Airport Experience® News - Customer Service Issue 2023

Utilizing i-beacon, geo-fencing, Bluetooth technology, and an AI-chatbot, the app - which has more than 140,000 downloads - aids passengers in getting step-by-step navigation and airport services. The technology also includes accessibility features for passengers utilizing wheelchairs, notes Chin, adding that the airport has consistently received feedback that the app eases navigation through MIA’s sprawling, multi-concourse footprint. Looking to the future, Chin anticipates that passengers will continue to respond and engage with “more personalized solutions such as augmented or parallel reality,” he says. Parallel Reality is already in place at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne Country Airport (DTW), where Delta Air Lines and technology firm Misapplied Sciences have partnered to install a premiere communications system that displays personalized greetings and flight information on a shared digital screen. The system’s proprietary multi-view pixel technology works by displaying different colored light to each of many viewing zones, allowing multiple passengers looking at the same display to view personalized content simultaneously. “If this new technology can make finding your gate and departure information quicker and easier, we’re not just showing customers a magic trick — we’re solving a real problem,” says Ranjan Goswami, senior vice president of customer experience at Delta. “Customers already rely on personalized navigation via their mobile devices, but this is enabling a public screen to act as a personal one, removing the clutter of information not relevant to you to empower a better journey.” Marrying informational communication with elements of joy and wonder are also on the menu at The Moment Factory , a Montreal-based multimedia agency founded in 2001 that specializes in immersive digital

experiences across airports, stadiums, cultural institutions, resorts and retail. A pioneer in the digital wayfinding and immersive passenger experience industry for over 10 years, the Moment Factory team first began implementing digital wayfinding and storytelling in airports at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), where in 2013 they created a large-scale, multimedia content and wayfinding system in the airport’s Tom Bradley Terminal. It was a “very simple, comprehensive approach,” says Mikael Charpin, director and producer of The Moment Factory’s Cities team of the company’s project with the high-volume airport. “Most of the content we created with Los Angeles was a tribute to the golden age of cinema,” he says, noting the integration of movie-magic storytelling elements with logistical communications like real-time weather reports and passenger triggered instructions. The idea behind incorporating both wayfinding elements and place-setting content “is not to create a story with a beginning and an ending, because you’re not expecting people to stop,” adds Charpin. “Every frame has to be beautiful.”

The company has, in the intervening decade, gone on to pioneer many more digital wayfinding experiences, including the recent Digital Journey of Surprises at Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR)’s Terminal A. The installation - completed in 2022 and opened in 2023 - combines New Jersey-focused trivia and tourism information employed in elements such as the Forest of Firsts, an LED tribute to the state’s “spirit of innovation,” with wayfinding elements through the system’s smart gates, which artistically display flight information and boarding cues. “The origin of the ‘Journey of Surprises’ came from the desire and necessity to create a passenger experience vision for Terminal A at Newark,” says Elisabeth Sailer , chief commercial officer of Munich Airport NJ LLC, the operator of EWR Terminal A . “The challenge was to create a balanced mix between beautiful and artistic content - to create a story around New Jersey and include functional wayfinding information,” says Charpin of the installation’s visual cueing system. “The idea is not to add another layer of visual pollution.We wanted to create beautiful content that is as intuitive as possible that supports the passenger experience.”

Right: Personalized greetings and flight information on a shared digital screen await Delta Air Lines passengers at Detroit Metro Airport..

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AX NEWS CUSTOMER SERVICE ISSUE 2023