Back to Air Transport IT Review - Issue 1, March 2008

Truth or Hype

The arrival of the digital traveller

“In five years time…‘digital travellers’ will have on-demand access to a range of mobile enabled services, for the first time ever giving passengers a proactive role in their travel experience while on the move.” So says a forthcoming New Frontiers paper called “How mobile technology will enhance passenger travel”. Mainstream thinking? Or is hype overtaking the truth?

According to the paper, the adoption of mobile phones (cell phones) is increasingly a global phenomenon. By the end of 2007, mobile penetration had passed 100 percent in more than 59 countries, with some 3.3 billion subscribers in 224 markets worldwide (Informa Telecoms). At current rates of growth, there will be five billion subscribers by 2011.

Surveys also consistently reveal it is very likely that passengers are carrying their mobile devices when travelling by air.

Your mobile companion

So what does the future hold? More sophisticated and powerful mobile devices will allow a range of new applications and services to improve the passenger experience at every stage of the journey – from home to plane to destination. Meanwhile airports and airlines will stay connected to customers and strengthen passenger relationships.

Mobile check-in and SMS texting for flight information are already possible for many passengers today. In the future we can expect mobiles to be increasingly used for more advanced services, such as mobile payment, automated boarding, and baggage tracking.

Imagine the future as a digital traveller:

You need only use your mobile phone and passport to travel
You can progress through the airport with ease
Spend less time queuing and more time relaxing
Use your mobile for flight information – when the gate is about to close, and directions
Avoid waiting at the carousel if bags are delayed

Airlines and airports will also benefit. They will be able to:

Communicate with each passenger individually to smooth the entire travel process
Improve levels of customer satisfaction
Boost retail revenues through smart one-to-one marketing and mobile payment

Can mobility meet the hype?

As with any new technology, trying to separate reality from hype is a challenge in its own right, and mobile has proved no exception.

There are strong expectations that mobile device-based services and applications will eventually become mainstream within air transport. Not least because mobile phones have become an indispensable tool for frequent travellers and the young. And they have further opened the door for the industry to progressively relinquish paper documents.

Recognizing this vision and realizing it are two different things. At its heart is the need for a robust business case for each service, making real world experience and data a pre-requisite.

Significant financial benefits could be achieved from incremental improvements in areas such as on-time departures, customer satisfaction, and reduction in knock-on delays across an airline network. For these to materialize mobility technology will need to be fully integrated into the operations of the airlines and airports.

The transition to mobile-based services will make it easier for passengers to access their flights and services – driving customer satisfaction benefits, particularly to frequent travellers, as well as operational efficiencies for the airline.

However, it is inevitable that a proportion of passengers will not carry mobile devices or will suffer theft or loss of the device. Mobile technology will therefore be a supplementary technology in the medium term, running in parallel with existing systems and processes.

The privacy and trust concerns of passengers will also need to be addressed. Services such as location sensing and m-marketing will inevitably require travellers to accept a degree of trade-off if they are to fully realize the benefits of their mobile devices.

On balance, more truth …

Despite the significant challenges, by 2011 it should be easier for passengers to access their flights and services – performing check-in during the taxi-ride, for example – and spending less time in queues at the airport. The travel experience will also be increasingly paperless and plastic-less as payment card and frequent flyer information finds its way into mobile devices.

That should translate into a better-quality travel experience all round, with more time to eat, shop, and relax. For time-pressed business travellers, that should also mean less wasted time at airports.

Clearly, the industry must recognize that mobile devices are a disruptive technology, making it difficult to plan with confidence. But air transport stakeholders will still need to plan their response to technological change – if they are to address the travel expectations of their next-generation customers.

How might mobile based services make a difference?

In addition to making travel paperless – often cited as the Holy Grail for modern air travel – mobile devices will provide a channel for one-to-one marketing. Marketers will be able to send targeted content to passengers’ mobile devices. One trial at Manchester Airport reported that recipients of vouchers sent to a mobile phone spend 45 percent more than ordinary shoppers at the retail outlets.

As ‘context-aware’ applications and services – that take into account criteria such as location, user profile, and time – become mainstream, there will be widespread adoption of one-to-one marketing and customer care through mobile devices, not only by airport retailers but also by airlines.

So developments in mobile-technology will make a difference to passenger travel in many ways. They include context awareness platforms, geo-localization, mobile payment capabilities, and near-field communication.

These should translate into new opportunities and benefits for stakeholders in the passenger journey, including:

cost savings
operational efficiencies
more personalized relationships with passengers
higher customer service and satisfaction levels
increased revenue opportunities

Will mobile devices become personal travel folders?

In short, yes. Mobile devices will increasingly act as personal travel folders by storing information currently kept on paper or plastic – from boarding passes and baggage receipts to frequent flyer and credit card data.

There is no technical impediment to having an electronic ticket/boarding pass stored on the mobile device, as well as a visa and immigration form, according to SITA’s New Frontiers paper “How mobile technology will enhance passenger travel.”

But with the arrival in service of the Airbus A380 carrying as many as 850 passengers, the labour intensive counting of those on board becomes a logistical nightmare.

One plan is for an RFID tag on check-in slips to be used as the means of counting those on board. Though this could seriously undermine the potential to use mobile devices to carry a boarding pass. And it would impact the ability of people to print out their own boarding pass from the Internet, as a growing number of airlines currently permit.

A way will doubtless be found of handling the counting issue without needing to revert to sole use of airline-issued boarding cards. However, it does demonstrate how complex many of the processes involved in moving people across the world have become, all in the name of making it simpler for the passenger.