Kuwait International Airport is installing 12 self-service check-in kiosks – the first kiosks of their kind at the airport – as part of an eight-year contract renewal with SITA.
The installation of 12 self-service check-in kiosks is part of an eight-year deal signed between Kuwait International Airport and SITA.
Kuwait International Airport is installing 12 self-service check-in kiosks as part of an eight-year contract renewal for SITA’s AirportConnect Open passenger processing platform. The kiosks are currently undergoing testing and are the first to be installed in the airport.
Fawaz El Farah, President of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, Kuwait, said: “Kuwait International Airport is growing at a rate of 5% annually. SITA’s self-service technology provides an efficient way to help manage these extra passengers, while enhancing their experience in the airport.”
The AirportConnect Open platform enables airports, airlines and their handling agents to access their respective IT applications in real-time on shared equipment. It also allows any airline to use any agent desk, gate or self-service kiosk.
Mohammed Hariri, Chairman of the Airline Operating Committee, Kuwait International Airport, said: “SITA’s passenger processing platform gives us more flexibility and enhances our operational efficiency as passenger numbers continue to rise. We’re excited to take this technology one step further and offer self-service kiosks in the airport for the first time.”
FTE spoke to AirAsia’s Steven Dickson about the self-service facilities that will be available in klia2 and why airports should treat LCCs and full-service airlines differently.
AirAsia’s Steven Dickson, Group Head, Ground and Inflight Operations; Aireen Omar, CEO of AirAsia Malaysia; and Tan Sri Tony Fernandes, Group CEO, AirAsia, helped passengers get to grips with the new self-tagging kiosks at KLIA’s Low-cost Carrier Terminal in October. The self-tagging facilities will be rolled out more widely once klia2 opens in May 2014.
On 2 May 2014, the world’s largest purpose-built airport terminal for low-cost carriers, klia2, is scheduled to open its doors and as the flagship airline customer, AirAsia will go live with the most comprehensive self-service offer ever seen in an Asian airport. Passengers flying from the facility – which will replace the existing Low-cost Carrier Terminal (LCCT) – will be able to check-in using self-service kiosks, tag their own bags, and – towards the end of this year – deposit them at a self-service bag drop without the assistance of an airline agent. While this kind of all-encompassing self-service process is becoming commonplace in Europe, it will be a groundbreaking experience for many Asian travellers.
“One thing we’ve been mindful of is the way the Asian consumer market reacts to self-service,” explained Steven Dickson, Group Head, Ground and Inflight Operations, AirAsia. “What we didn’t want to do at the beginning was go in and say: ‘we’re 100% self-service’ with a Qantas-type model. So, what we’ve got is components of existing technology and new stuff as well.”
klia2 is the largest purpose-built terminal for low-cost carriers anywhere in the world and will be the new home of AirAsia.
Among the new solutions are the latest self-service kiosks, which can be used to verify documents, check-in and print bag tags. These are in addition to the bag drop units that will be introduced in the second half of the year that will provide the second stage of the two-step bag drop process that AirAsia has opted for. While the airline’s self-tagging service was launched in October 2013 in the LCCT, it will be rolled out more widely across the new terminal.
At present, 65-70% of AirAsia’s passengers make use of self-service check-in, but Dickson is confident that with the current growth rate standing at between 1-2% per month, the airline will eventually be able to push self-service uptake “upwards of 95%”.
Permanent and home-printed bag tags?
Steven Dickson, AirAsia’s Group Head, Ground and Inflight Operations, pictured here alongside AirAsia founder Tony Fernandes, explained that he would like to see upwards of 95% of the low-cost carrier’s customers using the self-service facilities.
When questioned by FTE about going even further with the use of new technology and adopting permanent and home-printed bag tags, Dickson explained that he will wait for other airlines to put in the legwork, rather than try to be seen as a pioneer.
He said: “It’s all very well being the first to market, but I’d rather get it right. Let the others have the pain-points. We’ve always been innovators at AirAsia and will often be first to market, but with this, I’m more than happy to come in down the line and scoop it up, taking away the learnings from others.”
Low-cost no longer means low-quality
In a time when customer service and the overall experience of travel matters more to flyers than ever before, AirAsia – which has been voted World’s Best Low-Cost Carrier for five years running by SkyTrax – is open to the idea of responding to passenger demands to ensure its offer stands out from the crowd. That is, in Dickson’s own words, “as long as it doesn’t pollute the rest of the business”.
He continued: “Five years ago, we would have said: ‘Connectivity? No. Lounge access? No way. Priority baggage? I don’t think so.’ But if there’s a smart way to do it and deliver it in a high quality way to a consumer that’s willing to pay while still maintaining our core principles as a low-cost carrier then that’s the way to go. I think there’s a trade-off to be had.
“It’s a bit of a cliché, but low-cost may have meant low-quality in the past and with many imitators, that’s exactly the experience you got. Of the 40-plus million customers who flew with us in 2013, the vast majority of them will have had a great experience and will come back again.”
Low-cost carrier, full-service experience?
Steven Dickson, Group Head, Ground and Inflight Operations, AirAsia: “One thing we’ve been mindful of is the way the Asian consumer market reacts to self-service.”
However, rising customer service levels should not lead airports to treat LCCs in the same manner as full-service airlines, Dickson explained. In fact, this issue, he revealed, will “turn off” AirAsia in terms of dealing with these airports and growing its presence.
“The expectation all too often is that as an airline customer, you’re going to deliver the same customer service as all other airlines,” he stated. “In particular, some airports expect full-service passengers to be processed in exactly the same way in exactly the same times as a passenger flying with us, with the same queuing times and bag delivery times.
“Yes, I’m paying the airport to use that footprint, but they’re our customer! For us, it’s all about managing cost, which allows us to really grow the market exponentially. Our customers don’t expect to queue forever, but neither do they expect to be processed in the same time as a Business Class passenger.
“Service levels are important, but if we can offer fares half that of the nearest full-service operator, what’s an extra few minutes? The beauty of technology, of course, is that queues will become a thing of the past, providing our airports embrace what’s coming at them!”
An airline-designed airport of the future
While AirAsia will soon be settling into its new home in klia2, Dickson continues to look further ahead. Setting his sights on the airport of the future, he envisages an airport where the first airline agent the passenger meets is at the door of the aircraft. Building on this vision, he even explained that future airport terminals could be designed and owned by the airlines themselves, admitting, however, that such a model is some way off.
For now, though, AirAsia’s focus is on agreeing the final details of its move into klia2 with Malaysia Airports and to make its first real attempt to push self-service as the predominant means of processing in Asia memorable for all the right reasons.
Steven Dickson, Group Head, Ground & Inflight Operations at AirAsia, will take part in a session entitled: ‘What should the key passenger touch-points look like in the future?’ at FTE Europe 2014, which will take place in London from 3-5 March 2014. Meanwhile, FTE Asia 2014 will take place in Kuala Lumpur from 1-3 December 2014 and as AirAsia’s HQ is in Kuala Lumpur, you can be confident of hearing more from them at this event.
FTE spoke to Amadeus’ Head of Airport IT about ACUS – the new cloud-based system that Amadeus says could redefine the airport common use market.
Amadeus’ Airport Common Use Service (ACUS) marks the company’s first venture into the competitive airport common use space.
The entry of Amadeus into the common use space has got people asking what impact cloud-based solutions will have on traditional common use systems that tend to rely on onsite infrastructure.
The specific product currently in the spotlight is the Airport Common Use Service (ACUS), a next-generation, cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS) platform that allows airlines and ground handlers to share the physical space and IT resources of the airport, and which Amadeus says helps to eliminate the burdens of hosting and development.
“Most other common use solutions make use of virtualisation, which runs off local servers at the airport, so this is different in that it’s a cloud-based solution that is centrally hosted in a single date centre,” John Jarrell, Head of Airport IT at Amadeus, told FTE.
“If you centrally host everything in the cloud, you can make one change centrally and that change is then made across all airports in the network, so you don’t have to make the change at each of the airports individually. It fixes the problem that airlines have complained about for years.”
CUPPS compliant solution
Jarrell explained that ACUS’ ability to connect to all airline Departure Control Systems – which is particularly useful for Amadeus given that it “provides DCS services to 25% of passengers checked in globally” – as well as airport applications makes it easier and more cost-effective for airlines that are expanding their network. It is also fully compatible with the CUPPS (Common Use Passenger Processing Systems) industry standard.
“If you’re American Airlines running on Sabre, for instance, you have connections from Dallas to Airport A, B, C and so on – you may have hundreds of airport connections.” Jarrell continued. “With ACUS, Sabre connects to a single network connection and I can then run all of the network connections from there.
John Jarrell, Head of Airport IT at Amadeus, told FTE Editor Ryan Ghee that live tests of ACUS have already been successfully completed in Germany and South Africa.
“This takes away a networking business that some of the other providers might not be too happy about, but it definitely benefits the airlines. One of the things the airlines haven’t liked, and the thing that CUPPS was supposed to fix in the past, was that everyone would prefer to use their own native application but couldn’t. With ACUS though, they can still run their native application hosted in our data centre and provide access to all of their staff around the world.”
ACUS trials in Germany and South Africa
It all sounds good in theory, but what about in practice? Jarrell told FTE that live tests have already been successfully undertaken. “Some people have said it’s not a good idea to host everything centrally as it takes up a lot of bandwidth and the network costs will be high,” he stated. “We don’t have this problem though, as we can scale the solution and the bandwidth use is actually low.
“People also mention latency issues. Well, we’ve tested this in a German airport and the airlines said it is faster than the existing system. You might think it performed well at a German airport because the system is hosted in Germany, but we’ve also tested it in South Africa, running it from the German data centre, and it was still a lot faster.”
Will airports embrace the cloud?
Over the years, airlines have been at the core of Amadeus’ business and having witnessed the shift among carriers towards cloud technology, Jarrell said he expects airports to follow suit.
“The airport industry has advanced tremendously from the days of dedicated airline check-in desks towards a much more flexible and shared environment. It is now ready to embrace more change in order to maximise commercial and operational performance, and it can derive huge efficiencies from moving towards a common use service,” he said.
“Our platform will enable the airport ecosystem to use its resources much more intelligently, ultimately improving the passenger experience and taking the next step towards becoming the airport of the future.”
There can be no doubting the confidence from Jarrell and Amadeus that ACUS could be true game-changer in the common use field, which has traditionally been dominated by the likes of SITA, ARINC, Air IT and the like. Now it will be interesting to see whether the airports agree that cloud computing is the future, and what impact it will have on this competitive sector of the industry.
Finavia’s Joni Sundelin tells FTE about the 2020 development plan for Helsinki Airport and explains why he expects mobile technology to revolutionise passenger processing.
Joni Sundelin, Senior Vice President, Finavia, outlined Helsinki Airport’s 2014-2020 plan to FTE Editor Ryan Ghee at PTE in Barcelona, explaining that increasing capacity at check-in and security are the central elements of Phase 1.
Helsinki Airport’s motto is “for smooth travelling”, and as passenger numbers continue to increase and the point of saturation nears, Finavia – the Finnish airport operator – is exploring its options to ensure the capital city airport is well positioned to continue to live up to this tagline in the years ahead.
The current annual passenger throughput at Helsinki Airport is almost three-times higher than the 5.4 million population of the entire country, but the ongoing passenger growth hasn’t yet impacted the highly regarded passenger experience on offer. However, to ensure this remains the case, a 2014-2020 development plan is being deployed, and the passenger is at the centre of it.
In recent months, FTE has reported on a number of eye-catching projects that have been implemented at Helsinki Airport – ranging from the introduction of free Wi-Fi and a Relaxation Area, to the Quality Hunters programme and the recent decision to install self-service bag drop units.
Increasing capacity at check-in and security
Finavia has embraced self-service and now check-in kiosks and do-it-yourself tagging and bag drops are commonplace at Helsinki Airport.
When FTE met with Joni Sundelin, Senior Vice President at Finavia, he explained that a number of other initiatives are being considered – including a dedicated digital room for passengers who like to make use of their smartphones and tablets while travelling – but the most pressing task is to establish how the smooth travelling experience can be protected.
“There are three phases in the 2020 project,” he explained. “Phase 1 is ongoing and focuses on increasing capacity at security and the check-in areas. For example, in Terminal 2 operations are very much focused on oneworld and Norwegian. We know we have security bottlenecks at peak times, so we’re going to increase the capacity.” As for the check-in upgrades, this is something Finavia is focusing on at a number of the airports under its operation, not just Helsinki.
“Then in Phase 2 we will evaluate how best to increase terminal capacity, so we’re now evaluating whether to build a new terminal or to extend T2. It’s very much a balancing act between capital investment, cost and product. Being a small airport gives us our competitive edge, but a new terminal would make the connection times longer, so it’s a big decision.” Either way, Sundelin explained that Finavia is hopeful of coming to a decision by September or October this year.
Phase 3, meanwhile, focuses on developing the airport city model, which will gather pace once the passenger- and capacity-related projects have been addressed.
Mobile vs CUPPS
Finavia already offers a high-end smartphone app, but the airport operator is planning to make further use of the technology. Joni Sundelin, Senior Vice President, Finavia, said: “We’re one step away from the next generation, which is mobile”.
Of course, a terminal extension, or even construction of a new terminal, would mean investment in new passenger and baggage processing systems and technologies. However, Sundelin explained that he is not yet prepared to commit to any more major investments in this area as he feels the mobile revolution will have a major impact in the near future.
“Self-service will become even more important,” he said, “but we’re struggling with the CUPPS/CUSS debate. We’re one step away from the next generation, which is mobile, which will mean we won’t have a lot of the physical machines at the airport.
“So, you have to ask: ‘Does this investment pay back over just one or two years?’ I would say everything will change a lot within three to five years, or even sooner. We have to look at how this development will impact the whole infrastructure, how travellers will connect with the infrastructure in the future. I for one truly believe in mobile and digital.”
So, while Finavia itself is still deciding how it will address the unavoidable capacity constraints at Helsinki Airport, whether Terminal 2 is extended or a brand new terminal is constructed, it seems passengers can be sure of an experience driven by remote, self-service processing and mobile technology.
FTE explores what role CUPPS, the cloud, virtualisation and native airline applications will play in the future, and assesses the thoughts of a number of industry experts.
CUPPS or native airline applications? Standardised common use or virtualised shared use platforms? On-site servers or cloud-based solutions? These are just a few of the many questions airports and airlines must consider when searching for the ideal common use set-up, and with more new solutions coming to market and contradictory opinions and recommendations being made across the board, how do you know which option is best for your business? To help get to the bottom of the debate, FTE spoke to a number of experts from airports, low-cost carriers, legacy airlines and industry suppliers to explore the future of airport common use.
Of course, at the heart of the common use debate is the Common Use Passenger Processing Systems (CUPPS) standard, which was introduced by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) in 2009 and was developed to simplify common use implementation by promoting a model whereby airlines would have a single application that could run on any CUPPS certified platform. The aim was for CUPPS to replace the Common Use Terminal Equipment (CUTE) standard, which has been in place since the 1980s. However, CUPPS needed to work with CUTE legacy applications to support the airlines that had not yet developed CUPPS applications.
Over the last five years there has been uptake among major players, with the likes of Las Vegas McCarran International Airport and Lufthansa among the most prominent supporters of CUPPS, but widespread rollout has failed to materialise, with many airlines preferring to continue working with their own CUTE-compliant and native applications.
Despite the slower than anticipated adoption rate, Thomas Jeske, Senior Manager, IT Infrastructure and Co-chair of IATA’s Common Use Working Group, told FTE the benefits of CUPPS “should not be ignored”. “The industry should continue to embrace CUPPS as it is the only (agent facing) common use standard that allows us to run one and the same application suite on multiple provider platforms.” He also explained that Lufthansa is “determined to retire its CUTE legacy application portfolio with all legacy CUTE providers and move to a CUPPS-only suite solution resulting in huge savings”.
CUPPS continues to be a ‘chicken and egg scenario’
The CUPPS-compliant “Green Build” Terminal 2 West at San Diego International Airport includes 10 new common use departure gates.
Such support is evident elsewhere. For instance, San Diego International Airport has recently embraced CUPPS in the “Green Build” Terminal 2 West expansion. However, while he is a strong supporter of CUPPS, Rick Bellioti, the airport’s Director of Information Services, accepts that it is still a “chicken and egg scenario”.
“Across the industry, the airlines often don’t want to invest in another new application unless there’s enough critical mass to justify it,” he told FTE. “So, airlines back-develop their applications to meet the CUTE standard. We’re in a situation where there will either have to be a mandate for CUPPS, or we’ll have to wait for enough sites to adopt it to reach that critical mass where it makes more financial sense.”
Gatwick CIO: Fundamental shift is needed
Not every major airport is as complimentary about CUPPS, though. Michael Ibbitson, Chief Information Officer at Gatwick Airport – which runs a traditional common use model – is not as willing to wait for this critical mass to be reached.
“The aviation industry has tried to address the problem with the development of CUTE and CUPPS standards but in doing so seems to have reinforced the existing infrastructure rather than instigate change,” he said, adding that a “fundamental shift in aviation IT” is needed.
Common use for low-cost carriers
The new klia2 at Kuala Lumpur International Airport opened in May 2014, but anchor airline tenant AirAsia was not keen to have to use common use infrastructure.
Clearly, all airports are not in agreement, and nor are all airlines. As for common use in general, San Diego’s Bellioti explained that “anecdotal evidence suggests lower cost airlines are more sceptical”, adding another layer to the somewhat complex debate. So, rather than simply asking if CUPPS is the right approach, some carriers are still not convinced that common use per se is the best option in every scenario.
AirAsia is a case in point. In May this year, the low-cost carrier transferred operations from the Low Cost Carrier Terminal at Kuala Lumpur International Airport to the new klia2 – the largest terminal dedicated to low-cost airlines ever built. With a number of carriers operating from the terminal, Malaysia Airports opted for a common use infrastructure – a decision that was not fully supported by the new terminal’s anchor tenant.
Steven Dickson, AirAsia Group’s Head of Ground and Inflight Operations, told FTE that since the move, having to use common use systems has forced the airline to increase manpower and has led to a higher cost base. “We’d spent the best part of three to four years educating the consumer on how to self-serve, how they should be doing it and what the benefits are. We introduced self-tagging last year, which was supposed to be the catalyst for moving to a fully outsourced operation with the consumer. Then we would have introduced automated bag drop and moved the staff to the places where they’re most needed.”
According to Steven Dickson, Group Head of Ground and Inflight Operations at Air Asia (far right), self-service uptake has suffered as a result of switching over to common use equipment.
However, Dickson explained that in the early days after the move to the common use klia2, the proportion of passengers tagging their own bags dropped from 35% to zero, while self-service kiosk usage dropped from 35% to just 10%. Last month, the carrier decided to stop using the self-service kiosks altogether – “not a move made lightly”, according to Dickson.
At the heart of this decision was the carrier’s dismay with the charging structure attached to the common use ecosystem. “The lowest cost solution is our own solution. With common use, we now have to pay 35 cents for each departing customer whether or not they use any of this infrastructure. They might be travelling with hand luggage and using a mobile boarding pass, so they don’t need to use the infrastructure, but we’re still charged 35 cents. How is that fair?”
Malaysia Airports, however, remains resolute in its position on common use. Dato’ Azmi Murad, General Manager, Operations Services, Malaysia Airports Holding Berhad, recently said the SITA-supplied common use infrastructure is helping klia2 to process “large numbers of passengers and their bags quickly and efficiently, for great on-time performance”. He added: “We are also delighted that all airlines – AirAsia, Malindo, Cebu and Tiger – are already onboard and using the new system.”
Dickson, however, suggests otherwise: “Don’t get me wrong, common use is worth it in a terminal with a multitude of carriers fighting for infrastructure, but in your home base where you have 92% of traffic on day one, it doesn’t make sense. We’re relatively small fry in the likes of Australia and Macau, so we’re happy to use common user there, but when you’ve got more than 90% of volume and 35,000 passengers per day, you start to think ‘is the tail wagging the dog?’”
There could be cause for optimism, though, as AirAsia has vowed to work collaboratively with newly appointed Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad Managing Director, Datuk Badlisham Ghazali, to try to find a solution.
Waiting for the tipping point
Unsurprisingly, SITA is also clear in its support for common use and the CUPPS standard. “I firmly believe CUPPS is a good thing,” Andrew O’Connor, the company’s Portfolio Director, told FTE at a recent meeting in Brussels. “It’s a good thing for the industry. I think the challenge has been that when you try to set a standard where there are other de facto standards out there, it’s quite difficult to accelerate adoption, but we’ve seen it really come along in the last year or so, and there are some big airlines really starting to push it.
“It has been a question of tipping point for sure, but that tipping point will come. It has seemed drawn out, it has seemed to take too long, but within the last year I think interest has really picked up.”
When questioned about whether common use is the right approach for low-cost carriers, he said: “Low-cost carriers, in a way, can be the most forward-thinking about automating the process…and optimising the end-to-end passenger flow. These guys are really measuring the flow times and measuring the cost of handling passengers more than anyone else, and you can’t do that unless you have some kind of standards around that whole end-to-end passenger process, and common use standards is the way to do that.”
Shared use vs Common use
AirIT’s EASE (Extended Airline System Environment) is a virtualised shared use passenger processing technology solution that enables airlines to share infrastructure while still using their own native applications.
However, the choice is not simply between common use systems (CUPPS-enabled or not), or simply operating as a silo using native applications. Virtualised shared use platforms that allow airlines to share infrastructure while still using their own proprietary applications are also an option.
“We believe that virtualised shared use platforms represent the best common use solution for all airports regardless of size, because it preserves the airlines’ business processes by allowing them to operate in their own native environment,” says Betros Wakim, CEO and Chief Technology Officer of AirIT, a company that has implemented shared use infrastructure platform technology at the likes of San Jose International Airport.
Wakim – who incidentally believes that the CUPPS standard is already “outdated” – says the “functionality, cost of deployment, passenger experience and ease of use for the airlines” are all benefits of virtualised shared use platforms over legacy common use alternatives. “In addition, the virtualised shared use passenger processing solution has been proven to be scalable, as it currently operates successfully in airports of varying size and scope.”
Cloud-based common use systems
Another benefit of virtualised shared use systems is that it reduces the need to have multiple servers located on-airport, but traditional common use suppliers say cloud-based common use is now starting to gain traction, and could become the option of choice in the future.
Amadeus hit the headlines back in April when it announced the launch of its own Airport Common Use Service (ACUS), billed as a next-generation, cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS) platform that allows airlines and ground handlers to share the physical space and IT resources of the airport, and which helps to eliminate the burdens of on-site hosting and development.
When John Jarrell, Amadeus’ Head of Airport IT, met FTE Editor Ryan Ghee, he made a strong case for cloud-based common use solutions, saying it solves the problems airlines have been complaining about for years.
Upon the launch of the product, John Jarrell, Head of Airport IT at Amadeus, told FTE: “If you centrally host everything in the cloud, you can make one change centrally and that change is then made across all airports in the network, so you don’t have to make the change at each of the airport individually. It fixes the problem that airlines have complained about for years.”
The likes of SITA and ARINC, however, say this concept is not necessarily revolutionary. SITA’s O’Connor explained that “we’ve actually been pushing the cloud-hosted solution for a while now” and that “about 15” smaller airports are currently using SITA’s cloud-hosted pay-as-you-go model. While he doesn’t expect every airport to opt for cloud-hosted common use in the near future, he does expect to see a “migration towards this” in the coming years.
ARINC’s Tony Chapman also explained that “at least five” of the company’s customer airports in the EMEA region are already making use of a cloud-based common use solution. However, he says there’s an important “balancing point” that airports should take into account when weighing up cloud-hosting versus on-site servers. “We think that balancing point is around 65 workstations,” he said. So, according to this theory, if an airport has more than 65 workstations, it will be cheaper to host the common use system on-site than it will to make use of a cloud-based system that runs entirely on an Internet connection. A cloud solution coupled with hard connections is another story again, though.
No end in sight to the CUPPS debate
The CUPPS standard was introduced by IATA in 2009 but has so far failed to gain traction throughout the entire industry.
But this is where the common use debate goes full circle once again. While Lufthansa’s Jeske accepts that cloud-based common use models are “obviously on the horizon” and that it makes sense for airlines to “engage in trials with potential providers to verify that such solutions work as expected”, he says it is “critical for the success of a cloud-based common use solution that the platform follows the IATA CUPPS standard”.
So, even if there is agreement among many (not all) airports and airlines that cloud-based common use is the future, the CUPPS debate will continue to dominate. Not only will the industry have to wait for the aforementioned “tipping point” if CUPPS is ever to gain the traction is was initially designed to achieve, but cloud-based common use could become the next “chicken and egg” as major airports wait for one another to take the plunge and trial the systems before they make an investment themselves.
Traditional common use, cloud-based solutions and shared use virtualisation platforms all have their own benefits, but finding a single solution that is widely recognised as suitable for smaller and larger airports, legacy airlines and low-cost carriers alike is a seemingly impossible task.
If CUPPS was designed to be a “one-size-fits-all” solution, it’s now clear that it does not fit this bill, but the support from major carriers and airports is evidence that it still has lots of potential and is by no means dead and buried. However, imposing it upon those that don’t support it is unlikely to pay off, but ignoring the challenges will get the industry nowhere. As Jeske rightly said, there will always have to be “compromise”, but establishing who should compromise and by how much is another debate entirely.
Learn about the future of airport common use at FTE Global 2014
FTE Global 2014, which will take place in Las Vegas from 24-26 September 2014, will include an interactive ‘Unconference’ session in which delegates will come together to debate the ‘The future of airport common use’. Led by a specialist facilitator, participants will debate which common use technologies and standards have an important role to play in the future.
David Kershaw explores the future of airport common use and the potential impact of the Cloud, self-service processing technologies and a differentiated charging model.
David Kershaw has almost 20 years experience in the air transport industry. Before launching Kershaw & Associates Ltd, he was responsible for strategy at a major common use airport systems provider and he has also served on IATA’s Common Use Working Group. At FTE Global 2014, David will lead an interactive Unconference session in which participants will debate: ‘The future of airport common use’.
Given the clear benefits of common use – whether it’s the ability to seamlessly switch on or off airlines as schedules change, to move carriers around airport campuses as demands with regards to alliances and partnerships evolve, or sharing the cost of hardware, consumables and maintenance to name just a few – it is hardly surprising that a major airport recently described their latest common use platforms as “strategically important assets”. That said, it is remarkable that there continues to be debate about the future of common use in general, and CUPPS (Common Use Passenger Processing Systems) in particular – why?
Speaking from experience, almost all major common use tenders in recent years have specified delivery of a CUPPS compliant solution. Despite this, only a handful of airlines have certified true CUPPS applications and fewer still are committed to rolling them out across their global networks.
This may of course be the result of the view that in the short- to medium-term, a CUPPS application is simply another variant on top of each of the vendor specific legacy CUTE (Common Use Terminal Equipment) applications they already maintain, but this hiatus has provided time to consider alternatives, and allowed consideration of differing shared system solutions: the partitioning of locally deployed workstations allowing multiple dedicated applications to run sequentially; of ‘hybrid’ solutions which seemingly aspire for platforms to run legacy CUTE, CUPPS, web-based or CUSS (Common Use Self Service) applications; or latterly, of wrapping dedicated airline applications, hosting them in data centres; arguably pseudo-common use, non-standard solutions.
The industry is searching for a ‘killer reason’ to justify change
As FTE recently reported, San Diego International Airport’s CUPPS compliant “Green Build” Terminal 2 includes 10 common use departure gates. However, could the introduction of new processing solutions be delaying wider uptake of common use, and CUPPS, elsewhere in the industry?
Compounding the industry’s indecisiveness, there remains a lack of a killer reason to change – PCI-DSS compliance was thought to be such a driver for change, but a full solution remains elusive, and COTS component updates have not yet generated enough significant forward momentum.
Some might point to their own internal business case not stacking up – there are always other seemingly more important projects for airline/airport IT spend. In a heavily regulated, somewhat conservative industry, with significant constraints on many aspects of the operational environment – in the air, and on the ground – changing a dated, yet robust, mission-critical system in is not necessarily seen as a vital priority.
Is the rise of self-service delaying CUPPS uptake?
The CUPPS standard was introduced by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) in 2009 with the aim of simplifying common use implementation.
Whilst some or maybe all of the above apply in specific cases, it must also be considered that alternative processing solutions bear some responsibility for the slow airline take-up of CUPPS to date. Agent check-in is decreasing and self-service around mobile boarding passes with home-printed or permanent bag tags seem to offer a tantalising alternative. In the short-term, self-service airside access, self-tagging from CUSS kiosks offers a way to move to automated bag drops, whilst self-boarding completes the outbound self-service passenger journey.
That said, until biometrics, with secure identity assurance/management systems are introduced, together with any necessary regulatory approvals, such an end-to-end self-service solution may well by limited to domestic, or perhaps regional travel where immigration checks are no longer required (think Schengen, or at best isolated test/trial cases such as the Aruba Happy Flow).
At FTE Global 2014, which will take place in Las Vegas from 24-26 September, David Kershaw will lead an interactive Unconference session in which participants will debate ‘The future of airport common use’. Among the key questions that will be discussed in this session will be:
What role will the Cloud play in future common use solutions?
It’s clear that a “one-size-fits-all” common use solution isn’t feasible. But is common use still the best approach for all airline and airport types (e.g. LCCs and legacy carriers? Hub and regional airports)?
Would a “pay-as-you-go” pricing model and shorter contracts between airports and vendors help to increase common use and CUPPS uptake?
What impact will the increasing use of self-service in the airport environment have on future CUPPS uptake?
A differentiated common use charging model now appears inevitable
The impact of the traditional common use business models – firm, fixed pricing over multiple years, paid for on a fair and equitable basis by all users – must also be considered. Is this a model that restricts, or at least puts the brake on rapid adoption of new airport/airline solutions?
It is often suggested that different types of airline ‘need’ common use more than others – generalisations are dangerous, but in a hub airport, a dedicated solution may be attractive, but in an outstation, common use may win the day.
Interestingly however, the airline doesn’t always make the decision, which then leads to tension between airport and airline customers. The entire debate about charging mechanisms causes uncertainty in the procurement and financial departments of the organisations that purchase and pay for common use platforms. Yet the introduction of differentiated charging is almost certainly inevitable as airlines and airports adopt new technologies.
The reality is that despite all of the reasons not to move to a new business model, the drive to change is very strong, not least because capacity constraints require speedier processing capabilities, or more investment in costly infrastructure.
The future of common use is secure, but maybe not as we know it
It is this complex technology versus regulatory dilemma with a business case overlay that is currently holding the industry back. Safety and security trump incremental, never mind dynamic, technology shifts, and this reality means many airports, and airlines, are stuck.
Everyone knows technology is changing, and everyone accepts that their customers and consumers want a different approach. But how can they leap without a clear consensus? It seems certain that common use platforms cannot be completely removed until the final (last two in each case!) carriers have moved off it. On this basis, the future of common use is surely secure, albeit in a different paradigm to the one we know now, where it stands accused of only providing for the lowest common denominator in terms of airline applications.
The future mission for any common use solution must be to provide a robust, flexible and standardised basis for airlines and airports that want to use leading edge technologies to do so, but bring the remainder with them on a stable basis. Consensus (albeit with freedom to innovate) is critical in delivering platforms which enable the future from a technology, customer service and airline-airport charging mechanism.
IATA’s Common Use Working Group has released its five-year Common Use Strategy, which is based on a clear vision up to the year 2020.
IATA’s Common Use Working Group has launched a new Common Use Strategy, a key part of which is the following vision: “By 2020, common use will provide flexibility of choice to deploy services based on interfaces adhering to industry standards”.
The topic of common use has continued to be a key point of focus for the industry throughout 2014, with discussions relating to the benefits, obstacles and the impact of new developments engaging stakeholders from across the air transport sector. Now, to outline its vision and plans in this space, IATA’s Common Use Working Group (CUWG) has launched a new Common Use Strategy.
The purpose of the document is to provide a clear strategy to drive the activities of the CUWG over the next five years and the final version is the result of discussions among the CUWG, two strategy meetings held in London with participation from IATA Member Airlines and IATA Strategic Partners, and follow-up meetings and calls with targeted airlines, airports and common use vendors.
“There is an opportunity,” the document states, “to challenge all aspects of common use from technical requirements through to business models at a time where the need to manage an efficient operation without the high costs of dedicated facilities has evolved with the shift to self-service passenger processing, in addition to a general progression in technology and further work on the passenger process.”
Having read the new strategy, FTE sought the views of Samuel Ingalls, Assistant Director of Aviation, Information Systems at McCarran International Airport and past chair of IATA’s CUWG, who succinctly highlighted the relevance of this new document.
“Common use,” he explained, “has been in place at airports around the world for three decades, driving both operational efficiency and cost savings for the industry. During that time period, both technology and process evolved significantly. Both the CUSS (Common Use Self Service) and CUPPS (Common Use Passenger Processing Systems) development efforts by industry stakeholders were always intended to be “living standards”, with modification and updates as needed by the industry. At this point, the roadmap developed should effectively guide further evolution in the important area of passenger processing.”
The five-year common use vision
At the heart of the Common Use Strategy is the following vision: “By 2020, common use will provide flexibility of choice to deploy services based on interfaces adhering to industry standards”. These interfaces will range from web services, cloud computing and mobile devices through to standard desktop offerings.
Offering his thoughts on this vision, Ingalls stated: “Airports have billions of dollars invested in their terminal facilities, and those facilities need to be efficiently used in order to realise the full benefit of that investment. Standard interfaces speed overall deployment and facilitate the development of new processes against those known interfaces. For the air carriers, the ability to have a clear understanding of the environment helps minimise development difficulty and maximise deployment efficiency.”
Samuel Ingalls, Assistant Director of Aviation, Information Systems at McCarran International Airport: “At this point, the roadmap developed should effectively guide further evolution in the important area of passenger processing.”
Additional core principles are highlighted in the document, including: facilitation of business processes; minimum, defined functionality; transparency including predictability, serviceability and affordability; and compliance to Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS) for common use infrastructure.
Also of note is the Common Use Mission: “The Common Use Mission is to provide on-demand operationally flexible and resilient passenger processing services using interfaces adhering to industry standards that leverage contemporary technology to enable the integration of services from multiple owners.”
Case for change
So, what exactly is the case for change for airlines, airports and passengers? One of the points highlighted is the fact that airlines are no longer a homogeneous group; nowadays there is huge diversity in airline business needs and models. Airlines and airports are both “frustrated by the slow pace of change and the inability to implement changes in a timely fashion” and the aviation industry is “very much moving to the pace of the lowest common denominator” at present.
In reference specifically to airlines, many would like to be able to differentiate their service offering based on the way they process their passengers, they would like to be able to choose different ways of delivering services to their customers (e.g. mobile/traditional methods), they require a card payment solution that is PCI compliant for self-service and agent-facing touch-points that use shared infrastructure, and cloud technology “will become the prevailing technology allowing airlines more flexibility to deliver their services directly or via a third party”.
Speaking to FTE, Magali Collot, IATA representative of the Common Use Working Group, explained that IATA supports the Common Use Strategy that represents the views of airlines, airports and IATA Strategic Partners involved in the CUWG, adding: “From an airline point of view, standard interfaces are definitely the way forward. The flexibility allows an airline to choose the standard interfaces (e.g. web services, cloud computing, mobile devices and/or desktop offerings) that would be presented to its application so that the concept of certify on one platform, run on many remains a core principle. It is also paramount that the standards in the realm of common use evolve based on both business needs and technology.”
Airport and passenger requirements
In terms of airports, the strategy highlights the fact that they need to maximise the current investments in terminal facilities and avoid unnecessary capital expenditure to build additional facilities, while also ensuring terminal space is utilised effectively and efficiently, creating an intuitive environment for passengers. It states: “Airports have a growing need to understand the requirements of their airline tenants, and to create a flexible IT environment, where this makes sense.”
A number of airport requirements relating to shared infrastructure are also highlighted, including the fact that airports would like to provide a portfolio of common use services including self-service and other options, from which airlines can choose in order to provide a seamless passenger journey to and through the airport.
Another important point is that airports want to be able to choose between on-site and off-site IT services, which means Wi-Fi access will become one of the most important enablers and a great facilitator of the common use environment. PCI DSS compliance is also equally applicable to airports.
In addition to the requirements and expectations of the airlines and airports, the Common Use Strategy takes into consideration the passengers’ viewpoint. Recognising the fact that passengers have completely different profiles and needs, and that the same passenger could even have different needs depending on the purpose of their trip and the airport location, it recognises that passengers now like to use their own devices, such as mobile phones and tablets, for processing. As well as needing access to the relevant infrastructure to complete all of the key steps in the air travel chain (e.g. check-in, bag drop, boarding), they require real-time information, which would ideally be delivered to their mobile devices.
Implementing the strategy
Illustration of the cycle to build adequate technical solutions based on standard interfaces and the efforts needed during the two-year implementation phase for each new technical solution. (Click to enlarge)
The aim of the new Common Use Strategy is to continue to build on these benefits for the industry. However, drafting a document is one thing, but implementing it is where the real benefits lie, and IATA’s CUWG says realistic key milestones should be agreed in order to achieve the latest five-year common use vision. The above illustration shows the cycle to build adequate technical solutions based on standard interfaces and the efforts needed during the two-year implementation phase for each new technical solution.
This approach should be followed on an ongoing basis when new business requirements emerge and technologies need to be applied to these new requirements in order to produce new common use industry solutions.
Achieving this five-year vision requires buy-in from a variety of industry stakeholders, but as a starting point, we recommend that you take a closer look at the Common Use Strategy.
Having secured Avinor as a customer for its Airport Common Use Service (ACUS), Amadeus will soon bring the solution to North America and Asia Pacific.
The Avinor Group, which operates 46 airports in Norway, says the Airport Common Use Service (ACUS) implementation will bring about a “25% cost reduction”.
Five months after announcing the first customer for its cloud-based Airport Common Use Service (ACUS), Amadeus has secured a deal with Norwegian airport operator Avinor, which will install the solution in a number of its 46 airports. Speaking to FTE upon the announcement of the deal, John Jarrell, Amadeus’ Head of Airport IT, also revealed that further contracts with airports in North America and Asia Pacific will soon be made public, taking ACUS outside of Europe for the first time.
Avinor’s deployment of ACUS – a cloud-based, CUPPS-compliant Software as a Service (SaaS) platform – will initially cover eight of the 46 airports, namely Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim, Stavanger, Tromso, Bodo, Alesund and Kristiansand airports. Jarrell explained that a rollout to all 46 airports within the nine-year contract timeframe is unlikely, but he would expect the total number of Avinor airports coming online during this period to “certainly get into the twenties”.
He added: “We believe ACUS is appropriate for all airports – we don’t have the network bandwidth limitations that some of the other companies have. We know that we can support big airports and we can also support, very cost effectively, the smaller airports as well.”
Having revealed that “we are in operations with a large number of airlines at another big airport that we haven’t announced yet”, Jarrell said Amadeus should soon be able to officially announce ACUS implementations in both North America and Asia Pacific.
“The airports that are looking for the future of common use are the ones that we’re more focused on,” he continued. “They recognise that the environment is changing and they see Amadeus’ solutions as more forward thinking.”
Long-term savings
Interestingly, Jarrell admitted that ACUS was not the lowest cost solution presented to Avinor – “we are often lowest on cost, but not on this occasion” – but the longer-term savings were one of the appeals for the airport operator.
This was confirmed by Brede Nielsen, Chief Information Officer, The Avinor Group: “(We) will be able to provide our airports with an innovative technology solution at a 25% cost reduction to the previous CUTE/CUPPS service whilst increasing customer satisfaction.”
With airport common use contracts traditionally around five years in length, it will be intriguing to see how many other airports adopt a cloud-based solution – whether provided by Amadeus or another of the vendors in this space – as existing contracts gradually come to an end.
