Australian airports have adopted a customer service ethos like Amazon to make visitors' experiences a little better. Several Australian airports like Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney rank highly in global airport rankings, showing excellence in customer service. As Australia moves towards an Asian century, Asian customer service standards will become the norm across the entire tourism supply chain, including airports, airlines, and border security agencies. The airport of the future will have advanced technology like facial recognition and automated border controls to streamline processing while enhancing privacy and convenience.

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Tourism & Transport Forum
Justin Wastnage
Our airportsneed a continuation
of service levelexcellence
THE GUIDINGprinciple of online book
store Amazon is to view customers as
guests. "It is our job as hosts to make
the customer experience a little bit better,"
opines the site's founder Jeff Bezos.
Australian airports have adopted this
ethos for more than a decade. Our inter-
national gateways know they are the first
- and last - impression visitors have of Aus-
tralia and they more than hold their own
in global comparisons of customer service.
In the annual Skytrax ranking of the
world's 100 best airports,
Australia is in elite com-
pany, with Brisbane, Mel-
bourne and Sydney all in
the top third. The only
other countries with air-
ports ranked that highly
are Germany with three
and Japan with four. By
contrast, the US has just
one - Cincinnati/Northern
Kentucky International.
Atop the list is Sin-
gapore Changi airport
which swaps top honours
almost annually with
Incheon airport outside
Seoul. What separates
these two airports from
the other contenders is a common custom-
er service ethos that extends to the entire
tourism supply chain, from airport check-
in to hotel pillow. Crucially, it also includes
government border and security agencies.
A study last year by aviation IT special-
ists Amadeus showed that the majority of
travellers would be willing to spend more
time (and thus more money) at airports if
the total experience was a pleasant one. To
capitalise on this, airports need to provide
a compelling leisure, dining and retail of-
fer akin to the world's best shopping malls.
But they also need border formalities and
security to be unobtrusive and striving for
improved performance.
At Changi, travellers are asked to rate
every aspect of customer service using a
simple touch screen with five faces rang-
ing from happy to sad. As well as at shop
checkouts, these terminals are also located
As Australia
orients itself
into the Asian
century,
Asian service
standards will
become the
norm.
at passport control, customs inspection ar-
eas, baggage reclaim and airline lounges,
delivering the airport a unique snapshot of
the entire passenger experience.
The Australian Customs and Border
Protection Service also measures its per-
formance: it monitors average wait time
against a target. Despite significant staff-
ing and funding challenges, the service
performs well with 92 per cent of all pas-
sengers cleared through the passport line
within 30 minutes of landing.
However, technology-
led passenger facilitation
being championed by the
International Air Trans-
port Association means
the airport of the future
will be a very different
place with human inter-
action largely replaced.
Qantas was a world lead-
er in this regard, with
the introduction of re-
programmable baggage
tags for domestic flights
in 2010. With the push
from IATA, global stan-
dards should help these
baggage tags work in-
ternationally beyond the
current trans-Tasman trial.
Another body of work, released in late
August by the Queensland University of
Technology, presents the most compre-
hensive view yet of the Australian Airport
of the Future. Remote check-in will flow
through to on-the-fly visual recognition
technology to validate a passenger's iden-
tity against electronic passports and bag
tags. A tunnel will replace x-ray arches,
explosives tests and bag scanners to allow
security screening to occur while passen-
gers simply walk through.
There will be privacy concerns to over-
come and the public will have to accept
greater amenity and convenience in return
for sharing their data with government
agencies. Airlines will have to ensure their
systems are robust enough to meet data
sharing protocols in privacy-loving juris-
dictions like the European Union.
Government will have a part to play too
and there are some encouraging signals in
this regard. Customs' Blueprint for Reform
2013-2018, published in June, entrenches
customer service in a way never publicly
recognised before, establishing that "legiti-
mate travellers" should "experience a fast,
seamless process using automated tech-
nologies".
Change is already underway. The Smart-
Gate self-service passport kiosks are set to
be opened to nationalities other than Aus-
tralians and New Zealanders. There is a
study looking into automating outbound
passport control too and Customs has a
dedicated team looking into future travel-
ler processing technologies.
Other government agencies are start-
ing to follow Customs' lead. Biosecurity
will soon replace quarantine as the con-
cept behind secondary inspections, with a
risk-based approach replacing a mandated
regime. The Office of Transport Security is
also slowly ratcheting down Australian air-
ports' level of preparedness from paranoid
to alert through measures such as a review
of Australia's liquids bans that are now out
of step with global best practice.
As Australia orients itself into the Asian
century, Asian service standards will become
the norm. Everyone on the supply chain will
have a part to play, from airlines and air-
ports to limousine providers, baggage han-
dlers and wait staff in airport cafes. Border
agencies will be in the background, ensur-
ing Australia's frontiers are not breached by
unwanted persons or goods.
One day, perhaps in the not too distant
future, the last impression an international
visitor, may have of Australia is a pre-flight
swim or three-hatted terminal restaurant
and not the queue for passport control.
Justin Wastnage
Director, Aviation Policy
Tourism &Transport Forum
TTFAustralia is a CEOforum representing
Australia's major airports, all domestic
airlines, as well as the majority of
inttemational airlines servicing Australia.
5 2 AVIATION BUSINESS ASIA PACIFIC SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2013 www.aviationbusinessxom.au
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