The City of Churches is hosting the 25th World Route Development Forum, World Routes 2019.
Aviation experts from all over the world are here to discuss the importance of new flight schedules and airports which are indicators and conductors of economic prosperity. The forum is not all about meetings and signing deals by the way. There is a light hearted side to the daily schedule as performers in national costume wander about. Not be outdone, guests at the Las Vegas stand are greeted by a lovely showgirl.
According to the brand director of Routes, Steven Small, new routes bring new visitors, open business and trade opportunities and stimulate investment and create jobs.
Hopefully Adelaide will benefit from the forum that has been organised by the SA Tourism Commission, Adelaide Airport and Tourism Australia.
While wandering around the exhibits at the Adelaide Showgrounds, if you close your eyes a little you could easily be in a section of London’s giant World Travel Market. Most major regions are represented by impressive displays from the middle East including Riyadh through to the US, Turkey, Italy China and Japan….and more.
The past quarter century in air travel has seen plenty of growth and, with a digital drive and expansion of newer fleets, there will be more to come by 2044.
Just how increasingly ambitious things have become is underlined by Qantas which, buoyed by the success of its non-stop Perth-Heathrow flights, is negotiating an aircraft to fly the 21 plus hours non-stop from Sydney to London and New York. There are further ambitions to serve Chicago, Brazil and other European cities.
What Qantas is doing certainly won’t change the world but it is certainly creating a niche environment says Julian Carr, Aviation Director of Manchester Airport. “People want to travel direct but secondary points are always going to be linked through hubs. “I don’t know if the world will evolve beyond hubbing in the Middle East.”
So how about the future for passengers? Airport queues could become a thing of the past as biometric enabled terminals allow passengers to be processed and tracked from departure to arrival.
According to technology firm SITA, 77% of airports and 71% of airlines plan a trial or full introduction of biometric scanning by 2022. Panasonic’s One ID end-to-end system which debuted recently, allows immigration and boarding to be conducted automatically one a three second facial recognition and passport scan is done at check-in. Throughout the airport digital signage recognises the scan and can direct passengers to their gate.
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