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64 APPENDIX B Case Studies ALASKA AIRLINES--TECHNOLOGY ENABLING their interest is how it will affect customer service. Alaska Airlines BUSINESS is concerned that when an airport moves along the common use con- tinuum, it could cause difficulties and thus negatively impact the ex- Interview Participants perience of Alaska Airlines' customers. Bill Hepner Alaska Airlines sees many benefits with common use. For ex- Loesje de Groen ample, at some airports, Alaska Airlines has to arrive as an interna- tional flight. Its passengers must deplane and proceed through cus- Summary toms and immigration, only to enplane at another gate. The passengers and the aircraft must be transported to another gate, Alaska Airlines strives to differentiate itself by using technology to sometimes at another terminal, to continue the flight. Common use enable business processes. As Alaska Airlines continually reviews would improve this process by allowing the airline to stay at the gate business processes for improvement, they look for areas where and thus be able to turn the flight faster. technology can play a role in facilitating, or improving, that busi- ness process. If there is no technology solution available to affect the business process, then Alaska Airlines creates the solution Alaska Airlines likes to be involved early on in the design dis- themselves. When the industry establishes a standard to perform the cussions with airports that are considering moving along the com- task that Alaska Airlines has already improved, they prepare a plan mon use continuum. The airline wants to ensure their success by to migrate to the standard. protecting their business processes, and making sure that customer service is not negatively impacted by the common use strategy. Alaska Airlines likes to look at each airport independently. The Alaska Airlines Profile same common use strategy that applies at one airport may not apply The foundation for Alaska Airlines was laid in 1932, when Mac to another. It is important to Alaska Airlines to ensure that each air- McGhee began flying in Alaska. In 1934, McGhee Airlines merged port station that Alaska Airlines operates is efficient, and is provid- with another airline, and then after several more mergers, Alaska ing award-winning customer service. Airlines was born. In 1952, Alaska Airlines began scheduled ser- vice to the lower 48 states. In 1995, Alaska Airlines became the first U.S. airline to sell tickets via the Internet. In 2006, Alaska Airlines AMERICAN AIRLINES--A CALL FOR IMPROVED carried 17.2 million passengers (Alaska Air Group . . . 2006). STANDARDS Situation Interview Participants Alaska Airlines is an innovator in both aviation and aviation tech- Tim McGraw nology. It has continually been among the first to implement new technologies to improve airline efficiency and passenger satisfac- Summary tion. Because of this pioneering spirit, Alaska Airlines tends to be in a position to create new technologies and then work with the in- American Airlines has been testing and implementing self-service dustry to create the standards around those new technologies. devices since the early 1980s, with a focus to improve customer ser- vice. When IATA began creating standards for common use, American Airlines was involved because of their focus on customer Alaska Airlines is based in Seattle, Washington, and services service. American Airlines has continued to work on both their pro- mostly the western United States, Canada, and Mexico. This service prietary self-service applications and with the industry to improve area has limited their exposure to common use. In spite of this, the common use standards. They continue to support developing Alaska Airlines has been using common use systems, and develop- the standards so that as the industry matures in common use, they ing their own common use applications, for about five years. will be there defining the functionality required to meet customer service. There are two main reasons for Alaska Airlines' late entry into the common use environment. First, many of the airports they ser- American Airlines Profile vice have not implemented common use. In 1926, Charles A. Lindbergh was the chief pilot of Robertson Second, because of their pioneering spirit in technology, many Aircraft Corporation. By 1929, Robertson Aircraft Corporation was of the business processes that they developed prior to common use acquired by The Aviation Corporation, along with many other utilized technology solutions that were not supported by common young aviation companies. By 1930, The Aviation Corporation was use systems. This situation is changing, as more airports adopt com- incorporated into American Airways, Inc., and in 1934 American mon use. Alaska Airlines will only adopt technology where it will Airways became American Airlines, Inc. In 2006, American facilitate, or improve, their business processes. Airlines carried 99.835 million passengers (World Air Transport Statistics, 51st ed., IATA, May 2006), making it the largest air car- rier in the world, by number of passengers carried. The goal for Alaska Airlines is to improve customer service, building upon their award-winning customer service reputation. Situation Technology plays an important role in that goal. Alaska Airlines is very interested when one of the airports in the 48 destinations that it American Airlines has always looked at information technology as services is considering a common use strategy. The main focus for a way to facilitate passenger service. In 1984, American Airlines

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65 was one of the first airlines to implement a self-service, passenger Schiphol, which was part of the Amsterdam defense works. The air- facing kiosk. The system was installed in several airports, but port sits below sea-level and is the world's lowest major commer- eventually it was decommissioned. Through this implementation, cial airport. Amsterdam Airport Schiphol has five main runways, American Airlines learned many lessons in self-service. In 1995, and an additional runway used for general aviation only. In 1996, American Airlines began investigating e-ticketing. About that Amsterdam Airport Schiphol was ranked 12th in the world in terms time, they were also experimenting with self-service at the gate, al- of passenger traffic, with a total passenger count of 46,088,211 lowing passengers to check themselves in directly at the gate and (Airports Council International 2007). board the airplane. This implementation was limited to their Ad- miral's Club members, with plans to roll out to all passengers at some point in the future. Situation Amsterdam Airport Schiphol is competing for passengers with In 1998, American Airlines opened Love Field and needed to fa- other major airports in the region. Amsterdam has a strategic plan cilitate curbside check-in. This need also facilitated the next gener- to become a main port for both The Netherlands and Europe, and ation in American Airlines' self-service kiosks. These kiosks were is competing for cargo and passenger traffic with Heathrow, designed to work with AAdvantage members, and at the time only Fraport, and Charles de Gaulle airports. To reach this goal, supported flights from Love Field and other destinations. Amsterdam Airport Schiphol has employed technology. To con- tinue to grow in passenger traffic, Amsterdam Airport Schiphol The application was not able to print boarding passes for con- needed to improve passenger processing and passenger flow. In necting flights to continuing destinations. When American Airlines July 2006, Amsterdam Airport Schiphol released a storyboard started service at Dallas Terminal B, it modified the application to outlining the vision for improving passenger processing. Their vi- support connecting flights. sion goes beyond improving passenger processing, but they intend to completely redesign passenger processing at the Amsterdam At the same time, other airlines were pursuing self-service Airport Schiphol. kiosks. The airlines and IATA recognized that it was necessary to create a standard to control the proliferation of these kiosks, and the A major step in the redesign of passenger processing was taken CUSS specification was born. The committee to create this industry when Amsterdam Airport Schiphol installed Common Use Self- initiative was comprised of airlines, airports, and vendors. It was service (CUSS) kiosks. These kiosks have enabled passengers to through this process of creating CUSS that IATA recognized the check themselves in for flights, and then proceed to a check-in desk need for a rewrite of the CUTE recommended practice. Throughout to have their baggage tagged and injected into the baggage system. this process, American Airlines has participated in the committees Amsterdam Airport Schiphol continues to expand the number of and provided expertise and input. In addition, American Airlines is kiosks, and currently has 23 airline applications installed on its also participating with TRB to study and bring a better understand- CUSS kiosks. ing of common use to the industry. Any passenger for one of the 23 airlines simply needs to find an Although American Airlines believes that the standards are re- open kiosk for flight check-in and proceed to baggage check-in at quired to create a better environment for airlines and airports to ef- their airline. ficiently operate in today's environment, it also recognizes that the current standards and implementations are not achieving its goals. Amsterdam Airport Schiphol has also installed Common Use American Airlines continues to work with the standards organiza- Terminal Equipment (CUTE) to allow its check-in desks to be com- tions to create standards that improve the use of the airport, allow mon use. This flexibility allows Amsterdam Airport Schiphol to for a timely distribution of applications updates, and are transparent facilitate the expansion, movement, or addition of airlines without to the airlines. Even so, until common use systems meet these re- having to have dedicated kiosks or dedicated check-in desks. quirements, it will continue to look toward proprietary systems to Although the major carrier, KLM, still has dedicated space, many facilitate its business process. other carriers are using common use space. As new airlines are added into the airport, they can be added to the common use systems and integrated into the CUSS kiosks. AMSTERDAM AIRPORT SCHIPHOL--ADVANCED PASSENGER PROCESSING Amsterdam Airport Schiphol plans to complete the redesign of passenger processing by 2011. The culmination of this redesign is a Interview Participants completely automated passenger check-in process. The automated process will allow passengers to authorize themselves to cross the Annemieke Nuesink border with their passport, label their own baggage, and place it onto the baggage belt. Passenger processing will eventually have all Summary of the processes linked and integrated so that the number of times a passenger has to identify themselves is reduced. The goal is to alert Amsterdam Airport Schiphol is constantly looking to the future to passengers only if something goes wrong and to eliminate the need improve their business and service to passengers. Amsterdam Air- of any aid from a ground host/hostess. port Schiphol has a history of being on the leading edge of technol- ogy. As they continue to improve their customer service, they look The stated goals of this redesign is to eliminate most queues, en- for ways to implement technology to gain competitive advantages. able the airport to handle 60 million passengers within the current If there is no current technology that does what Amsterdam Airport terminal building, and implement cost savings throughout the Schiphol is attempting to do, they will create it themselves. process for both the airport and airlines. The elements that are going to facilitate this vision are the self-service Internet check-in, self- Amsterdam Airport Schiphol Profile service baggage drop-off, self-service border authorization, and Amsterdam Airport Schiphol started in 1916 as a military airbase, high secure boarding. As Amsterdam Airport Schiphol moves to- and was used for military operations exclusively until 1920. The air- ward fundamentally changing the way the airport works in five port derives its name from a former fortification, named Fort years, technology will play a key role.

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66 BRITISH AIRWAYS--SIMPLY COMMON USE a laptop and a dial-up connection to facilitate the back office appli- BY NECESSITY cations. In these instances, local support is limited. Interview Participants Although British Airways has developed a sophisticated ap- plication to keep their development and deployment costs down, Julian Lloyd trouble-shooting and problem resolution continue to be difficult. Rhonda Rose With more than 150 locations, determining the source of problems with a release is complicated by the complexities of the network. Summary Each location has different support mechanisms and may also have British Airways (BA) has pursued Common Use out of necessity. multiple parties involved in the separate elements of the problem. As international airports began installing Common Use Terminal Communication between the various entities involved can cause Equipment (CUTE) systems, British Airways pursued developing delays in finally resolving the problems. applications for CUTE systems. British Airways had no technology need to implement CUTE, however they made a strategic decision Each airport has a unique configuration of equipment, support, to migrate away from all proprietary agent facing check-in equip- and expertise. To address the problem of delays in trouble shooting, ment and focus solely on their CUTE applications to reduce the du- British Airways makes every attempt to get to know the local CUTE plication of support issues that were being driven by the common technical support personnel. The airline believes that personal rela- use implementations at airports it was servicing. tionships are key to troubleshooting and fixing problems that occur in the field. British Airways Profile British Airways can trace its history back to the start of civil avia- FRANKFURT AIRPORT--EARLY COMMON USE tion. The forerunner to British Airways, Aircraft Transport and Travel Limited, launched the world's first daily international sched- Interview Participants uled air service between London and Paris in 1919. In 1935, several small airlines offering services within the United Kingdom merged Stefan Meyer and formed the original privately owned British Airways Limited. Mira Seitz In 1939, the airlines were nationalized to form British Overseas Air- ways Corporation. In 1987, British Airways was privatized. In Summary 2006, British Airways carried 29.498 million passengers (World Air Transport Statistics, 51st ed., IATA, May 2006), making it the Frankfurt Airport has been using common use almost as long as fourth largest international carrier, by number of enplaned passen- common use has been in existence. They were one of the first air- gers, in the world. ports worldwide, and one of the first airports in Europe to recognize the benefits of common use to more efficiently utilize the limited Situation terminal space that was available. In partnership with its largest carrier, Lufthansa, Frankfurt Airport continues to look at ways in British Airways entered the CUTE development life cycle out of ne- implementing common use to benefit passengers, airlines, and the cessity because many of the airports British Airways serviced were airport. migrating to CUTE. CUTE is installed at many of the 150 airports that British Airways serves. British Airways decided to create their Frankfurt Airport Profile CUTE applications to support these airports. Now, British Airways, along with Lufthansa, KLM, and Air France, are the largest inter- Frankfurt Airport started in 1936 as the Rhein-Main Airport and national CUTE users, by number of installed sites. British Airways Airship base. During World War II, the airport was almost com- has created a PRS Terminal Emulator that allows it to release up- pletely destroyed. In 1945, a United States air base was created at dated code and product enhancements every 8 weeks. British Air- the old site, and in 1947, Verkehrsaktiengesellschaft Rhein-Main ways considers CUTE as a necessary part of doing business in was founded. In 1972, the new terminal, now known as Terminal 1, today's airline industry. In British Airway's opinion, CUTE is more was inaugurated and became the start of the international hub that is expensive than proprietary equipment at large-scale installations. Frankfurt Airport. In 1996, Frankfurt Airport was ranked 8th in the At smaller stations, where British Airways does not have the sup- world in terms of passenger traffic, with a total passenger count of port staff necessary to maintain equipment, CUTE installations are 52,810,683 (Airports Council International 2007). less expensive to support and maintain because British Airways does not need to dispatch support to the smaller, and possibly re- Situation mote, stations. Frankfurt Airport installed its first Common Use Terminal Equip- ment (CUTE) system in 1985. By some accounts, this was SITA's British Airways has developed their CUTE code base where first CUTE installation in Europe. The driving force for CUTE at they deploy a single application for all CUTE vendors' platforms. Frankfurt Airport was Lufthansa AG's desire to migrate their sys- The application determines the configuration, platform, and release tems to CUTE for cost savings and uniformity. Since that time, level and automatically loads the correct code. The code is deployed Frankfurt Airport has installed more than 1,500 CUTE terminals in on the CUTE platform in a matter of seconds, enabling the airline Terminal 1, making it the largest SITA installation in the world. agent to use the system immediately. Access to the airline's host system is emulated and the passenger check-in process is flawlessly Frankfurt Airport's CUTE installation is managed as a CUTE executed. CLUB site. Airlines and ground handlers are members of the CUTE CLUB and each has one vote to determine the future changes to the CUTE platforms require either vendor or airport support. British CUTE system. Because Fraport, the management company of the Airways maintains local IT support for their non-CUTE back office Frankfurt Airport, also provides ground handling, they are a mem- applications such as e-mail access, enterprise business applications, ber of the CUTE CLUB. CUTE CLUB members determine the cost and other applications not needed for the check-in or boarding increases for the CUTE system and make decisions to upgrade, mi- process. In the case of small installations, British Airways may issue grate, add new stations, etc.

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67 Fraport, as the airport management company, only provides competition at the airport. In the 1990s, a crucial meeting with the Local Area Network (LAN) infrastructure to support the CUTE in- Airport Director was conducted over construction of new gates. As stallation. All other components of the CUTE installation are pro- the staff was discussing the need for additional gates at the airport vided by the CUTE CLUB. because capacity had been reached, the participants looked out the window and saw 60­70 gates empty at that very moment. It was Fraport charges the airlines a usage fee for the network that is then that Las Vegas McCarran International Airport identified the based on a formula utilizing passenger counts. The airport has a need to implement a common use strategy. concession agreement with SITA, and has built a good relationship with its servicing airlines. Through these relationships Fraport is Las Vegas McCarran International Airport became exposed to able to improve the passenger experience and passenger travel Common Use Terminal Equipment (CUTE) through ACI-NA, and through the airport. realized that this technology could help the airport meet its goals for capacity and efficiency. In 1997, Las Vegas McCarran International Fraport has also installed Common Use Self-Service (CUSS) Airport became the first U.S. airport to implement CUTE. kiosks, but only on a trial basis. The airport has 14 CUSS kiosks throughout its airport campus. Fraport has 5 of its 44 CUTE CLUB Although the initial design and implementation of CUTE cost member carrier applications installed on its CUSS kiosks. The the equivalent of the cost of constructing a new gate, Las Vegas Mc- CUSS installation is also a part of the CUTE CLUB, and is managed Carran International Airport realized the capacity and efficiency by the airlines. In this arrangement, all airlines are paying equally equal to constructing 14 gates. Las Vegas McCarran International for the CUSS installation, even though many of them are not using Airport initially installed CUTE at the gates and only later installed the system. It was determined by the CUTE CLUB that this would it at the ticket counters, when requested by the air carriers. be the best arrangement. Las Vegas McCarran International Airport included the airlines Fraport works with the airlines that service Frankfurt Airport to in the design process for all of the common use strategies that were ensure that the airport is efficiently utilized. They continue to implemented over the years. This has helped Las Vegas McCarran evaluate technology, with their airport partners, to determine if the International Airport to be very successful in implementing a com- technology can make the airport operate more efficiently. One tech- mon use strategy. Early on, the airport was interested in making all nology of interest to Fraport is common bag drop. However, Fraport gates fully common use, with no gate assignments. However, as a is currently not pursuing a common bag drop solution because compromise with the airlines, Las Vegas McCarran International IATA does not currently have a standard for it. Fraport believes that Airport agreed to use a preferential lease arrangement. for any common use strategy to be successful, the airlines must see benefits for that strategy. The next major common use strategy for Las Vegas McCarran International Airport came with the implementation of Common Use Self-Service (CUSS) kiosks. Las Vegas McCarran International Air- LAS VEGAS MCCARRAN INTERNATIONAL port was driven to this new technology because airlines were in- AIRPORT--COMMON USE BY NECESSITY stalling proprietary kiosks and defeating the initiatives to make the ticketing counters common use. CUSS implementation allowed Las Interview Participants Vegas McCarran International Airport to improve the passenger pro- cessing experience by moving the ticketing process away from the Samuel Ingalls traditional check-in desks, to outside the terminal, such as parking lots, the rental car center, and even off-site locations. Summary Las Vegas McCarran International Airport has become one of the The off-site locations have enabled Las Vegas McCarran Inter- foremost common use airports in the world. Implementing common national Airport to take its next major implementation of a common use strategies started during construction of the D gates concourse. use strategy. The airport has installed remote, off-site bag check for To make their move, Las Vegas McCarran International Airport took passengers, allowing passengers to check their bags prior to arriv- the then unusual step of joining with airlines and airline organiza- ing at the airport. Passengers may now fully check in and be ready tions to help develop standards for common use. Today, they are rec- for their flight before leaving their hotel or the convention center. ognized for their forward thinking and impact on the industry to This allows passengers to take a more leisurely trip to the airport, adopt common use and helping to write specifications for its future. without having to carry baggage and without needing to rush to the airport for the check-in process. Las Vegas McCarran International Las Vegas McCarran International Airport Profile Airport has proven that implementing common use strategies im- proves customer satisfaction. The airport recently won the coveted Las Vegas McCarran International Airport started out as a private 2006 J.D. Power & Associates award for customer service. airstrip owned by George Crockett, a descendant of the legendary Davey Crockett. In 1947, Clark County purchased the remote airstrip, much to the dismay of the local residents. In 1948, the air- LUFTHANSA--COMMON USE ADVANTAGE port was renamed McCarran Field, after U.S. Senator Pat McCar- ran. Over the years, Las Vegas McCarran International Airport has Interview Participants continued to grow and in 2006 was the 11th largest airport in the world, in terms of passenger traffic, handling 46,194,882 passen- Thomas Jeske gers (Airports Council International 2007). Carsten Fuhrmann Siegfried Schulz Situation Summary In 1978, Las Vegas McCarran International Airport adopted a plan called McCarran 2000. The purpose of this plan was to increase the Lufthansa Airlines (LH) is continually looking to grow its business capacity and efficiency of the airport. Part of this plan became through expanding service at their existing airports and initiating the use of technology to allow flexibility, efficiency, capacity, and service to new airports. Part of their strategy to facilitate this growth

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68 is to utilize Common Use Terminal Equipment (CUTE) installa- Lufthansa seems to be unique in this approach. From a U.S. car- tions. Lufthansa views CUTE as part of their competitive advan- rier-based perspective, CUTE systems are less likely to be sup- tage, and encourages the airports they service to install CUTE. ported than dedicated, proprietary systems. This may be due in part to the fact that Lufthansa has been working with CUTE systems Lufthansa Profile since the founding of CUTE in 1985. They have a long history and a deep understanding of the CUTE recommendations (IATA RP Lufthansa was formed in 1926 as Deutsche Luft Hansa Aktienge- 1797) and are considered one of the founding members of the sellschaft (later renamed Lufthansa) by the merger of Deutsche CUTE requirements. Aero Lloyd (DAL) and Junkers Luftverkehr. In Lufthansa's early years, they were influential in the creation of several airlines, in- cluding Iberia, Syndicato Condor, and Eurasia airlines. After a brief Lufthansa Airlines has built an extensive support structure to de- hiatus during World War II, Lufthansa began flying scheduled sign, test, implement, and deploy their CUTE application at air- flights again in 1955. In 2006, Lufthansa carried 51.213 million pas- ports. Lufthansa has a team responsible for writing and maintaining sengers (World Air Transport Statistics, 51st ed., IATA, May the CUTE application code. Once the code is ready, it is transferred 2006), making it the sixth largest airline, by number of enplaned to Lufthansa Systems for certification testing. Lufthansa Systems passengers, in the world. then works closely with all of the CUTE platform suppliers to en- sure that the code produced by Lufthansa is fully certified by all of the vendors that provide CUTE systems at the airports Lufthansa Situation services. Once certified, Lufthansa Systems works with each site to When Lufthansa Airlines is considering starting service to a new deploy the application. Throughout the entire development, certifi- airport, one of the questions it asks is if that airport has CUTE. If the cation, and deployment process, Lufthansa follows a very rigorous airport does not, Lufthansa works with the airport authorities to de- quality process to ensure success. termine if it makes sense for the airport to install a CUTE system. For Lufthansa, the startup and operating costs of a CUTE airport are Lufthansa is also very particular about the quality of the paper significantly less than the startup and operating costs of a dedicated, and printing of their boarding passes. They view the quality of their proprietary system installation at an airport of similar scope and size boarding passes as a reflection on the quality of service to the cus- because Lufthansa does not have to incur the costs of installing tomers, and Lufthansa works with Lufthansa Systems to ensure that cabling, infrastructure, computers, and other equipment provided the quality of the printers, paper, and print quality meet the exacting by a CUTE installation. standards of Lufthansa. Lufthansa works with all airports it services to ensure that the printers associated with the CUTE systems are When Lufthansa considers the cost of starting and operating a able to print Lufthansa's boarding card stock. In addition, the board- station, they include the costs associated with support of the IT sys- ing stock is viewed as part of the flying experience for their passen- tems necessary to process passengers and prepare them to board gers. Lufthansa believes that passengers are choosing to fly on their Lufthansa's airplanes. Part of the cost equation is the cost of pro- airline for the service and experience, and the boarding card stock viding system support, which is especially higher on a per flight plays an important role. basis in smaller stations where they may only have one or two flights a week. Lufthansa seeks to minimize support costs for the Lufthansa is active in the current Common Use Passenger Pro- start up and operation of a station. cessing Systems (CUPPS) initiative to update the existing IATA 1797 recommended practice. The airline serves as the co-vice chair CUTE allows Lufthansa to obtain support from the local airport for the team working on completing the update. With their history staff, from the vendor, or from remote, centralized support centers. in implementing CUTE, and their leadership on the update to the In all of these cases, the support cost is much less than the cost of IATA RP 1797, Lufthansa continues to ensure that agent facing having to dispatch a technician to support a small station in terms of common use systems will be a part of their competitive advantage flight activity. moving forward.