A report by air transport IT provider SITA has found that a majority of airlines and airports will offer mobile services such as flight status, baggage status and airport directions by 2016.
The paper is based on global research, and incorporates additional input from leading airlines and airports including British Airways, Saudia, Dublin Airport Authority, London City Airport and Heathrow.
For the research, SITA asked airlines and airports to measure themselves in four categories of business intelligence best practice: data access and management, infrastructure, data presentation, and governance.
According to the paper, flight status updates are currently a mainstream mobile service and will be offered by the vast majority of airlines and airports by the end of 2016. It also predicts that bag status updates will be offered by 61% of airlines, and 79% of airports will offer status notifications such as queue times through security and walking time to gate. More than three-quarters will also be providing navigation / way-finding at the airport through mobile apps.
The report revealed that on average, the industry is only halfway to achieving best-in-class and further progress is needed. More than half of passengers will avail these mobile services once they are available.
SITA market insight director Nigel Pickford said that while passengers are very keen to access information about their journey, they are also sensitive about privacy.
"Though the picture is not perfect now, change is coming. All airlines and 90% of airports are planning to make business intelligence investments in the coming three years," he said.
"The smart use of non-intrusive passenger information however will provide benefits to airlines and passengers."
