How Airports Can Innovate by Obsessing over Passenger Experience

Amazon’s culture of customer obsession and AWS Cloud technology can help airports build what’s next in travel.

I recently joined Amazon Web Services (AWS) to lead the worldwide airport industry segment. I’ve worked in airport technology for more than 20 years and I’ve seen airports use new technologies to continuously improve and increase capacity. As a result, the passengers’ journey became easier and less hassle. Behind the scenes, airlines, service providers, and the airports themselves worked together more efficiently. Now, as the travel industry recovers from the pandemic, the ability for airports to adapt and innovate has become even more important.

Build Back Better

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the dramatic drop in passenger volumes stopped all but the most critical airport improvement projects. As the airport industry begins to recover, I frequently hear the expression, “Build back better.” Airports are now beginning to solve critical industry challenges, including:

• Simplify the fragmented and disjointed passenger experience from home or accommodation to the aircraft door.
• Better forecasting and prediction to minimize delays and disruptions.
• Assurance of privacy and data protection when biometrics is used to help security and to improve passenger convenience.

Technology and innovation are part of the solution. In this blog post I’d like to share three things that I’ve recently learned that can help airports innovate with technology:

• Start with the customer need and work backward from there.
• Although I thought I understood the benefits of cloud computing, I completely underestimated its power to transform businesses and even entire industries.
• Amazon’s unique culture can enable airports and their technology partners to solve some of the industry’s toughest problems.

Start with the Customer

Airports have many types of customers: airlines, retailers, service providers, and, of course, passengers. If we focus on the desired passenger experience and work backward from there, we get a passenger journey that includes improved operations, cost efficiencies, and increased business performance for all stakeholders. To have the greatest impact on all the airport’s customers, the passenger should be the starting point for innovation.

For example, some passengers don’t want to wait at the gate any longer than necessary. With the right data and operational forecasting, those passengers can be called to the gate at the optimal time. This allows passengers to shop and relax in the terminal while simultaneously improving the airport’s retail revenues. Other passengers are more comfortable getting to the gate as soon as possible, but they may get bored or hungry waiting for their flight. So why not offer a mobile app for food and other goods to be delivered to their seat? Airports could even provide new ultra-convenient retail experiences, such as a grab-and-go store at the gate. The airport retailer Hudson recently launched stores using Amazon Just Walk Out technology at both Dallas Love Field Airport and Chicago Midway Airport to provide passengers with an enhanced shopping experience.

How AWS Is Helping Travel and Hospitality Companies

As a retailer, technology provider, logistics company, a cargo airline, and an innovator, Amazon helps travel companies build solutions. I work in AWS, the cloud computing division of Amazon that helps millions of companies innovate and deliver technology at speed and scale. For example, Ryanair used AWS Lambda to deliver a new COVID-19 travel wallet in their mobile app in just three days. Wyndham Hotels & Resorts built their new mobile app on AWS during the pandemic and included innovative features like Instant Hold for easy last-minute bookings. Just Eat Takeaway responded to massive growth in their business by using the cloud to quickly scale and adapt their operations.

How AWS Is Helping Airports

Many airports are taking advantage of the speed and agility of the cloud to quickly respond to changing business needs. Miami International Airport worked with Black Box to implement Amazon Connect to quickly transition service desk agents to a remote work environment.

MAGO’s GOairport, built on AWS with a serverless-first approach, was implemented in George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston and Brisbane Airport in Australia. The system provides passengers with a convenient way to reserve parking while increasing the airport’s parking revenues. In addition, the airport’s operations can benefit by using the data to analyze passenger arrival times and help forecast peak periods.

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, passengers want to physically touch fewer surfaces. Biometrics and other contactless solutions can meet this need. The technology also helps to quickly identify passengers and their travel documents to improve the efficiency of the airport terminal. Our Travel & Hospitality Competency partner, Elenium, is innovating with AWS to provide airport self-service technology that includes biometrics, touchless interaction, and voice recognition built with Amazon Polly and Amazon Lex.

Airports are using the capabilities of the cloud in less visible ways, too. The safety of passengers and staff is vital for any airport, and there are often strict regulations to ensure compliance. For example, some airports have thousands of security cameras and in some jurisdictions, the video data must be kept for years. Disk storage in the airport data center is expensive and managing tape backups can be cumbersome. To free up their IT budget and resources, airports are using Amazon S3 Glacier storage, which is a lower cost and more reliable alternative.

Technology and Culture Helps Unlock Innovation

Our customers often say that the flexibility of the cloud allows them to innovate better and deliver value faster. It allows them to take an iterative approach to refine the solution based on customer feedback and changing business needs. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) migrated from an on-premises data center to AWS so that they could start projects faster and deliver value quickly.

Airports’ biggest challenges involve many organizations working together globally. For example, airports, airlines, and handling agents must collaborate to optimize aircraft turn times. Airports, airlines, and border security agencies must work together for a safe and private biometric passenger journey. Airlines need to collaborate with all the airports and ground-handling companies in their route network to improve the outbound and return experience. In my conversations with stakeholders, the most frequently cited barrier is access to data. It’s not that data isn’t available. The issue is access to that data. How can these organizations get the data they need while respecting ownership, sovereignty, and privacy? AWS has helped other industries solve similar challenges. For example, Geneia, a healthcare analytics company, uses AWS to identify patients at risk of complications by analyzing existing data without compromising patient privacy.

AWS has the technology, reference architectures, an extensive partner network and industry expertise to help airports. Amazon’s unique culture can also help. We offer executive briefing sessions to connect our customers with AWS experts and executives for customized, collaborative discussions. Our Culture of Innovation discussions are available for customers who are curious about our peculiar culture and want to explore how they could use our mechanisms to improve innovation within their own organization. These discussions are tailored to address a customer’s business objectives. For example, airports could learn how to innovate in retail or how to better use data and apply it to their business.

Conclusion: Obsess over the Passenger

By starting with the passenger experience and working backward, the airport industry can create operational efficiencies, better retail experiences, and a smoother journey. Cloud computing, innovation, and culture help to deliver these improvements, which benefit not just the passenger, but all airport customers and stakeholders.

I’m humbled to be a part of the global AWS airport community. I look forward to helping airports, airport service providers, and technology partners innovate to build what’s next in travel, and to obsess with you over our shared customer: the passenger.

For more information about how AWS is transforming the industry, visit the Travel and Hospitality page.