COVID-19 has confronted societies globally with unprecedented new challenges. It is apparent that many of the solutions to these challenges require innovative new technologies and processes sooner than they might otherwise have been developed. Closed borders, social distancing and quarantine measures have dramatically curtailed domestic and international travel, ultimately affecting the global economy. Airports are now considering a raft of changes to their infrastructure and operating processes to attract people back to fly domestic and internationally.
A new report by leading professional services company GHD, entitled “Relaunching international travel: Response and recovery strategies for airports in the wake of COVID-19”, examines the current state of the aviation sector and the type of changes being trialled across the world that will influence the passenger journey. These fall into three key areas:
- Safety, health and hygiene
- Core operations and social distancing
- Regulations and policies
While it is challenging to predict passenger trends moving forward, it is clear that the end-to-end journey needs to be a user-centric one that places the passenger, not the process, at the centre of the experience. The trials and adoption of new technologies have proved a contactless and safer way forward, but there remains a gap to the adoption of a globally consistent approach. Collaboration between government, airports, airlines, key stakeholders and industry will be critical to restore passenger confidence.
Without stringent health measures in place, including pre-departure testing, passengers will lack the confidence to visit airports or travel by plane. Connected to these health measures are the necessary modifications to physical airport and aircraft infrastructure, operational systems, and processes to ensure social distancing is maintained, while enabling passengers to move through their journey as efficiently and seamlessly as possible.
COVID-19 has highlighted the need for airports to be more agile when planning their operations. As portals of entry, international airports are crucial in enabling international travel connectivity while simultaneously managing infection control. Ashmore et al. (2020) assert that unlocking economies requires airports to broaden their role and function in society by becoming aerotropoli (cities or urban areas centred around an airport). Airports frequently contain thousands of square metres of commercial real estate – ranging in use from terminal retail and leisure services to hotels, office buildings, and convention and exhibition centres – that should be reimagined and restructured to increase the attraction and catalysis of business activity, employment and commercial development.
Widespread COVID-19 vaccinations will eventually enable countries to reopen their borders for international travel, however the question is ‘when’. In addition, despite the vaccine progress, active COVID-19 cases overseas continue to rise. Once international borders reopen and quarantine is no longer universally required, the risk of COVID-19 infection will increase. For governments to reopen international borders sooner than the vaccine target end dates, other COVID-19 safe security measures need to be in place for the entire journey.
Contactless processing for the passenger’s end-to-end journey is the ideal long-term solution for advancing to the ‘new normal’. This incorporates technologies such as biometrics and digital modelling in place of previous, traditional methods to ensure the health and safety of airport users and minimise the spread of infection. This solution requires collaboration between airlines, airports, governments, and key stakeholders to provide appropriate funding for new systems and infrastructure, as well as obtaining the necessary approvals for the use of identity data.
Lastly, health and safety, social distancing and modified core operations cannot be achieved without a uniform and globally recognised testing regime. Applying the various strategies and tools mentioned in GHD’s paper to address these three challenges will underpin the return of domestic and, subsequently, international travel routes to be realised, unlocking economies and rebuilding passenger confidence in air travel.
by Floyd de Kruijff, Aviation Technical Director at GHD
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