In focus

Headway on the runway

Here's how IT is transforming Indian airports

For the first time an Indian airport, Mumbai Iinternational Airport (MIAL), will be included in SITA's annual Passenger Self-Service Survey which is fast-becoming the bellwether survey for tracking customer satisfaction with the efforts of the world's leading airports to exploit IT to process more passengers, eliminate congestion and maximise limited resources.

Mumbai is just one of seven airports worldwide which will feature in the survey. The inclusion of India's largest airport - over 25 million passengers last year - was made possible by the introduction of the country's first modern Airport Management System (AMS) last year, followed this year by significant new investment in the airport's check-in platform and the decision to introduce self-service kiosks.

In agreement with the 45 airlines based at MIAL, SITA is deploying its AirportConnect Open technology across 150 check-in counters at the airport and 50 CUSS (common-use self-service) check-in kiosks which will include 20 located in prominent Mumbai hotels. AirportConnect Open is SITA's next generation passenger processing solution which enables airports and airlines to access their proprietary and CUTE (common-use terminal equipment) applications on the same platform in a shared, totally secure environment. Multiple airlines can share the same facility allowing maximum use of gate and counter resources.

The deployment of SITA's self-service kiosk technology will allow airlines operating out of CSIA to enjoy the benefits of sharing dedicated IT systems and facilities, including the check-in counters and self-service check-in kiosks. The self-service kiosks will reduce check-in time by more than half and will also be able to print baggage tags, which in turn will translate into better facilities and an enhanced experience for both passengers and airlines at CSIA. This would maximise the terminal space at CSIA and will also provide CSIA with a robust and secure operating environment.

That's CUTE!

AAI and SITA pioneered CUTE introduction in India in 1998 with its first implementation at one of AAI's gateway airports in Mumbai, followed by its improved versions in 2003 at Delhi and Chennai Airports. AAI, in continuation of its partnership with SITA, has now undertaken active implementation of CUTE at 13 of its non-metro airports, which will help in the transformation of passenger facilitation at Indian airports.

SITA currently manages some 30,000 CUTE check-in desks for 285 customers in more than 200 airport locations worldwide, checking-in some 600 million passengers a year. Passenger traffic through the 13 so-called non-metro airports is expected to grow at an average annual rate of 37 per cent over the next five years. Last year 7,350,000 passengers passed through the 13 airports: Ahmedabad, Goa, Trichi, Calicut, Thiruvananthapuram, Coimbatore, Amritsar, Varanasi, Srinagar, Guwahati, Jaipur, Udaipur and Lucknow.

CUTE will further help AAI to create best-in-class passenger-friendly airports through automation of the check-in and boarding process which includes provision of bar-coded boarding passes in compliance with industry standards. Another area where Indian airports are now starting to focus attention is on modernising baggage management which has become a headache for many airlines and airports. The first-ever integrated passenger-baggage reconciliation system to go live at an Indian airport has been deployed by SITA at Bengaluru's BIAL and will be able to handle eight million passengers annually and 27 aircraft per hour. Lost baggage has been tackled by deploying technology which will give airlines and passengers maximum visibility on baggage movements through the airport. SITA, which tracks baggage in 220 countries and territories, has developed an integrated, end-to-end baggage reconciliation system which combines bar codes, Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) and highly redundant IP-based global links to ensure baggage gets to its destination on time.

The SITA system in Bengaluru comprises two modules - BagManager and BagMessage. SITA's BagManager interfaces with check-in and baggage sortation systems, and integrates with flight information systems for the latest updates on aircraft systems. BagManager can also be linked to high-tech security systems to verify the screening of bags by explosive detection systems and other devices. It reduces substantially the cost for airlines and airports of misdirected baggage. SITA's BagMessage ensures latest information about passenger bags and delivers 650 million messages between airline departure control systems and automated baggage systems each year. This is a significant innovation for the air transport industry in India. Passenger-bag reconciliation reduces aircraft delays through quicker off-loading in the case of passenger no-shows and automatically redirects bags that missed their connection onto alternative flights.

In addition, almost all airlines using BIAL are customers of SITA's WorldTracer, co-sponsored by IATA, which provides a single shared database of lost and mishandled bags which delivers world round-the-clock baggage tracing for some 400 airlines and other users.

A facilitator for transformation

SITA, in association with Airline Business, undertakes an Airport IT Trends survey every year. This global survey shows that the priorities of airport CIOs worldwide reflect those of airport CIOs in India. India is starting to witness huge growth in IT penetration in customer facing processes in the whole passenger-handling process. SITA's partnership with AAI for implementation of Airport ConnectOpen in 13 non-metro airports, CUSS with MIAL and CUSS & BRS with BIAL are all witness to the reality of this trend.

IT has played a pivotal role in reducing the cost of operations. It is being used not only with the objective of reducing cost but also to gain competitive advantage through process excellence. Manufacturing as an industry has seen this phenomenon in the late 70s and banking in the early 90s. The coming decade will see a similar transformation in aviation.

CUSS self-service check-in kiosks will do for airports what ATM machines did for banks. There will be less congestion as they will empower customers to get their boarding passes from places like shopping malls, hotels and railway and bus stations. This will change the face of airports and reduce pressure on check in counters. CUTE which allows airline check-in agents to share work stations, has made great advances in India since it was first introduced in Mumbai ten years ago.

RFID (radio frequency identification) technology can also bring substantial benefits to the air transport community in the form of cost reductions, improvements in productivity, customer services and safety. While RFID offers the potential of improvement in the processing of bags at the airport (RFID readers are more reliable than bar code readers), the greatest benefit will be the ability to integrate. This will also allow systems at any airport to identify immediately and automatically a mishandled piece of baggage, collect handling instructions from the airline responsible for the bag and route it to its correct destination. Similar benefits and more are expected from handling cargo and containers, or the management of other assets used at the airport or within an aircraft. Ground-to-air radio telecommunications and air-to-air communications services will see huge IT penetration in India.