1. Special Passenger Handling Application
with Amadeus IT Group
Group 14
James Arram, John (Jack) Bradshaw, Philip Burling,
Stephen Kitchen, Sean Patrick, Frederick Swadling
Supervisor
Dr Alessandra Russo

2. Special Passenger Handling
• Passengers arriving on flights may require
special assistance
● e.g. disabled/unaccompanied minors
• Assistance given by supervisor and team of
agents at terminal

3. Project Objectives
• Develop cross-platform mobile application for
tablets to assist in special passenger handling
• Enable supervisor to track flights and allocate
passengers to agents
• Enable agents to manage tasks related to
passengers

4. PSM Inbox Service Report
Inbox
Parser
Scripts
Database
Scripts
Report
Sending
Scripts
Agent
Mode
Supervisor
Mode
Database
User Side
Server Side
System Design

5. Passenger Service Message (PSM)
• PSM is sent to all down-line airports when a flight leaves its
departure port
HDQRNMNW
.AMSKPKL
PSM
BA155/20MAR CDG PART1
-LHR 2PAX/3SSR
WCHR 001F 000M 000C
BLND 000F 001M 000C
F CLASS 1PAX/1SSR
1SMITH/CHRISMR 15A
BLND TRAVELLING WITH SERVICE ANIMAL.
SEEING EYE DOG NAMED HENRY.
M CLASS 1PAX/2SSR
1JONES/SARAHMRS 32B
WCHS WHEELCHAIR HAS OWN CARRY CASE
LANG SPEAKS FRENCH
C CLASS NIL
SI
EXPECT COMPLAINTS ON ARRIVAL.
ENDPSM
Carrier Code: BA
Departure Date: 20 March
Destination Port: LHR
Departure Port: CDG
Name: Mr. Chris Smith
Seat Number: 15A
SSR Code: BLND
Supplementary Information
Flight number: 155

6. Parsing PSMs
• System receives PSMs via email
• Parser is written in PHP
• Extracts relevant information into objects
• Inserts information into the database
• PHP script is scheduled to run as cron job every 5
minutes
– To be run as a cron job the script needs to:
• Never write to standard out or standard error streams
• Not break or hang!
– Solution: Use exception handling and write progress
to a logfile

8. PSM Inbox Service Report
Inbox
Parser
Scripts
Database
Scripts
Report
Sending
Scripts
Agent
Mode
Supervisor
Mode
Database
User Side
Server Side
System Design

9. GUI Design
• PhoneGap used to abstract development to
web standards (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) for a
cross-platform application
• To aid in GUI development, JavaScript
framework called Sencha Touch was used to
wrap up HTML and CSS into JavaScript
functions

10. Database Communication
• Database queries from the GUI are
implemented via JSONP requests
JavaScript Object Notation with Padding
• Server-side PHP scripts handle requests and
pass back data
• This mechanism is used for all database
requests

11. PSM Inbox Service Report
Inbox
Parser
Scripts
Database
Scripts
Report
Sending
Scripts
Agent
Mode
Supervisor
Mode
Database
User Side
Server Side
System Design

12. Supervisors
A supervisor can:
• Display a complete list of flights containing
passenger service requests
• Browse, assign and dismiss service requests
• View a map of current agent locations
• Send an email report detailing the current
status of any flight

13. GPS & Map
• Agent GPS coordinates are tracked continually
using the device and stored in the database
• Supervisors view the latest location
information from the database on the map
• Agent coordinates
• Gate coordinates for gates with arriving flights
• Queued flights based on first to arrive

14. GPS & Map Challenges
• Polling for GPS coordinates must be started
before log-in
• Performance implications
• Not possible to test at Heathrow so mock
airport terminal created at Imperial
• Wi-Fi coverage
• Migration

15. PSM Inbox Service Report
Inbox
Parser
Scripts
Database
Scripts
Report
Sending
Scripts
Agent
Mode
Supervisor
Mode
Database
User Side
Server Side
System Design

16. Agents
An agent can:
• View special service requests (SSRs) assigned to
them:
– Pending SSRs not yet dealt with
– Completed SSRs awaiting dismissal by supervisor
• Switch status between available and busy
• Set comments on SSRs assigned to him
• Transition status of assigned SSRs from pending
to completed (i.e. awaiting dismissal)

17. PSM Inbox Service Report
Inbox
Parser
Scripts
Database
Scripts
Report
Sending
Scripts
Agent
Mode
Supervisor
Mode
Database
User Side
Server Side
System Design

18. Flight Service Report
• Report gives all information about special
passenger requests for a particular flight
• Report sent in two ways:
– Manually (on request of supervisor)
– Automatically once all passenger service requests
are dismissed for flight
• In this case flight data is purged from database
• HTML email built using data from the
database and sent

19. Testing
Parser
• PHPUnit used to write unit tests
• Test methods responsible for reading specific elements of message
• Generic test functions are passed input and expected results
• Overall code coverage of 84%
GUI
• Manual test cases (with record of pass/fail) cover all functionality of
GUI
Database
• Manual testing of SQL queries and stored procedures

20. Challenges & Extensions
• Familiarisation with GUI frameworks, server-side
scripting, location-awareness, testing
frameworks…
• Compatibility
– Database scripting and procedures
• Extensibility
– Automatic assignment of agents to passengers based
on geographical distance
– Distribution across multiple terminals

21. Questions?