Is your Passenger Terminal offering OPTIMUM service levels?

Last year, Europe’s airports enjoyed their best year ever: For the first time they were handling more than two billion passengers as they posted an average growth of 5.1%. 

As global air travel grows, so does competition among airports to capture more business. In order to win market share – or at least to maintain their current position – airports must have adequate facilities to handle the traffic increase. The tricky question is: How do ‘adequate’ airport facilities look like?

When it comes to terminal operations and development, passengers, airport operators and airlines want speed, quality, efficiency and cost-effectiveness. The shorter passengers wait in a queue, the longer they can spend in commercial areas, potentially generating additional revenues for the airports. In addition, by not ending up in long queues, they will less likely miss their flights – this is not only good for the passengers themselves, but also contributes to the on-time departure performance of the airlines.

Badly planned, capacity-challenged passenger terminals result in long lines, congestion and poor service levels. This can result not only in traffic leakage to alternate airports and revenue loss, but also damage the local economy in a broader sense.

The answer is in finding a delicate balance of terminal size, efficiency and cost – however, many airport operators struggle to find the right model to accurately determine performance, facility requirements, and assess how they compare to peers on the world stage. This is where IATA’s improved Level of Service (LoS) Concept comes into play!

The improved LoS framework provides clearly defined guidelines for each terminal sub-system in terms of OPTIMUM space provision, waiting time and occupancy rates. The infographic below shows how an OPTIMUM airport terminal should look like.

Airports around the world have begun evaluating their current or planned facilities according to these revised LoS guidelines. In collaboration with ACI World, IATA recently assessed the provided service level at Amman Queen Alia International Airport (QAIA). By using a dynamic simulation tool, IATA also carried out LoS Assessment Studies for two international airports in the Caribbean. The scope was to validate whether their planned terminal expansion would actually achieve the OPTIMUM service level target during future demand peaks. IATA identified several weaknesses in the expansion design and proposed an improved facility layout along with new technologies, significantly shortening waiting times and reducing space constraints. This proposed design change will considerably enhance passenger experience and operational efficiency of the process.

Undoubtedly, with the increasing air traffic demand year after year, improving and optimizing the service level will be a growing trend as airports consistently seek to attract new airlines and passengers.

If you are interested in getting in touch with the IATA LoS experts, please send an email to [email protected]. More information on LoS can also be found on www.iata.org/LoS

Should you attend this year’s Passenger Terminal Exhibition & Conference in Amsterdam (14-16 March 2017), you can also meet the LoS experts at our booth 1010.