You're facing staffing shortages in airport terminals. How can you effectively manage passenger flow?
In the face of staffing shortages at airport terminals, managing passenger flow becomes a critical challenge. As an airport manager, you're tasked with ensuring that travelers move smoothly through the terminal despite the limited personnel. It's essential to maintain a high level of service and security while also being efficient. Adapting strategies to deal with these constraints requires creativity and a thorough understanding of airport operations. Below you'll find effective methods to manage passenger flow during times of staffing shortages, ensuring that your airport continues to operate effectively and passengers remain satisfied with their experience.
To mitigate the impact of staffing shortages on passenger flow, optimizing staff schedules is key. You need to assess peak times and allocate your available staff accordingly. This might mean having more hands on deck during the busiest hours and reducing staffing during slower periods. It's also crucial to cross-train employees so they can perform multiple roles, increasing flexibility in assignments. By doing so, you can ensure that essential positions are always covered and that passenger processing is as swift as possible.
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Andreas Hofmann
Inspire, Innovate, Transform
Optimizing schedules should be done in a continious and rolling approach to ensure adaptations of resource schedules according to all changes. Ideally, there is an agreed buffer with the service providers like security agents to easily up- and downscale the required staffing. At the day of operations it is important to measure and predict in real-time to respond fast to all upcoming operational changes in order to facilitate the staff onsite in the best manner.
Technology can be a powerful ally in managing passenger flow, especially when human resources are scarce. Automated check-in kiosks, self-service baggage drop-off points, and e-gates for boarding and security can significantly reduce the need for staff. Encouraging passengers to use mobile boarding passes and providing real-time information about wait times through apps can also streamline the process. By investing in and promoting the use of these technologies, you can keep passenger flow moving even with fewer staff members.
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Andreas Hofmann
Inspire, Innovate, Transform
Technology is a key factor in managing passenger flows and enabling higher capacity without increasing demand of staff resources. This can be done through self-service technologies for passengers, but also throuhg permanent observation of people flows at check-points, but also in between. Therefore, LiDAR technology is extremely helpful as it enables airport operators to measure and track people flows in an anonymous and GDPR compliant way. In addition, real-time flow forecast and simulation solutions help operators and their stakeholders to be pro-active in managing upcoming peaks and unexpected flow changes instead of being re-active, managing queues when they are already happening.
Streamlining airport processes can greatly improve passenger flow. This involves re-evaluating procedures to eliminate unnecessary steps and implementing measures like simplified baggage check procedures or expedited security lanes for passengers without carry-ons. By simplifying these processes, you not only make the experience more pleasant for travelers but also reduce the workload on your staff, enabling them to manage more passengers effectively.
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Andreas Hofmann
Inspire, Innovate, Transform
Simplify processes and self-service for passengers go almost hand in hand. In order to build a good self service approach all potential types of users need to be considered. Different cultures, languages, ages or even passengers with disabilities need to be able to consume and process certain self-service steps. This means also to simplify these processes to an extend everybody can use them without additional staff to guide people through.
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During staffing shortages, passenger cooperation becomes even more vital. Communicate clearly about what is expected from passengers at each stage of their airport journey. Use signage, public announcements, and direct engagement to guide them efficiently through processes like security checks and boarding. Educating passengers on how they can prepare for each step can lead to smoother operations and less need for staff intervention.
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Andreas Hofmann
Inspire, Innovate, Transform
Passenger communication is getting more and more crucial in an age where passengers get almost every information via different sources in the internet. Information about delays are sometimes faster accessible through publicly available flight tracking platforms than throuhg the corresponding airline or airport. This needs to be changed in a way that passengers feel always well informed about changes in the right way at the right time.
Forming partnerships with airlines, ground handlers, and other airport stakeholders can create synergies that benefit passenger flow. Collaborate to align on shared goals and strategies for managing peak times and disruptions. Sharing resources, such as staff or equipment, during peak periods can help mitigate the effects of staffing shortages. Strategic partnerships can lead to coordinated efforts that enhance the overall efficiency of airport operations.
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Andreas Hofmann
Inspire, Innovate, Transform
Every airport is an ecosystem of its own that consists of various stakeholders which, in the end, need to work hand in hand to guarentee smooth operations. Typically these are the airport operator, airlines, ground handlers, security companies and border police. Additional stakeholders like retailers and airside operations need also to be engaged in order to establish a fully transperant Terminal operations that is considering all aspects of the passenger journey.
Finally, it's crucial to prioritize tasks based on their impact on passenger flow. Identify critical points within the terminal where bottlenecks are likely to occur and ensure these areas are adequately staffed. Non-essential tasks can be deferred or handled during off-peak hours. By focusing your limited resources on the most impactful areas, you can maintain a smooth flow of passengers even when staffing levels are not at their ideal state.
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