scene was the women’s restroom in a well-known London hotel. One of the authors, Terri, noticed that the soap dispenser was empty. A male attendant was fixing the adjoining sink dispenser. She mentioned the lack of soap and asked for his assistance. He replied that his task was to repair the broken dispenser and told her that she would have to talk to housekeeping about the soap, as that was their job. He seemed indifferent to her immediate plight and focused solely on his task.

The second incident took place in Terminal 2 at Heathrow Airport two hours later. On arrival at the airport, Terri needed to make an urgent call to a business colleague but found that her phone was not picking up a Vodafone signal.

She approached a friendly looking woman at one of the check-in desks and asked her if the signal was OK. The woman asked a number of her colleagues if their phones were working, but none had Vodafone. Refusing to accept defeat, the

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woman then phoned her mother who lived nearby and learnt that the Vodafone signal had been erratic over the last few days.

She then handed Terri her own phone and suggested she use it to call her business colleague. When this number turned out to be busy, she told Terri to leave a message for her colleague to call the phone back and she would explain the situation. This all happened within five minutes.

These two stories illustrate how customer experience is very often the outcome of the interaction between the customer and the behaviour of the person in the frontline. The key behaviours that differentiate poor from outstanding experiences are: • Taking responsibility for the customer and not just the task. It’s important to make time for the customer even when under pressure • Empathy, listening and concern for the customer’s dilemma • Creativity, humour and the smile☺ • Using a problem-solving approach • And...going the extra mile Competent and confident employees and stakeholders focused on the customer create the real unique customer proposition.

Never underestimate the impact of friendly, engaged, trained, customerfocused staff on reputation and ultimately the bottom line!

CELEBRATING 20 YEARS OF AIRPORT WORLD

John Aitken has been promoted to assistant director of aviation for Mineta San José International Airport (SJC). He has served as acting assistant director of aviation since 2013 and deputy director of aviation – operations at Silicon Valley’s airport since 2002, and he has been with SJC since 1993. “After a national search, I’m pleased to announce the right candidate for SJC’s assistant director of aviation has been working alongside me for the past several years,” enthused director of aviation, Kim Becker Aguirre.

Abu Dhabi Airports has appointed Mohamed Mubarak Al Mazrouei as its new CEO, succeeding Tony Douglas who announced that he was leaving earlier this year. According to Abu Dhabi’s airport operator, Al Mazrouei possesses considerable experience in major infrastructure projects, and in the aviation and transportation sectors. Douglas is returning home to the UK to work as chief executive of defence and support at the Ministry of Defence.

In the UK, former Cardiff International Airport CEO, Jon Horne, has been appointed interim managing director of London Southend Airport; Ken O’Toole has been promoted to the position of managing director of Manchester Airport; and London Gatwick has named Raymond Melee as its new director of development, responsible for taking its £1 billion investment programme forward.

Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) executive director, Gina Marie Lindsey, is to retire. After eight years in the LAWA hot seat and 33 years working in the aviation industry, Lindsey believes the time is right “to move on to other adventures” this spring. “This is an appropriate time for a transition,” says Lindsey. “The next LAWA executive director will be able to take the Airports Development Program through its next major phase, its next round of projects that will last at least 10 years.”

About the authors Terri Morrissey and Dr Richard Plenty are directors of This Is... They can be contacted at info@thisis.eu

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