SEPANG [Dec 2]: Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) is looking to roll out a series of services over the next three years to enhance its passengers’ experience while uplifting its non-aeronautical revenue, which is mainly derived from non-airport operations business and commercial activities.
The airport operator has mapped out initiatives that will be deployed from 2015 to revolutionise connectivity, enhance check-in processes and develop mobile apps for total airport experience.
“We believe that this will give us the opportunities for revenue uplift by making better decisions through adoption of data analytics.
“We will also be able to leverage on our existing lazy assets to enhance passenger experience by creating a seamless travel environment,” MAHB Senior General Manager Khair Mirza said at the Future Travel Experience (FTE) Asia 2014 conference and exhibition at KLIA today. The FTE is a forum for travel industry stakeholders focusing on the end-to-end travel process.
MAHB also aims to enhance check-in processes via the implementation of auto bag drop counters, he said. It has been proven at Sydney Airport that inexperienced passengers can drop off their luggage in less than a minute and those using Radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags can even manage to do so in less than 15 seconds at the Qantas Airways counters, he pointed out.
Khair said process automation has helped airports elevate passengers’ experience by providing faster and seamless airport journeys, citing an information technology research and advisory company called Gartner Incorporated, that predicted 50% of consumer product investments will be redirected to customer experience innovations.
Gartner also predicted that by 2017, 70% of successful digital business models will rely on deliberately unstable processes designed to shift as customer needs shift, he added.
By end 2015, 5% of global organisations will design “supermaneuvrable” processes that provide competitive advantage which are designed for change and can dynamically adjust according to customer needs, existing within the context of larger, more stable processes, he noted.
“Our desired states would be to make information available, visible and accessible for passengers, thereby creating a seamless travel environment across each touch points.
“We are looking at enabling this via technology to reduce the frustration experienced by airport users,” he added.
MAHB currently manages and operates 39 airports in Malaysia, with five international, 16 domestic, and 18 Short Take-Off and Landing (STOL) ports. There are also three airports overseas, two in India and one in Turkey.
According to MAHB’s website, the non-airport operations segment recorded a revenue of RM76.6 million in 1H14, representing a growth of 24.1% from RM61.7 million recorded in 1H13.
Khair said its flagship KL International Airport (KLIA) currently serves 70 million passengers per annum and that it has been recording double digit growth in traffic movement in the last 10 years.
With the rapid increase in traffic movements, he said it gets increasingly challenging to maintain high service excellence standards and that this was actually reflected in its recent Airport Service Quality ranking.
In that, he said the lowest scoring areas were value for money for parking, shopping and F&B facilities, and Wi-Fi connectivity.
To revolutionise connectivity, he said MAHB will implement managed WiFi services that will provide sufficient bandwidth for the airport operator to deploy the needed digital initiatives.