With the steady rise of mobiles and smartphones as the central device for interactions between airports and passengers, the report by ACI Europe looks at the services that European airports have made available on smartphones.
According to a recent study by SITA, over 80 percent of European passengers travel with a smartphone, 41 percent of which also travel with a tablet.
So what are European airports doing to keep up with the trend?
A smartphone app is perhaps one of the best ways to communicate with passengers, and are now a very established part of digital life. In all, the report by ACI Europe found that there are 51 free, dedicated and branded airport apps available, covering 164 airports in Europe. In 2013, these airports welcomed 73 percent of European air passengers through their doors – over 1.1 billion passengers in total.
The report found that all apps were available through the Apple App Store, with 97 percent downloadable from Google’s Android system. Just 58 percent were available for on Windows Mobile platform, and a mere 2.7 percent were available for Blackberry.
How Do Apps Empower Passengers?
The graph highlights the number of passengers able to receive specific information about airports via their apps. ACI Europe found that airport apps contains a variety of features, with the most common being live updates of arrivals and departures. The number of apps offering pre-booking of parking, live security queuing time and social media links is expected to increase.
New technologies such as Near Field Communication (NFC) and Beacon technology could improve the services offered by airports. NFC allows smartphones and other enabled devices to communicate with each other using radio frequencies within close range. NFC enabled smartphones can hold secure information such as passenger data, boarding cards and credit card data - trials of NFC have been conducted at Toulouse - Blagnac airport and Schiphol in Europe.
Beacon deviced are an indoor proximity system available in various shapes and sizes that transmit a signal using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE). When a BLE enabled device such as a smartphone, moves within range of the beacon's signal, it can trigger an action, like displaying a contextually relevant message on the phone.
The report by ACI Europe says that in a real world scenario, the beacon could trigger an app on a smartphone to send flight information, airport notifications, or promotional coupons as the user enters a specfic zone such as a departure area, specific retail store or airport lounge. Beacon concepts for apps have been trialled at London Gatwick and Paris Charles de Gaulle.
According to the ACI/SITA 2014 Airport IT Trend Survey, 76 percent of European airports stated that investing in geo-location technologies which could improve passenger flows and provice location-based services are high on the agenda over the next three years. 57 percent plan to pilot NFC, 54 percent beacon, and 23 percent wearable technologies between now and 2017.
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