Thinking African airports’ digital transformation journey

As Africa builds more airports the thought process should be of digitally enabled airports while at the planning stage. Having to think about digital transformation after building the airport may require added costs that would have been avoided from the planning phase for a new airport.

Airports are not just where planes take off and land. They are important for tourism as well as other businesses. The environment is competitive and so airports will have to think through expanding and enhancing their appeal and by doing so increase the number of persons who will choose to travel by air.

The Airports Council International ( ACI) , which is the voice of the world’s airports, states that digital transformation is not only about technology. It is also about business transformation in a digital world. It states further that it involves both the implementation of new technologies and the integration of existing technologies, processes and services to deliver a better experience to all stakeholders. It goes beyond having a digital mobile app or a redesigned website. The airport digital transformation best practice is available on the ACI website.

Digital transformation, it states, focuses on achieving a seamless flow through the airport by means of integrating systems and services, including those provided by partners such as airlines, security, customs, concessionaires, ground handlers, etc. Digital transformation leverages the use of technologies such as indoor geolocation, identity management, flow management, data mining and IoT. It is also about making these digital technologies secure in the cyber world to ensure that every system works as intended. It enables connected travel. For passengers, airports and all stakeholders, it offers a much better view of and control of the journey, minimizing disruptions and providing solutions based on data analytics.

While digital transformation is already ongoing in the aviation sector, the thought process should be geared towards leveraging technology to maximise business and operational objectives. To achieve this transformation will require scanning the environment in which the airport operates as a beginning process. The next step would be aligning business and operational objectives to the environment. At an aviation conference in Europe, an airport manager shared his experience in America on why car parking is a major driver of non-aeronautical revenue at his airport. The people like to drive and so he needs to develop car parking solutions to make the traveller at ease while coming to his airport. In some countries, asking people to pay for car parking may sound odd for that environment.

While digital transformation should be focused on all areas of the airport, it may not be practicable to take them on all at once.  Considering the airport’s current environment as well as its business context and objectives, an airport should prioritise and create specific digital transformation plans. As part of each digital transformation plan, there should be assessments of different areas such as potential functional areas of applications, internal team readiness and structure and the external market and partner landscape. Doing so will enable the airport to define where and how to begin the digital transformation journey.

While all areas in the airport are impacted by digital transformation, focus should be on the most promising area where the digital strategy should be deployed to significantly improve processes and services. Some identified areas are: airport operations, security, capacity management, passenger services and intimacy, stakeholder management and, also, physical and functional areas outside the airport. 

While scanning the environment is important, looking inwards on internal readiness is also vital. It is important to understand up front the readiness of the organisation to take on the digital transformation journey. Having an organisation and culture that promotes speed and agility for all structures, governance and incentives, risk-taking and experimentation is vital for internal readiness. 

Further, airports need to estimate the required effort to build working products and services and set up a prioritised delivery plan. The imperative should be to have a robust, flexible and scalable IT infrastructure to deploy digital services. The thought process should also be on having a comprehensive view of the technologies available, to understand what can be leveraged and what should be changed or upgraded to enable and sustain the digital transformation plan. The airport seeking digital transformation should promote, recognise and value internal ideas and initiatives for innovation.

Digital transformation does come with its own challenges and risks. The challenges are many and need to be understood upfront and a plan for mitigation put in place before embarking on a digital transformation. The challenges within the context of one airport may not necessarily be the same for another. Recall that their external environments and internal processes are not the same also. 

Every business and organisation will be impacted by digital transformation, either directly or indirectly, and airports are certainly not immune to digital disrupters. The risk is real just like every other business that engages in digital transformation. The biggest risk to any airport, ACI says, will be to ignore digital transformation.

It further advises that airports should not believe that technology is the silver bullet of digital transformation: Digital transformation will not solve all issues, challenges and risks.

ACI is a global organisation which represents the interests of airports and also promotes airport standards and excellence in the aviation industry. ACI World is the leader globally in airport management and represents more than 2600 airports across more than 190 countries and territories. It believes that successful digital transformation arises not from implementing new technologies but from transforming organisations so they can leverage the possibilities new technologies offer.

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