Airport IT Trends Survey 2008

The research provides a detailed snapshot of where the airport industry stands in embracing new technology and gives trends on where investments are being made.

The Airport IT Trends Survey builds on the strength of the relationship between SITA and Airline Business with the Airline IT Trends Survey - now in its tenth year and acknowledged as the most comprehensive survey of its type. Cross-referencing the two surveys provides a comprehensive picture of the IT landscape of the passenger air transport industry.

The 2008 survey results were announced in Boston on September 23^rd. View the press release.

Key facts and figures

Infrastructure and investment

• Improving customer service and satisfaction emerges as the high priority investment driver for 80% of the world’s airport operators.
• Airports long term IT Master plans and investment programs (3.4%) remain consistent with past years, increasing only slightly over 2007 reflecting an IT/telecommunications spend of close to $3 billion.
• Airports that appear hard hit by the economic downturn and airline route cutbacks have noted that the main obstacle to achieving their IT strategy for 26% of airports participating in the survey is lack of investment / reduced budget.

Passenger Processing

• Airports want to meet the demands of travellers by expanding self-service to include the introduction of passenger self-boarding (35%), off-airport passenger/baggage processing (32%) and common bag drop locations (33%).
• Kiosk deployment continues to increase and its uses are expanding beyond self-service check-in. Overall 77% of airports stated plans to increase the number of kiosks, most of it for check-in (67%). 10% said they would look at new types of kiosk usage.
• 47% of the airports said that they will deploy CUSS (common-use self-service check-in kiosks which support multiple airlines) by the end of 2009.

Environment

• For the first time the survey looks at environmental issues and finds that 67% of respondents rate reducing their environmental footprint as a medium to high priority.

This annual survey, which is based on confidential responses by 85 airports/operators, is increasingly recognized as the most comprehensive of its type worldwide and represents over 163 airports and more than half of the top 100 airport operators in terms of revenue and passenger traffic.

The full survey results will be available in December 2008 on CD. Please email airline.business@flightglobal.com for details or go here to purchase.

Our thanks go to the airports that participated in helping to create the single respected source of benchmark data on airport IT worldwide.