"Airport investment in IT expected to take off"

Thursday, May 6, 2004

Airport IT budgets take off as cost savings take back seat
Big new projects and more security are the priority...
by Andy McCue 
United Kingdom - Silicon.com

 
Worldwide airport IT budgets are set to hit $2bn this year, with
security and major infrastructure projects taking priority over cost
savings, according a survey by an airline industry IT body.  

Almost two-thirds of airport IT executives questioned expect increased
budgets to boost their IT and telecoms investment above the current
average of four per cent of revenues. 

The results are part of the first Airport IT Trends Survey conducted by
Airports Council International (ACI), SITA and Airline Business
magazine. 

Top spending priorities are IT infrastructure projects and security,
followed by passenger and baggage processing and the integration of
current systems. Improvements in operational efficiency ranked as the
lowest priority. 

But Catherine Mayer, VP of airport services at SITA, told silicon.com
that the huge investment in bringing network infrastructures up to date
is inextricably linked with operational efficiencies anyway. 

"Looking at the results of where the projects are being implemented, the
majority are around network and telecoms infrastructure, IP and VoIP.
We're finally catching up. These priorities go hand in hand. You can't
have one without the other," she said. 

A quarter of airports already use biometric identification for employees
and this is predicted to rise to more than 50 per cent by 2006. Only
four per cent plan to introduce biometric ID for passengers in the next
year but 20 per cent plan to implement the technology within the next
two years. 

The biometric technologies used for employee trials were fingerprint (67
per cent), hand geometry (17 per cent) and facial recognition (eight per
cent). Biometric technologies to be used for passenger trials included
fingerprinting (24 per cent), iris scanning (24 per cent) and facial
recognition (six per cent). 

In other technology areas, more than 80 per cent have already
implemented Internet Protocol (IP) systems and while just 13 per cent
have VoIP, 60 per cent plan to introduce it during the next two years. 

More than 96 per cent of airports plan to implement wireless and web
services by 2006, and in the next two years, 40 per cent of airports
expect to trial ecommerce facilities for tenants and mobile commerce
payment services. 

RFID is still in its infancy in airports, with just eight per cent
currently offering RFID tracking for passenger baggage, although this is
predicted to grow to about a quarter of airports in the next two years. 

The survey was conducted by NSM research in the last quarter of 2003 and
the first quarter of 2004 and 48 responses were received from the top
200 airport groups, representing 50 per cent of industry revenues.


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