Melbourne Airport has announced that it is extending its contract with SITA, the IT provider for the air transport industry which does business with nearly every airline and airport in the world.
New technology is a large part of the airport’s multi-billion dollar pipeline of investment that will see it welcome almost 70 million passengers annually by 2038. The passenger-friendly SITA technologies will help the airport ensure a high-quality traveler experience as passenger numbers rise, supporting increasingly busy operations for its airline customers.
Luke Halliday, CIO, Melbourne Airport, said: “Technology plays an increasingly important role in the operation of an airport, particularly as we strive to streamline the passenger journey through the airports and make the processing experience as unobtrusive as possible. We needed a partner that could join us in delivering against that vision and provide the best solutions to meet our changing needs as we expand. By extending our partnership with SITA we got exactly that. Our teams work well together and SITA’s expertise and dedication makes it the ideal transformation partner.
“The flexible hybrid solution designed and being delivered by SITA will boost capacity while maintaining a customer-centric approach and contributing to our overall success.”
SITA already supplies Melbourne Airport with a variety of flexible services for passenger check-in and bag drop in the International Terminal. Those technologies will increasingly be rolled out across other terminals, expected to culminate in more than 400 passenger touchpoints including mobile and standard check-in desks, gate boarding, self-service check-in kiosks, hybrid and standard self-bag drops.
These are based on SITA’s common-use platform, AirportConnect® Open which is used at hundreds of airports worldwide. In particular, the hybrid check-in areas will allow the airport to offer the ideal mix of agent and self-service passenger processing based on the time of day, type of passenger traffic and airline preference. This flexibility supports the traveler-focused redesign of the airport terminals.
