How to fix an airport (and double its value)
Last year, Global Infrastructure Partners sold London City Airport for £2 billion (USD2.5 billion), more than doubling its 10-year investment. It did that by…
PUTTING ENGINEERS IN CHARGE
GIP operations guru Bill Woodburn tapped fellow engineers from General Electric and Stanley Black & Decker—executives skilled in industrial processes, not necessarily airports.
AUTOMATING DEPARTURES
A phalanx of kiosks (£16,795) allows passengers to check in, tag their own luggage, and place it on plane-bound belts, reducing check-in times. Typical check-in times dropped by two-thirds, to 4 minutes from 12 minutes.
KNOWING ITS PASSENGERS AND THEIR MOVEMENTS
GIP bought software called CrowdVision for £633,000 that was originally designed to monitor the flow of pilgrims to Mecca. Dozens of cameras track passenger movement in the terminal. Knowing who’s where, and when, allows the airport to shift staff in real time to address bottlenecks.
CATERING TO HIGH-END FLYERS
London City Airport spent £30 million to add four additional aircraft stands, in part to introduce an all-business-class long-haul flight to and from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.
The full text of this article was first published here.
About CrowdVision:
CrowdVision is a leading automated pedestrian analytics and insights company. CrowdVision software shows what is happening to an entire pedestrian population, in real time. This enables infrastructure operators like airports, transport hubs, retail malls, convention centres and theme parks to act decisively to increase efficiency and profitability, both in the moment and in the future, whilst improving their customers’ experience.
The CrowdVision solution processes live video input from commercial off the shelf cameras, and detects pedestrian movements automatically using sophisticated artificial intelligence techniques. CrowdVision outputs live data about everything from flows, queues and wait times to processing times, occupancies, and asset utilisation. Live dashboards reveal actionable insights to improve real-time operations, whilst accumulated historical data provides reliable evidence for planning and investment decisions.
CrowdVision is headquartered in London, with regional offices in Dubai, Melbourne, and New York. More information is available at crowdvision.com.