Technological advancement in travel doesn’t always come encased in a shiny new device. Take the humble luggage tag: essential yet largely unchanged since the advent of mass air transit. Recent increases in self-service check-ins and untrained hands handling sticky baggage tags can complicate matters, which is why adhesive eezeetags (like post-its but for bag tags) provide a simple solution.
Pleasingly low-fi inventions aside, the FTE (Future Travel Experience) Asia expo showcased the latest in aviation and airport security technology. SITA, a technology firm specialising in air transport communications, displayed its ‘nose-to-tail’ solutions onboard flights and tools to enhance the passenger experience. My pick of the crop is its digital media content solution that allows travellers to download movies and e-magazines after check-in (and within 24 hours prior to departure).
Forget about grappling with patchy airport Wi-Fi: the SITA media kiosk offers point-to-point connectivity where digital content can be downloaded to personal mobile devices. This winning innovation solves what I consider one of the more frustrating aspects of flying: ending a movie just as it’s getting good. Somehow it always seems to coincide with the aircraft preparing for landing.
MEXIA Interactive CEO Glenn Tinley
Having real-time data on passenger movements not only helps airports manage operations and staffing levels, but can inform a more tactical approach to retail placement. According to MEXIA Interactive CEO Glenn Tinley, “Non-aviation revenue is a big initiative of many airports, but first you need to understand what’s happening. Do passengers stop in retail or F&B? Having the right data helps operators develop an ideal product or retail mix.”
How the data is gathered, however, is a little creepy. Beacon systems in airports ping smartphones – which are constantly sending out probes for Wi-Fi networks – to locate each device’s MAC address, effectively geo-tagging the device owner.
Tinley assures me this is all legal and completely anonymous. “Technologically there’s no way to attribute a MAC address to a person. Our devices listen for these signals and tell airports in an aggregate form where these passengers are going.”
For example, if there is an expected bottleneck (the system can predict patterns) in security, alerts are sent to airport managers. This in turn allows them to respond by opening more security checkpoints to speed up the process.
Right now, Cork airport in Ireland employs this technology along with 11 other airports in Europe. Tinley is speaking to larger, international airports; in the past eight months, he has signed one airport monthly to the service.
The future of travel experience, it seems, is in seamless self-service – from bag-drops to immigration checkpoints, smart technology that makes the journey easier is already in play. We just need to get over the creep factor.
