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Editor’s Note: While SimpliFlying’s aviation marketing thought leadership goes far and wide, we know there is more great content beyond our borders. SimpliRecap is a weekly feature that ensures that our readers don’t miss the latest in airline and airport marketing. This week’s selection is from the world of airport marketing. Find our previous editions here.
Infographic on How Airports are Performing on Twitter
- 88% of tweets from travellers in airports are customer service related
- Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson international airport has the highest passenger traffic, but its not even in the top 3 of “Most followed Twitter handles” list. Where as, London’s Heathrow airport that handles third highest passenger traffic has the highest Twitter followers (about 156,000).
Find the infographic at Tnooz.
Auckland Airport builds travel app on Sina Weibo to attract Chinese travellers
China is now New Zealand’s second largest international visitor market with 222,720 arrivals for the year ending July 2013. On top of that visitor increase, Chinese visitor spend has increased by almost 25% to $645 million in the year to June 2013. Average Chinese visitor spend is now $3,100, which is well above the $2,300 average tourist spend, and the length of stay of Chinese visitors has increased from three to four days.
Find out more at Voxy.co.nz.
Dublin Airport Celebrates Crossing 40,000 followers on Twitter
Passengers at Dublin Airport are being handed Twitter-themed cupcakes this week to mark the gateway’s expanded Twitter following. With more than 40,000 followers, the airport claims to be the sixth largest airport on the micro-blogging site. In a recent survey of 613 airports on Twitter, Dublin Airport was ranked behind only a handful of gateways: Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester Airport, Simon Bolivar Airport in Venezuela and London City Airport.
Dublin Airport uses Twitter for passenger information, news, customer engagement and customer service queries, said Paul O’Kane, Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) public affairs director.
Read the original article at Airport World.
London Heathrow Airport Prepares to track late-running passengers
The system uses software which takes information from the barcode of a passenger’s scanned boarding pass and compares it against central flight information to determine whether the passenger is in the correct terminal and whether they have left enough time to pass through security and arrive at their departure gate.
Passengers who find themselves in the wrong terminal will receive a message telling them where to go. If a passenger has limited time they will receive what Walker describes as “a friendly hurry up message”, telling them to go straight to security. Crucially, however, passengers who are deemed not to have left enough time to reach their gate will be instructed to return to check-in.
Find out more about this innovative initiative at APEX Editor’s Blog.
Hamburg Airport Provides Real-Time Queueing Data to Passengers
On-site airport personnel update the information every 15 minutes to ensure the waiting time displayed is accurate. Passengers will see one of the following statuses: ‘0 to 3 minutes’, ‘4 to 10 minutes’ or ‘more than 10 minutes’.
Read the original article at Future Travel Experience.
Birmingham Airport’s Preferred Social Media Management Tool
Birmingham Airport has announced that it uses CrowdControlHQ to handle its social media, with the airport’s social media team communicating with an average of 50 people each day.
Read the original article at The Drum.
Abu Dhabi Airport’s Futuristic Sleep Pods
Recently Abu Dhabi Airport (AUH) launched an egg shaped sleeping pod — Finnish-designed, of course – called GoSleep, and the service is now in its fourth month of operation. I was passing through AUH last night, and managed to sneak in for a closer look.
Find out more about the sleep pods, including a picture gallery, at Skift.
SimpliFlying Airports in Social Media Conference — hosted by Warsaw Chopin Airport
A gentle reminder to those who would like to sign up.
In view of the growing importance of social media platforms as tools for communication between airports and passengers, we want to take this opportunity to discuss, with other experts, the latest trends in this area, look into different social media management models and best practices and share experiences.
The conference will be divided into two parts. The first day will be devoted to presentations by experts from SimpliFlying and Solterbeck.net, as well as practitioners from Heathrow, Warsaw and Gdańsk airports. These will be followed by the MasterClass on the practical aspects of airport social media management on the second day of the conference. The course will be run by Simpliflying (available for a discounted fee of EUR495 if you register online).
Find out more, including the detailed schedule of the first Airports in Social Media Conference in Europe.
5 Myths about Flying Everyone Believes
And to round off, here’s a fun weekend read for the aviation enthusiasts among us.
In 2011, a 5-square-foot hole (the size of most windows in your house assuming you don’t live on a cruise ship) opened in the roof of a Southwest Airlines flight. It was cruising at 37,000 feet, meaning the pressure inside and outside of the plane were at what scientists refer to as peak explodiness. But when the explosive decompression occurred, the hole didn’t suck anyone out, nor did it grow in size and ferocity as time went on. And it wasn’t the first time such a dramatic action movie spectacle has failed to develop.
Find out about all the myths at Cracked.