Is the Future of Air Travel Basically the Future of Society?

The aviation industry is used to hiccups. Flying requires money, time and trust and during hard times all three of these things are often in short supply. Through thick and thin, airlines and airports have weathered the storm and come out stronger (though sometimes leaner) than before, ready to help move the world to where it wants to go.

This pandemic isn’t your usual hiccup, especially for air travel. Compared to the post 9/11 and post 2008 financial crisis markets, what we are experiencing now is quite unprecedented in duration and impact. For much of the past year and a half, countries have locked up borders, disposable incomes have dried up in unemployment, businesses have moved to remote work scenarios, and millions of people have gotten very sick simply from being near other people.

Given all these challenges, it’s hard for any executive in this space to be optimistic, and yet I firmly believe there is not just a future for air travel, but a bright one. And the changes we make to overcome this historical adversity is a template that can be utilized by pretty much all sectors of society. In an increasingly global world like ours, the way we travel is a microcosm of regular life. So let me share with you some of the biggest innovations happening now and in the very near future that are going to help us bounce back and get people safely across oceans and continents like never before.

Contactless Technology

The trend for a contactless passenger experience in airports has been underway for a number of years already, but we expect to see an even wider utilization of the technology throughout the entire journey – from check-in and security processes, to the way passengers pay for ancillary services at the airport terminal, and the way they board the airplane and interact with inflight entertainment systems on board.

One of the most impressive examples of this is at Bangalore’s BLR Airport. From parking to boarding, every touchpoint in a passenger’s journey utilizes smartphone technology to get them on the plane without needing to interact with any other people. Obviously, this helps reduce the spread of disease in our current pandemic, but it also is a system that simplifies life regardless of Covid-19. These same processes can be used by sports and entertainment venues, or city transit systems, or even during emergency evacuations.

Digital Health Passports

The concept of health or immunity passports is not new, and has, indeed, been around for some time. An example of this is the traditional paper-based processes already recognized as the International Certificate of Vaccination, also known as Yellow Fever card. The focus is now on digitizing this and using it as a tool to verify people’s health status. While there are many potentially competing efforts to create digital health passports, the most promising is perhaps the CommonPass project, which is the result of a partnership between the World Economic Forum and a coalition of private enterprises. The International Air Transport Authority (IATA) is also developing a similar concept called the Travel Pass Initiative.

Interoperability will be key with any of these projects if no single, standardized passport comes to be recognized. Regardless, the same value these passports represent to airports and airlines can also be said for cities, states, and countries. Putting all relevant health data in your pocket makes it easier for restaurants, taxis, schools and any other enclosed space to identify who is healthy enough to use it.

Just Walk Out Technology

Amazon pioneered this in their stores several years ago, but one of North America’s most ubiquitous retailers, Hudson Nonstop, is deploying this technology to great success. While it’s only in a few locations currently, it’s such a great way to reduce disease touchpoints that it’s hard not to see this becoming far more prevalent very soon.

This is an example that came from outside the ?aviation space, so of course it has extreme relevance to so many different contexts. While it’s helpful to prevent the spread of Covid, it also just makes shopping a far more frictionless experience. It lowers the threshold a potential customer would have in purchasing an item, which is the number one goal of a retailer.

Social Distancing Tech

As the pandemic unfolded, social distancing was one of the first prevention methods introduced by airports around the world to minimize the spread of the virus – from floor markings to more high-tech solutions such as people flow management, video analytics and virtual queueing. John F. Kennedy International Airport became the first in North America to launch a camera-enabled technology, making T4 the first air terminal in North America to launch this technology. The solution, developed by CrowdVision, helps to monitor social distancing from curbside to check-in and through the security checkpoint in the terminal. Toronto Pearson has implemented a sensor system to relay body distances as well as developing smartphone-controlled elevators to reduce surface interactions.

The same places I’ve mentioned earlier, like schools and concert venues, could use this technology while we are still living with Covid restrictions, but the utility goes even further than that. Cities could use these sensors to help better direct traffic, and stadiums could use it to create better flow to food courts or bathrooms.

We’ve come a long way from the windy days on North Carolina’s outer banks when Orville and Wilbur Wright first achieved a few airborne moments, yet the challenges of flight have never gone away. It still takes an incredible faith in our collective ingenuity and innovation to traverse our world, and these examples above are just a few of the steps we are taking to land everyone safely on the other side. Airports and airlines are the gateways to new places, and as such, the changes we make here will be felt throughout the rest of society. I’m really excited for what’s to come, and I hope you are too.