I hate…* (insert your airport of choice)

How often have we said that? “I hate <airport name>”. I have, many times, and mostly about the same few airports around the word, some large international hub and some small regional airports (names have been withheld to protect the guilty).

The causes of my wrath are several;

• Massive queues at security checks just to get into the terminal building

• Massive queues at check-in (often compounded by out of order self-service kiosks, or kiosks that don’t recognize my booking – and I’m not talking about the time I tried to check-in at a Scoot kiosk for a Malaysian Airlines flight! My bad

• Massive queues at immigration (often compounded by self-service immigration machines that don’t recognize my passport)

• Massive queues at security to get to the airside of the terminal (with due consideration given to the idiots who wait until the last minute before removing their coat, jacket, belt, shoes, wallet, mobile phone, laptop, loose change, watch, pacemaker, etc)

and last but not least…

• The mad rush to board with four lines open only to funnel into a massive queue on the airbridge to the single-aisle aircraft as the first person on board struggles to fit the oversized cabin bag, laptop back, duty fee shopping, coat, jacket and hat into the overhead bins…after which they find they are in the wrong seat

According to Skytrax the best airports in the world in 2015 were as follows:

1. Singapore

2. Tokyo (Haneda)

3. Inchon

4. Munich

5. Hong Kong

6. Doha

7. Nagoya

8. Zurich

9. London (Heathrow)

10. Frankfurt

11. Amsterdam

12. Osaka 

13. Vancouver

14. Tokyo (Narita)

15. Copenhagen

I have had the privilege(?) of travelling through 12 of these (Vancouver, Osaka and Nagoya being the exceptions) and, needless to say, have some differing opinions on some of these.

Without being biased (as a Singapore resident) I can honestly say that I fully agree with Changi as the top billing airport in the world. It has everything one needs for a pleasant transit in, out, or through. Most importantly, speed. I have gone from home to seated on board in 17 minutes (I timed it). Thankfully I do live 9 minutes from the airport but 8 minutes from arriving at the terminal to checking in (manual), clearing (automated) immigration, walking to the gate, clearing security, going through the boarding pass check, to seated is pretty impressive. I must add that this was an A380 and they actually did start boarding 60 minutes before take-off and, I am one of those people that tend to leave things to the last minute. 

If, unlike me, you are more sensible and leave yourself plenty of time for any unplanned or unexpected events then there is a plethora of activities to young and old entertained within the terminal and transit areas. I love Changi. 

It just works, well. 

Of the 12 there are 3 which I feel deserve far higher billing – Zurich, Copenhagen and Amsterdam. All excellent airports with great facilities and a pleasure to travel through.

By the same token there are two of the top ten that wouldn’t make my top 50. And one of these is my “I hate…” airport for all the reasons stated above.

However, my hatred for certain airports in misplaced. 

In general airports just provide an infrastructure and it is the service providers that determine, well, the level of service, with a few caveats. Let’s go back to my list…

1. Security to get in to the terminal

This is not a common phenomenon and many airports do not have this step in the process. Security is often contracted out and is often not even under the control of the airport but that of a government authority. Hence, my beef should be with security and not the airport.

2. Check-in queues

With the ability to check-in on line, this has, to some extent, been alleviated however there are often still documentation checks and bag drops where queues can be frustratingly long. Again, not the airports problem. The check-in staff are either employees of the airline or contracted to the airline. Hence, my beef should be with the airline not the airport. 

3. Queues at immigration

Automated (working) immigration systems are helping in this area but they are few and far between so we are often subjected to a substantial delay to get through this process. Immigration officers are part of government bodies who staff checkpoints accordingly. Hence, my beef should be with immigration and not the airport.

4. Security to ‘board’

See item 1.

5. Boarding processing

Like check-in the boarding gates are either manned by the airline or contracted by the airline (and are often the same folks that check us in) and have nothing to do with the airport. Hence, my beef should be with the airline and not the airport.

Even if we do acknowledge that it’s the ‘operator’ that is responsible for the issue we always associate it with the airport… “I hate security at ….”.

I am sure we have all heard of, and expect, a smooth and seamless, frustration free process transiting an airport but it doesn’t often happen. I believe this is largely due to a lack of cooperation and coordination across the eco-system. Airports that work well work because the eco-system works together with a common goal of customer satisfaction and exceptional user experience. As long as the airport provides the infrastructure and the rest of the eco-system do their bit that seamless experience is achievable…with a lot of help from technology.

‘Simple’ things such as passenger traffic flows can make a huge difference. Using data from the airlines, in-building sensors and leveraging analytics and IoT, can help the airport determine when and where traffic is going to start to congest, ahead of the event, and can alert it’s partners accordingly so that they may open extra immigration and security gates whilst passengers that have plenty of time can be directed to rest or F&B areas to help ease unnecessary congestion.  

Similarly, having connected devices can help predict equipment failures and facilitate mitigation plans.

Having a direct connection, again IoT and location services, could help airports or airlines direct lost or late passengers to their correct boarding gates.

With the ability to get passengers into the air-side of the terminal as quickly and efficiently as possible airport have a greater ability to sell retail and F&B space and, the more retail and F&B space they have the more ancillary revenue they can earn, without much in the way of further investment. And, the more retail and F&B (and entertainment) options there are the happier the passengers will be.  

And that’s what it’s ultimately all about, not just across the airport eco-system but in everything that we do – it’s delivering and exceptional user experience.

Technology can’t do it all but it can go a long way to improving the process and providing proactive decision support to those on the ground that are charged with the much sought after experience that brings us to say “I LOVE <airport name>”.