Airline Redux: How IoT is Set to Change Travel as We Know It
Enhancing Passenger Experience Through the Travel Lifecycle
Hemant Bhatt
Abstract In today’s fast-paced, digital world, technology is advancing rapidly making it critical for businesses to evolve to stay competitive. The need to stay abreast with emerging technology is being felt across industries including the airlines. A significant increase in revenue, streamlined processes, and a visibly enhanced customer experience is often the driving force behind any tech adoption. In the airline sector, passenger engagement throughout their journey lifecycle has become a priority and a means to earn customer loyalty and revenue. New technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT) are playing a crucial role in enabling airlines to exceed customer expectations by modernizing their processes and systems.
www.coforgetech.com Decoding the Internet of Things for Airlines till the time the flight departs. Access to in-flight insights using mobile devices allows the crew to cater to their Connecting a vast network of devices to the Internet and customers better. Social media offers a great medium in enabling them to stay connected to the external world not only allowing aircrafts to communicate in real time, is what makes IoT unique. It is infinite, imagination- but also in tracking passenger emotions and sentiments intensive, and not restricted to any number of objects or of services availed throughout their journey. devices. IoT has the matchless ability to unite technology, processes, people, and culture to deliver a seamless air As per Airline IT trend survey (2015) by SITA, airlines travel experience. According to industry estimates, 25 and airports are anticipating huge IT investments in billion devices will be connected by 2020 globally. That near future and IoT will be a significant contributor in said, the Internet of Things promises a new vision of generating massive benefits by 2018. At present, more aviation operations and business models. than 35% of airlines have already aligned a substantial budget towards IoT implementation and nearly three- Research suggests that 83% of passengers have fifth (58%) are looking forward to invest in coming three smartphones at the airport, which they prefer to use years for prime projects, and 16% for major programs. against manual interventions for check-in and boarding passes. It depicts that travelers are open to this new Leveraging IoT will re-build a new orbit for entire digital technology shift. transformation processes of airline industry. Integrating IoT with other technologies like Robotics, Artificial Nigel Pickford, Director Market Insight, SITA, stated that Intelligence (AI), Virtual Reality (VR), Cloud Computing, half of the airlines expect to have IoT initiatives up and and Data Analytics will open the door for opportunities running over the next three years. Meanwhile, airports to improve the quality of services delivered by airlines are building the infrastructure to support IoT. “Together, and airports. this will deliver improved operations and will lead to a change in the passengers’ experience.” Anything Any Device
IoT Driving Excellence in Air Travel Anytime Anyone The Internet of Things offers endless opportunities Any Context Anybody to improve airline operational efficiency and offer personalized services to passengers. It has a huge potential to bring sweeping changes to airline business The models. For instance, wearables, tracking devices, INTERNET virtual steamers are enablers in streamlining the Any Place Any Service customer’s journey from the point they enter the airport Anywhere of THINGS Any Business
Any Path Any Network
Prime Areas for Re-defining IoT in Aviation Sector Commuter Tracking: IoT enables several applications to track passengers and their baggage movement in real-time. ● “Beacon-based solution” alerts staff about baggage mishaps and notifies passengers of their baggage whereabouts. For instance, Emirates is one of the prime airlines making use of this technology at present. ● Passengers can access information like flight delays, waiting time, and gate change on their fingertips using contextual or location-based tracking. Alerts: Tech-friendly infrastructure and processes enable proactive approach to sharing information and services. The objective caters to the need for preventive actions and measures for any uninvited situations.
2 2 ● Having an airport infrastructure advancement in looked into in real-time with requisite precautionary place, predicting and scheduling maintenance in action, resulting in better management and advance for faulty equipments before they actually efficiency. break down will be far easier and effective. Improved Marketing: IoT presents various opportunities ● Airport staff getting timely alerts on consumables, for airlines to bring-out ancillary products and services which require refilling before the shortage is at customer fingertips driving additional revenues for discovered and customer disappointment ensues. them and opening the doors for passengers with vast Personalization: This offers an opportunity to airlines variety of products and services at every touch point. to look beyond transactional systems and focus on This includes lounge access, quick access to security or customer context. It helps to deliver new services to flight boarding using sensor technology. passengers and collect new information, which can be ● Use of In-Flight Entertainment (IFE) flight-map to used to personalize various services. Interacting with book taxis while in-transit and having passengers customers at every touch point starting from their home connect to high-speed Wi-Fi in-flight or at the airport to when they enter the airport, in-flight, and upon arrival. for online shopping. ● Technology enablers like “beacon network” ● Providing customers with a high-class experience automatically trigger boarding passes to all business by offering high-end products like discrete suites class passengers as soon as they reach the security with luxury amenities as a part of upgrades or offers. checkpoint or at flight boarding point. ● Automated check-in post booking completion helps Barriers to IoT in Airlines airlines issue ticket immediately and confirm a seat 24 hours before take-off without requiring a Terrestrial Expansion customer to log onto an app or a website. With IoT gaining traction across the globe, it becomes essential to gauge the capability build up of various Operational Efficiency: Managing smooth and efficient operations have always been a challenge for airlines. It geographies and determine to what extent they can is believed that IoT capabilities will completely overhaul work in sync with today’s pace of technology and ensure and reboot airline operations. a smooth integration for successful deployment. ● Integration with Big Data will allow and facilitate download of data that can be used for analyses Composite Systems even while the flight is in transit. IoT technology is still in a nascent phase and the ● Analyzing aircraft engine performance and fuel upcoming capability is still seeing innovation and management are some of the aspects that can be fruition against which majority of the airlines today are hosting complex systems to enable and support their competencies. Having said that, airlines need to comply with technologies and systems that are easily integrated.
Multiple Partners The airline industry has an eclectic footprint covering multiple partners and stakeholders with their respective unique environments of technologies and systems. Moreover, at many occasions, these multiple partners and stakeholders function toward common goals and are conjointly interdependent. Considering this, it becomes far more important for airlines to be more partner-centric to meet a common IoT vision.
Security Aviation industry maneuvers in the most secure environment on the globe. Considering this, for any IoT enactment, security needs to be given top priority. Having IoT expanding its arms across diversified technologies, it presents the challenge of sound network security.
2 3 IoT Use Cases Transforming the Face of the to track and monitor flight performance and prepare Aviation Industry ahead for any precautionary action needed under any exigency. ● British low-cost carrier, EasyJet is a pioneer in utilizing wearable technology to enhance the ● Passengers flying with Lufthansa Airlines can use a passenger experience. The airline has equipped link on their mobile boarding pass in the Lufthansa cabin crew and ground staff with uniforms fitted app to track where their luggage is currently located. with wearable tech that enables them to provide The airline has introduced electronic tags, a mobility visual guidance to passengers. It also has built-in solution designed to track luggage from the terminal microphones that facilitate direct communication to flight that passengers can access using their with passengers, pilot, and other crew members. smart phones. Upon arrival at their destination airport, the app informs the guest of the specific ● Helsinki Airport in Finland use Wi-Fi and iBeacon to baggage carousel and the exact time of the delivery track passengers and offer location-based services of their luggage. during their entire airport experience. It even assists them to control queues and bottlenecks ● Samsung and Qantas Airlines have launched an while facilitating retailers to spread their goods and entertainment service that uses Samsung’s Gear services to travelers basis their location. VR headset to offer passengers a 3D experience in an interactive 360° cinematic video format. With ● Flight equipment on the Virgin Atlantic Airlines are these headsets, passengers can watch inflight fitted with a wireless network that provides real-time movies, browse through latest Qantas products, or IoT data. This in turn helps the crew and management discover future destinations.
4 The Coforge Thought Board: Airline Redux: How IoT is Set to Change Travel as We Know It How can IoT offer opportunities to improve airline efficiency?
Integrating In-flight insights Track passenger Streamline IoT with allows crew emotions customer technologies to service throughout journey through like AI, VR, to customers their journey the travel improve service better experience lifecycle quality
What are the areas where IoT can have a significant impact on quality in the aviation sector?
Real time commuter Timely flight related Personalized Insights on engine Targeted marketing tracking alerts services to performance and efforts passengers fuel management
What are the key challenges to IoT adoption in the airlines sector?
Geographical Technology Partner network Data and device scope nascence complexity security
What are some path-breaking IoT use cases in the global airline industry?
EasyJet, using wearable tech to Helsinki Airport, using Wi-Fi and enhance passenger experience iBeacon to track passengers
Virgin Atlantic, using Qantas, using VR Lufthansa, introducing wireless network for headset to offer electronic tags to track real-time passenger passengers a 3D luggage easily and flight data experience
5 A Step Away from Excellence ability to define a new vision for the aviation industry. We can expect people not compromising anymore; IoT will IoT promises to have extensive implications in the govern each touch point during the entire traveler journey aviation industry. The vision goes beyond generating making it truly memorable and beating expectations. extra revenues and better customer experiences. With the world becoming increasingly digital, the objective We are just a step away from extending IoT capabilities is to bring a significant, paradigm shift in the overall across allied and collaborative systems to impart great experience for both airlines and commuters. IoT has the digital experiences in the aviation industry.
About the Author Hemant Bhatt is a consultant working with Coforge in Travel domain within Travel & Transportation vertical. He specializes in Airline, Hotels, Travel Distribution, E-Commerce, and Digital Marketing and has over 11 years of experience in the domain. He has a rich experience in SDLC including application development, requirement elicitation, and implementation.
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