I’ve just returned from the Asia-Pacific region, where the use of dedicated budget airline terminals is becoming the dominant format of new air terminals in the region. They have been put in place to support low cost carrier (LCC) growth. This format is certainly not new, as LCC air terminals are in such places as London Luton, Berlin Tegel and Frankfurt-Hahn. These European cities are intent on attracting the new wave of budget conscious travelers. The key point of this airport transformation is that airports are adjusting to the new economic realities and building dedicated ‘budget’ terminals to support new air services.

Our colleague David Orton’s recent post on the topic of Location Based Marketing raised some good points on the challenges facing Airports and Airlines.

The basic cause and effect is that current web properties and services are structured in operational silos, which do not consider the passenger as the primary focus. In our current program to create the Passenger Experience Index as the “Passenger First” starting point to create a services framework, we are considering the complex services touch points, data collection and flow and related stakeholders as David had presented.

In support of developing a phased approach to create a sustainable passenger driven model for new revenue streams, we suggest the following process may be the most appropriate:

Phase One:

Introduce new social models of “Passenger as a Cluster” thereby creating a standard approach for all stakeholders in airlines and airports. Time Frame: Available now.
Utilize the new PEI framework to understand the business model to begin adoption …

In speaking with several industry colleagues, we had the feeling that the agendas of the upcoming airport conferences this fall seem to have a common theme. Many sessions are devoted to the creation of new non-aeronautical revenues. But, we feel that the sessions unfortunately focus on ‘more of the same’ – the same topics repeated. In fact, we’re reminded of the maxim, “If we do nothing different, why do we expect different results?” What’s really not being addressed is the transformation from an old business model to a new one.

The creation of new non-aeronautical revenues is the top of mind of today’s senior airport management, with the goal to facilitate lower airport operating fees. What is needed is a complete re-thinking of the way airports develop new non-aeronautical revenues and what changes are necessary to address the real opportunity to transform the current airport business model.

At AirGate Solutions, we’ve just completed our July-August update of Airports Using Facebook.  We now are tracking over 160 airports, including the Top 30 International Airports, as defined by Airports Council International (ACI). In this post, we focused only on airports that use Facebook as a social media platform, as defined by an active Facebook page.

What is truly surprising is that is less than 50% of the 160+ airports, many of them top international airports, either do not use Facebook as a social media platform or we were unable to locate their site. More surprising, is the fact that we also found most airport websites do not provide a link to their social media pages (Facebook or Twitter).

Measured by an airport’s total number of Facebook Fans, we see that only 40% of the airports in our Top 10 categories are large international airports (in CAPS), as categorized ACI, ranked by total numbers of passengers.

The Top 10 Airports Using Facebook (total Fans) – U.S. Airports Only
Cleveland
Akron-Canton
Oakland
Yeager
ATLANTA
BOSTON
DENVER
South Bend
McAllen-Miller
LOS ANGELES

The Top 10 Airports Using Facebook (total Fans) – All Airports
Cleveland
Akron-Canton
SINGAPORE
Oakland
Yeager
ATLANTA
BOSTON
Budapest
DENVER
South Bend

Thanks for your many comments regarding our Social Media Index tool for airports. It was designed more as a “census” of how many …

IATA has suggested air traffic growth seems to be resuming after the economic decline of 2008-9. Future growth trends will be driven by the low-cost airlines (LCC), as they continue to increase their passenger loads. LCC’s have revitalized many regional airports, leading to competition between airports and the need for airports to be competitive in their fees.

This presents a challenge to airports to find new sources of revenue, with the clear understanding that they cannot continue to operate with a “more of the same” attitude.

Airports recognize that they must adopt new approaches in order to actively support this growth of air travel and be competitive. Those airports that successfully rise to the challenge will become “Airports of the Future” and will exhibit three key characteristics that distinguish the successful from all others:

Lower-cost operating costs
Faster and more efficient passenger flows
New revenue streams, driven by increased retail and services opportunities

Compounding the airport’s struggle to compete in today’s global markets are several conflicting resource demands. The airports’ global association, the Airports Council International, highlights some of their members’ priorities:

“Sweat the Assets”: the effective and efficient use of facilities
Growth …