Gebr. Heinemann’s GHARAGE Vision hub reveals ‘Intelligent Airports: From Friction to Flow’ report
Introducing the latest report from Gebr. Heinemann's vision hub GHARAGE
Gebr. Heinemann’s Vision hub GHARAGE has revealed the second in a series of reports – ‘Intelligent Airports: From Friction to Flow’ – examining shifting traveler preferences and what they mean for the future of airports.
Amanda Mai Khuong-Duc, Head of Strategic Foresight and Innovation at GHARAGE, explained, “Airports are spaces of contradictions: The best airport experience isn't about choosing between high-tech and low-tech, but embracing their co-existence.
“As technology deeply integrates into every aspect of our lives, travelers expect seamless, valuable tech experiences. The key lies in strategically leveraging technology to enhance the journey by getting the basics right, while ensuring that unique human capabilities are intentionally applied where they matter most.”
Through this report, GHARAGE explores a realistic but aspirational tech-enhanced vision for airports. Combining qualitative, quantitative, and cultural insights, the report shows how an end-to-end airport journey might be designed in the future to feel seamless, connected, intuitive, contextual – and still, somehow human. The topic is approached via three key themes: Getting the basics right, Intuiting needs and desires and Elevated experiences.
The second in a series of reports, GHARAGE examines shifting traveler preferences and what they mean for the future of airports
Key take aways from the report include:
- Get the basics right: Travelers are frustrated by long waits, queues, and necessary airport checkpoints, especially at the start and end of their journey. Examples include luggage, customs, security, and immigration. Intelligent use of data, automation, and connectivity is needed to facilitate an efficient, integrated, and responsive ecosystem to enhance passenger happiness.
- Holding ambivalence between high and low tech: We are living through an innovation super cycle. Tech increasingly permeates and facilitates every aspect of our lives. Amid a blurred future of humans and machines, travelers desire technologies that are both simple and sophisticated, where human connections can co-exist with AI efficiency, and ambient technologies that integrate seamlessly into the journey.
- Intuit passenger desires for elevated experiences: The wait for a flight can be broken by allowing for serendipity, discovery, and surprise. The introduction of multi-platform concepts facilitated by tech can provide travelers with communal and immersive pre-flight activities, elevating their overall experience at airports. The boundaries between the digital and physical get blurred.
The report takes in-depth looks into each of these topics and develops six strategic opportunities for testing these new concepts so emerging technologies can be better integrated into the end-to-end airport experience.
