Back to Air Transport IT Review - Issue 2, September 2010
IATA's Fast Travel
An update from Stephan Copart, Project Manager Fast Travel, IATA
IATA has recently adopted a new vision for the Fast Travel programme - By 2020 80% of global passengers will be offered a complete self-service suite based on industry standards.
This new vision reflects a transition from the past in two ways. First, the movement from an individual airline capability - which is where we are today - to a global capability. The second new aspect is that we are linking all the processes together to provide end-to-end self-service rather than focus on individual processes, such as check-in or baggage management.
The number of active projects that now make up Fast Travel is five - Bags ready-to-go, Document check, Flight re-booking, Self-boarding, and Bag recovery. Check-in is no longer an active project because IATA has already developed the necessary standards - the 2D BCBP for web and mobile, and CUSS - for non-agent check-in to grow in a natural way.
The IATA Board of Governors has set ambitious targets for the Fast Travel programme - 60 new implementations for 2010, with a minimum of 5 new implementations per project. We are on track to meet the board target.
Bags Ready-to-go: This project can save the industry around $650m each year. It has two components - self tagging, whereby the passenger is able to print and apply their own bag tag, and bag drop, a specific point at which the passenger can then deposit the tagged luggage for onward processing.
Currently we stand at upwards of 30 airlines at the end of May with Northern Europe leading the way. Most existing deployments are dedicated to one airline, but we are also starting to see some common-use implementations, such as the one at Heathrow Airport, for example.
Document check: This replaces the 'document scanning' project. It has a wider scope that goes beyond just transmitting passport and visa data from a kiosk to include a validation of this information against the requirements of the destination country.
Currently, at least 128 of the 140 CUSS airport sites offer the document scanning capability. In terms of airlines, there are 15 having the entire document check process implemented. That means a passenger can go to a kiosk to both scan the passport/visa and have it validated thereby avoiding the need to queue for an agent.
Flight re-booking: This is a new project that has the potential to significantly increase the overall Fast Travel business case. The problem caused to passengers by the volcanic ash has shown how important disruption management is.
Some airlines implementations, such as KLM, have demonstrated that 80% of passengers can be serviced through a flight re-booking solution and self-service. There are effectively three stages - proactive communication to the passenger, proactive re-booking of the flight and finally self-service delivery of the new flight schedule.
Self boarding: This project will offer passengers the opportunity to self-scan their 2D boarding pass to gain entry to the aircraft. Seventeen airlines, such as Air Zealand, are already doing this in some places.
This is particularly appealing to users of mobile devices who do not want to hand over their phone or PDA to an airline agent to scan their BCBP. This is preparing the path to fully unassisted self boarding that is already implemented at some locations.
Bag recovery: A key part of this is proactive communication with the affected passenger so that they do not waste time at waiting at the carousel. The second part is then to provide a self-service interface such as a kiosk or Web so that the claim can be logged without queuing.
This project has been implemented by around 20 airlines already but also ground handlers, such as Menzies and Swissport.
Share or bookmark with:
Facebook
Twitter
Digg
Delicious
Technorati
