March-April 2023 - 33

CONSULTANT CORNER
AUTHOR Joe Petrie
Sense of place is a part of building a better
passenger experience in the terminal
JASON O'REAR, COURTESY GENSLER
How Technology
Changes
Airport Operations
Gensler's Global Aviation Practice Leader Tim Hudson
shares how technology and sense of space are becoming
the new norm inside the terminal.
TECHNOLOGY PLAYS a crucial role in how airports
operate today. Passenger amenities have evolved substantially
in the past decade with the advent of mobile
devices coupled with airports and airlines finding new
ways to streamline operations to overcome additional
security and manpower issues.
The post-pandemic world is supercharging
these efforts as concepts
slowly creeping into airports as niceto-have
tools become need-to-have
tools to meet demands in this new era
of aviation. Gensler's Global Aviation
Practice Leader Tim Hudson is at the
forefront of many of these changes
and designing new ways for travelers
to move and interact with airports.
He shares some of these insights and
how some North American airports
are laying the groundwork for fundamental
change now.
Tim Hudson, Global
Aviation Practice
Leader, Gensler
GENSLER
such as technology tailored to the passenger
journey. There's the difference
between contactless versus touchless.
We're still working on touchless, but
contactless is one of the big things
we've pushed ahead. We're doing a
program at Newark called the eGate,
which is a contactless process. The
passenger comes up to the beginning
of a checkpoint and with their cell
phone and scans the boarding pass
again without touching something.
Once that boarding pass has been
screened and identifies that you are
who you are, then you can go through
the checkpoint, you can go onto your
gate, and you're not having to produce
any more documentation.
The next permeation of that will
be biometrics, which will be similar
to what they're doing in HartsfieldJackson
Atlanta International Airport
right now. Coming out of the pandemic
helped push that technology
ahead faster. Now it's what people
want. They want technology. They
want speed.
Airport Business: Now that we're
past the pandemic, what does this
new era of technology in the terminal
look like?
Tim Hudson: The pandemic set
into play a lot of things that we had
thought about, but weren't really
pushing forward aggressively enough,
AB: How prepared are we to handle
this sudden change in North America?
HUDSON: The technology is readily
available. We're working on a program
right now in Newark where the next
evolution of the eGate becomes
biometric. Sharing the data has always
been the hurdle. I was at a conference
pre-pandemic and someone from
Google had an interesting perspective
on this. I can give you an indoor
map of the terminal you're going to
be in, I can tell you where your gate
is, I can tell you where your favorite
concessions are, I can tell you where
the restrooms are and I can tell you
where the fastest checkpoint is, but
in order for me to give you what you
want, you have to give me access to
your personal data, which you don't
want to do.
MARCH/APRIL 2023 \ AVIATIONPROS.COM / 33
http://www.AVIATIONPROS.COM
March-April 2023

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