CAPA Global Airport Leaders' Forum

Dubai Airports, CEO, Paul Griffiths

Dubai Air Navigation Services, Deputy CEO, Ibrahim Ahli

Overview of technological innovations in:

• Retail
• Advertising
• Car parking

Airports face potential “threats” to their revenue streams due to a conflation of technological innovations and regulation. Biometrics are set to create a seamless travel experience and obliterate the physical barriers faced by travellers at all major touchpoints such as check in, immigration and security – but does less time means less opportunity to spend in retail stores? Can car sharing and self drive vehicles challenge car parking projections and new forms of targeted online advertising introduce a new array of competition? Meanwhile tougher regulations are putting downward pressure on aeronautical revenue as airports face measures to curb their airport charges. How can airports adapt their business models to counter these challenges? How can technology also open up other revenue generating opportunities?

CAPA – Centre for Aviation, Executive Chairman, Peter Harbison

Airport retail is a highly lucrative source of revenue for many airports, with sales per square metre often three to four times higher than on the high street or shopping centres. Many brands even have their own independent airport retail strategy in order to capitalise on the airport’s monopoly access to a captive audience of millions of travellers with high disposable incomes. Yet, airports and their retail brands who are finding that the physical asset is exhausted need to be more innovative in order to get more value out of the customer, especially with operational/technological improvements during the check-in/screening stage reducing dwell times and potentially disrupting the very foundation which underpins airport retail.

• Best practice strategies to encourage retail spending in an automated passenger processing environment
• What role can brands play in attracting customers to airport retail outlets?
• Making use of rich traveller data to engage with passengers (spenders) – adopting an omni-channel mindset, from pre flight planning to car parking to the airside retail offering
• How do airport retailers currently target and profile passengers?
• Does onboard wifi pose a threat to airside retail sales?
• “Plasticless” Payment Systems: Are airports ready for the payment platforms of the future? From cash to plastic to mobile payments

Moderator: Market Square Consult, Managing Director, Johan Schölvinck

Panel:

• Adara, Sales Director, Yann Nenot
• Carlson Wagonlit Travel, Chief Data Scientist, Eric Tyree
• Pragma Consulting, Managing Director, Airports, Travel and Commercial Spaces, Alex Avery

Airport-airline relations have the potential to improve significantly once both parties recognise potential synergies in mutual areas of interest such as retail and merchandising. A partnership approach and sharing risk and development ideas is key.

Aligning commercial and operational goals and sharing development risks – but mutually reaping the rewards
How do airports and airlines view the passenger journey? What kinds of data sharing initiatives exist between airports and airlines?
What are some alternative sources of revenue that airlines and airports can tap into?
Can airlines protect themselves against the goalposts shifting under airport ownership changes?

Moderator: CAPA – Centre for Aviation, Executive Chairman, Peter Harbison

Panel:

• Bahrain Airport Company, CEO, Mohamed Al Binfalah
• Fraport AG, VP E-Commerce, Jens Paul
• Oman Airports, CEO, Sheikh Aimen bin Ahmed Al Hosni
• Pittsburgh International Airport, VP, Air Service Development, Bryan Dietz
• Redwater Consulting Group, Managing Director, Anthony Cicuttini

Whether it is car parking, land rents, terminal concessions or advertising, non aeronautical revenue sources comprise a significant portion of global airport revenues, with ACI putting this figure at USD60.4bn, or 40% of total revenues. But will technology and new entrants change the revenue mix? And how can airports work smarter to maximise their profit margins?

• Is technology a threat to revenues or an enabler?
• Balancing the burgeoning demands of the TNCs with the desirable car parking revenues (one at the expense of the other)
• How are airports innovating in advertising, commercial development and other non-aero means to compete effectively and to finance aeronautical operational needs

Moderator: Market Square Consult, Managing Director, Johan Schölvinck

Panel:

• Airport International Group, CEO, Kjeld Binger
• Bahrain Airport Company, CEO, Mohamed Al Binfalah
• GMR Airports, CEO, P S Nair

Topics to be covered include:

• The future of ATC with Remote Virtual Towers
• Airspace Redesign to Increase Capacity
• Increasing collaboration between multiple ANSPs and system suppliers
• Satellite based surveillance and Ground based augmentation systems (GBAS)

Moderator: Helios, Director, Alan Corner

Panel:

• HungaroControl, Head of Business Development, Attila Simon
• IATA, Assistant Director Infrastructure Safety and Flight Ops, George Rhodes
• LFV, Senior Air Traffic Management Expert, Lars-Göran Stridsman

Airport Collaborative Decision Making (A-CDM) has helped improved operational efficiency between airport operators, air traffic control and ground operators through real time data sharing. But this information fails to make its way to the passenger, exposing a huge communication flaw and leaving passengers frustrated at unexplained delays.

• What are some further technical applications of the A-CDM programme that could potentially benefit passengers?
• How can airports utilise real time data shared through A-CDM into useful information for passengers? What technology is enabling this?
• Optimising the full potential of big data analytics and machine learning technology to predict passenger movements and improve efficiencies throughout the airport facility
• Digitisation and automation – a review of successful applications and projects in the pipeline

Moderator: PA Consulting, Partner, David Huttner

Panel:

• Airport Coordination Limited (ACL), Former Managing Director, Chris Bosworth
• emaratech, General Director, H.E. Thani Al Zaffin
• Finavia Corporation, Senior Advisor to the Board, Kari Savolainen

While there is relatively little airport privatisation activity in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia is privatising its airports by way of a concession process that will ultimately embrace all of them. Meanwhile, there are comparatively few investing organisations in the Middle East that take an interest in airport privatisation elsewhere, other than sovereign wealth funds and the occasional airline. Could the airport operators be more adventurous in this respect or is it the case that the bigger ones have enough to worry about at home? Looking beyond the region, over the last couple of years there have been quite a few deals concerning mid-sized airports, and a recent concentration of activity in countries such as Brazil and Japan. But there have been few big transactions and some of the main players of previous years and decades have withdrawn from the sector.

• What can Saudi Arabia learn from transactions that have taken place elsewhere in the world and are there circumstances there, and in the region generally, which might cause external investors to be wary?
• The public-private-partnership (P3) in its various forms has become the staple for partial privatisation in many parts of the world. How appropriate is it to this region?
• Is there enough expertise, let alone will, in the region, to invest and operate abroad?
• How will airport privatisation activity evolve in the future?
• Will airports always be regarded as desirable assets (and not only by pension funds) or, bearing in mind the phenomenal rate of technological change at the moment in arenas such as space and sub-space travel and hyperloops, from an investor’s perspective might their days be numbered?

Moderator: PrivateAir Saudi Arabia, General Manager, Dr. Fethi Chebil

Panel:

• Egis, Middle East & South Asia Aviation Director, Jacques Khoriaty
• VINCI Airports, CCO, Pierre-Hugues Schmit

The expansion of commercial outlets within terminals has seen many major airports become “airport cities”. Further development beyond the airport’s original physical boundary has given rise to the aerotropolis, with airport linked business parks, industrial and residential complexes, and retail, dining and entertainment precincts transforming airports into major urban centres.

• From the airport city to the aerotropolis: distinguishing the two
• What are the business and economic drivers for building an aerotropolis?
• How is the aerotropolis model evolving?
• The critical role of surface transport operators and ICT in enhancing physical and network connectivity in an aerotropolis
• Factoring aerotropolis development into long term strategy and planning

Moderator: Site Selection Magazine, Editor in Chief, Mark Arend

Panel:

• Aerotropolis Business Concepts, CEO, John Kasarda
• AIREA & IKEA, Managing Director & Chief Development Officer, Pieter van der Horst
• City of Vantaa, Project Director, Arja Lukin