An airport terminal is just not an inviting place to linger. Folks ready there need to transfer on as shortly and easily as potential. Whether or not households, enterprise vacationers or switch passengers – everyone seems to be searching for the quickest technique to the precise gate. What’s a part of each flight for vacationers is a gigantic logistical problem for the airport. Behind the seemingly easy course of lies a extremely complicated operation. Daily of journey includes hundreds of choices: When does which gate open? What number of staff are wanted at check-in? The place is the boarding course of susceptible to slowing down?
Frankfurt Airport is Germany’s largest air visitors hub and probably the most necessary airports in Europe. Round 29.1 million individuals handed by Frankfurt Airport within the first half of 2025. In June 2025 alone, the airport counted 5.8 million passengers – a brand new document for the reason that COVID-19 pandemic. However the figures can’t cover the challenges. Whereas vacation flights inside Europe are booming, the long-haul enterprise stays tense. Journey to the Center East is declining, Asia is stagnating and air freight is faltering. On the identical time, Frankfurt is competing with different European airport hubs corresponding to Amsterdam, Paris, London or Istanbul and fighting larger taxes and stricter working rules.
What was manageable with expertise, intestine feeling and generously deliberate personnel deployment is now reaching its limits. Each passenger brings motion into the system and with it a mess of choices that need to be made within the background. The processes on the airport are complicated, the necessities dynamic. There’s a demand for clever methods that make operations extra versatile, environment friendly and foresighted.
However how are you going to management when a gate opens, the place bottlenecks kind at boarding because of an excessive amount of hand baggage and what number of check-in employees are in the precise place on the proper time? FraAlliance is collaborating with Fraport and Lufthansa to handle such points. The three way partnership between Lufthansa and Fraport – the operator of Frankfurt Airport – brings synthetic intelligence (AI) to the place it makes the most important distinction: each day routine at a global hub. And it does this not as an summary idea, however as a software that makes processes clear, identifies bottlenecks and proposes options. “We had been based to enhance product and repair high quality at Frankfurt Airport,” says Jörg Harnisch, Managing Director of FraAlliance GmbH. “To this finish, we develop improvements and take a look at new applied sciences.” The main target is on the wants of vacationers. “They decide our actions and, after all, we’re judged by the place now we have been capable of enhance service for passengers,” says Harnisch.
Digital twin as a pioneer on the airport
The instance of overloaded cabin baggage compartments exhibits how AI might be put to good use. Lengthy queues typically kind on board as a result of passengers keep on greater than is allowed. The answer: a system that acknowledges the quantity of bags in actual time. “The algorithm distinguishes between trolley, backpack, private merchandise, and particular person,” explains Skrolan Kopka, Head of Consulting and Technique at FraAlliance. The system sounds the alarm earlier than issues get tight and is designed to assist deploy employees for hand baggage administration even earlier than the beginning of time-critical boarding. FraAlliance exhibits how innovation and accountability might be mixed.
Know-how also can present assist throughout boarding sooner or later. Preliminary exams are presently being carried out to see how sensors can detect motion patterns within the terminal. AI can then use this to infer how flows of individuals might be higher managed, for instance, with various routes for passengers in a rush. Digital shows can present passengers the very best route. This turns unexpected occasions right into a managed circulation. The massive objective in sight: an entire picture of the airport in actual time. Plane, baggage carts, passengers – every part is recorded and networked. What is named a “digital twin” maps the complete operation of the airport. It simulates processes, detects hitches and suggests options. What occurs if a flight is delayed? How can switch instances be shortened? Which paths are free, that are overloaded? The system offers the solutions – earlier than the questions are even requested. On this means, the airport is just not solely managed, but additionally understood. If you happen to can acknowledge patterns, you might be proactive as a substitute of simply reacting.
Good options – added worth for patrons
“We wish transparency about what occurs within the terminal. Particularly, we take a better take a look at the switch course of. How do passengers transfer by the constructing, how lengthy and the place do they keep and what can we deduce from this?” asks Dirk Schusdziara, Managing Director of FraAlliance. We’re already testing how the boarding course of might be accompanied digitally at gates A16 and A17. What is named Lidar sensor expertise is used right here. With the assistance of lasers, distances might be measured exactly in actual time and actions within the environment might be detected. For instance, the expertise acknowledges when motion is slowed – and for safety causes, it offers info if two passengers go by the boarding gate on the identical time as a substitute of 1 after the opposite.
What makes FraAlliance particular: It connects what was separate. Airways and airport operators now work hand in hand and all entry the identical knowledge platform. Selections are made sooner and processes run extra easily. The objective: a sensible airport that thinks for itself. “There are various small utility examples that we need to finally hyperlink collectively,” says Schusdziara. FraAlliance exhibits how digitization turns into tangible. Not as a buzzword, however as a software. Not sometime, however now. If you wish to expertise what the airport of the long run will seem like, you don’t need to journey far. A go to to Frankfurt is sufficient.
Efficient transformation means: Rethinking utterly!
Commentary by Claus Lintz, Associate at Porsche Consulting.
Sadly, automation at many airports is making sluggish progress. And from the perspective of many passengers: A lot too sluggish! There are two fundamental causes for the sluggish tempo: Earlier than the coronavirus pandemic, demand for air journey was notably excessive and revenue ranges had been steady. Throughout and even after the pandemic, it has turn into clear that the beforehand steady beginning place not exists and is unlikely to return in full. First got here the compelled downsizing. And now, in consequence, the variety of obtainable employees has fallen noticeably. Expert employees have discovered jobs outdoors the business. There are few returnees. All new staff have to be skilled by the method companions after which acquire expertise. This poses new challenges for all main airports.
That is exactly the place the FraAlliance cooperation comes into play. The three way partnership between Fraport and Lufthansa was based to utterly rethink airport operations. The pooling of experience, data and knowledge helps to enhance the passenger expertise and improve inner effectivity. Porsche Consulting supported this challenge. The main target is on a shared knowledge platform that makes operations extra clear and controllable. This cooperation creates the chance to make the necessary gateway to Germany extra engaging for vacationers of all nationalities. FraAlliance is subsequently not simply an operational challenge, however a job mannequin for the transformation of the worldwide mobility hub. The way forward for the airport lies in clever networking. Frankfurt exhibits how this may be achieved.
Information
Textual content erstmalig erschienen im Porsche Consulting Magazin.
Source link
