BUT ALSO THE OVERALL PASSENGER EXPERIENCE.
Demonstrating the region’s leading position in the global aviation industry, passenger traffic in the Middle East skyrocketed an astounding 11.3 percent in 2015, almost double the worldwide average of 6.1 percent registered by Airports Council International (ACI).
In the second half of the year for example, the subcontinent managed to consistently outperform all other regions, driven mainly by strong international demand which helped the UAE, Qatar as well as Oman post double-digit year-on-year improvements for 2015.
The Middle East’s staggering rise in the global aviation scene continues to be propelled by Dubai, Doha and Abu Dhabi, with the three hubs having welcomed 7.5 million, 4.5 million and 3.4 million more travellers, respectively in 2015 than in 2014, meaning that over the course of one single year, these three airports alone served 15.5 million additional passengers. To put this into perspective, this number is higher than the population of the UAE and Oman together.
As Angela Gittens, director general, ACI World, noted, major Middle East hubs continue to benefit from long-haul flights connecting emerging markets where with the steady growth of per-capita income and the liberisation of air transport, the prosperity of air travel remains on the upswing.
In light of the accelerated traffic growth and forecasts projecting 237 million extra travellers per annum in the region by 2034, airports are investing both efforts and funds in further improving safety and security without imposing unnecessary burdens on travellers.
That is where smart technology comes into play.
Air transport communications and information technology expert, SITA has supported numerous airfields and airlines in the Middle East over the past few decades, and as Hani El Assaad, president, Middle East, India and Africa, SITA, noted, airport operators are now increasingly realising that the use of technology is key to making the most of their existing infrastructure, to improve and speed up processes and to save costs.
Therefore, it is not surprising that IT investment at airports around the world is expected to have hit USD8.7 billion in 2015 and as El Assaad pinpointed, chief information officers (CIO) predicted even higher budgets for the current year with 64 percent presuming a surge over 2015.
As a SITA report revealed, the significance of passenger processing has notably increased over the past year.
“Airports always have passengers as a high priority, but in 2015, we saw a clear acknowledgement that technology can help improve the passenger experience.
Airport CIOs are committing their rising budgets to introduce technologies such as beacons, mobile services and increased self service [...],” explained El Assaad, adding that today, self-service check-in kiosks are universally available, with nine out of 10 airports having them in place, up from 75 percent in 2014.
