As part of its focus on delivering a faster, more satisfying customer experience, MAG (Manchester Airports Group) has selected global IT provider SITA to implement further passenger self-service across the group’s three main airports.
This follows a tender process that concluded in November 2018, after which SITA was awarded a five-year framework agreement to provide new check-in, self-bag drop and boarding points across Manchester, London Stansted and East Midlands airports.
SITA has also been selected to carry out a significant upgrade to Manchester Airport’s baggage reconciliation systems, allowing the airport to better track bags at key points across the journey.
As part of MAG’s transformation programs at each airport, a revised check-in strategy has been developed, focusing on delivering an enhanced customer experience and efficient use of airport capacity through the option of greater automated or self-service passenger processing.
To support this, SITA will provide more than 660 staffed and self-service common-use points at check-in, transfer and boarding across all three airports. At Manchester Airport, the group’s busiest airport, SITA will significantly increase staffed and self-service check-in kiosks as well as introduce SITA’s self-bag drop in Terminals 1 and 3, where passengers can check in their own bags in under a minute.
Nicholas Woods, CIO of MAG, said: “Our passenger numbers continue to grow rapidly across our three airports. At the same time our passengers want to spend as little time completing the travel steps such as check-in, bag drop and boarding. We recognize that better technology allows us to process more passengers as well as reduce queues and SITA have provided a solution to deliver on both requirements.”
The benefits of self-service were again confirmed in SITA’s 2019 Passenger IT Insights showing that passengers are more satisfied when they are using technology that provides more control over their journey, particularly at check-in, bag drop and boarding.
As part of the baggage reconciliation system upgrades at Manchester Airport, baggage will be smoothly tracked so that each bag is accounted for at every step of the journey. This will have a tremendous impact on reducing the possibility of a bag being mishandled, providing passengers more certainty on where their bags are at all times.
As part of the agreement, SITA will also manage the new passenger and baggage processing systems, making sure that they are running optimally at all times.
Sergio Colella, SITA President for Europe, said: “With more than 60 million passengers per year across three airports, we can help MAG meaningfully streamline their passenger and baggage processes to accommodate even more passengers while providing a smooth, seamless experience for each of those passengers. It is a great pleasure to be able to support MAG’s growth plans over the next few years.”
