Not content with tracking airports’ efforts to harness digital and mobile tech (in several ACI EUROPE reports published in the past years), during its 27th Annual Congress in June, ACI EUROPE will show off its very own dedicated App, the Airport Traffic Analyser, freely available on iOS and in a WebApp. Elliot Bailey reports.
It’s no secret that ACI has been tracking traffic data for most of its 26 year existence, but monthly reporting by ACI EUROPE of this important dataset only really began in the past 15 years. Since then, its relevance and significance have risen steadily, particularly after the economic and financial crisis, tracking the bounceback in traffic that followed it.
Teresa Ziober, ACI EUROPE’s resident Economic Research Analyst: “When it comes to traffic data, we have always seen significant engagement from member airports – they all want to be in the report, they each compete to make it into the Top 5 in their group. It’s a vital metric in airport industry.”
Teresa Ziober, ACI EUROPE’s resident Economic Research Analyst says “When it comes to traffic data, we have always seen significant engagement from member airports – they all want to be in the report, they each compete to make it into the Top 5 in their group. It’s a vital metric in airport industry. Our reporting puts individual airport’s performance into a wider context and gives it more visibility, which our members clearly find very valuable. When I started here in 2010, we had just over 100 airports in the report – but by moving production in-house, expanding and redesigning our Airport Traffic Report, we succeeded in increasing the sample to over 230 airports, representing 90% Europe’s air passenger traffic. With that kind of momentum, going digital was the next logical step.”
Work began on the project last year and delegates at ACI’s Airport Economics & Finance Conference in London in March of this year had a sneak preview of a beta-version of the result: the Airport Traffic Analyser App – an all-new tool that aims to empower users by putting the latest European airport traffic data at their fingertips. Early reaction has been very positive.
How it works
As each new monthly ACI EUROPE Airport Traffic Report is released, registered users can – if they allow – receive an alert on the device of choice, informing them that the latest traffic results are now accessible, directly on their smartphone, tablet or computer.
The App is divided into 5 sections – WELCOME, which provides the user with all the latest summary aggregate data for growth in passenger traffic, freight and aircraft movements, for all of Europe, as well as for the EU and Non-EU blocs.
During its 27th Annual Congress in June, ACI EUROPE will show off its very own dedicated App, the Airport Traffic Analyser, freely available on iOS and in a WebApp.
The second section is AIRPORT – the first page of which provides the user with the latest Top 5 listings across the 4 ACI traffic groups. Then staying within the AIRPORT section, there are 2 other pages – My Airports Latest Month & My Airports YTD – allowing the user to view comparisons he/she has set up between the airports of their choice (you can compare up to 6 airports in the same comparison and set up up to 5 distinct comparisons). These comparisons can be carried out based on the monthly result or on the Year-to-Date result, generating customised, interactive tables and graphs that are shareable.
The third section COUNTRY also has 3 pages – the first of which provides the latest maps of Europe with the aggregate traffic growth percentage placed on each country. As with the AIRPORT section, the other 2 pages allow the user to view the comparisons they have established comparing traffic performance between the countries of their choice.
The fourth section LIBRARY allows users to view the latest ACI EUROPE publications – on any subject – and the final section provides the necessary CONTACT details. Quite aside from the customisation feature in the AIRPORT and COUNTRY sections, it is impressive to see how shareable the various tables and graphs generated by the App are. It allows the users the possibility of sharing them via email or directly on social media channels like Facebook and Twitter.
ACI EUROPE will be actively promoting the App from the summertime onwards and hopes that the fact that it is free will pique interest from new users, further expanding the audience that the report currently enjoys.
Robert O’Meara, Director of Media & Communications at ACI EUROPE says “Airport traffic performance is really the common denominator dataset that every department in an airport stays up to speed with – it is useful to everyone from C-level executives, to operations to route development to retail and beyond. More than that, it receives a regular drumbeat of media interest too. So with the research we had done on airports work with digital & mobile, we recognised that there was an opportunity to try to do something groundbreaking that could better serve our existing audience and potentially raise further awareness of our work and publications – on traffic and more.”
For more information about the new Airport Traffic Analyser app, go to www.aci-europe.org/trafficapp
