Airports Innovating to Provide More Information to Passengers

At its 21st Annual Airport Trading Conference & Exhibition ACI EUROPE released its ‘Digital Report 2012’,highlighting the effect that social media, smartphones and tablet computers are having on the interaction between airports and their passengers.

The report finds that 77 percent of Europe’s air passengers now travel through airports that are active on social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter. Comparing the latest data, with the key figures in last year’s ‘Airports 2.0’ report, social media use by airports grew by 43 percent in the past year, while use by airport users also grew substantially.

In the past 2 years, Europe’s airports have been quick to engage in social media and make the most of the opportunity to forge a stronger relationship with the passenger. The report identifies the 5 ways airports are using social media, including corporate communications, crisis communications, customer service, informal relationship building and commercial promotion.

Exactly how individual airports choose to deploy their own social media efforts reflects their specific market positions and wider strategies.

A third of Europe’s airports either have or are currently developing a smartphone ‘app’ to put more information at the passenger’s fingertips, including different types of dynamic, live information alongside more standard static information usually found on websites. Among airports with more than 10 million passengers a year, the percentage with an ‘app’ in development is much higher at 56 percent. 98.7 percent of Europe’s airports currently offer internet access to their passengers, over half of which offer some form of free internet access.