Air China went live with the ‘bags ready to go’ project in Beijing as part of the Fast Travel programme. The Chinese carrier installed self-service kiosks with self-tagging in April this year.

Like each of the Simplifying the Business (StB) initiatives, Fast Travel has been developed to satisfy two specific criteria: to lower the costs incurred by the airline industry and to improve the passenger experience.

The overall aim of the project is that by 2020, 80% of global passengers will be offered a complete self-service suite based on industry standards. In order to achieve this, the programme is made up of six separate self-service concepts, five of which are active, with each designed to provide the passenger with more control over their air transport experience.

These five projects are: bags ready to go (self-tagging and fast bag drop); document check; self-boarding; flight re-booking; and bag recovery (lost bag registration). The sixth part of the programme covers self-service check-in but with industry standards already being developed on a global scale, this is not active within Fast Travel.

Having set a target of achieving 114 implementations before the end of 2010, the programme is on target to satisfy this aim. “This target means that we will need a total of 60 new implementations this year alone,” Copart explained. “In terms of where we are today, we are at 97 overall, with 43 new implementations so far this year. So, we are about two thirds of the way down the line and we’re very confident that we will achieve our aim.”

Global appeal

The Fast Travel programme aims to achieve 114 separate self-service installations before the end of 2010. So far, there have been 97 installations, including Lufthansa’s self-boarding gates at Munich Airport.

In keeping with IATA’s ideology, Fast Travel is a truly global initiative; a fact highlighted by the vast array of airlines that have already taken steps to implement at least one of the five active self-service projects.

Among them is Air China, which has installed self-service kiosks with self-tagging at Beijing, while Air New Zealand has also implemented self-service technology in Auckland Airport’s domestic terminal. Meanwhile, United Airlines, Lufthansa and the Star Alliance have also embraced the programme, with implementations at Reagan Washington National, Munich and Copenhagen respectively.

Copart: "Fast Travel benefits the passenger not just because they can do these things themselves, but also because it's reducing queues and putting the passenger in control of their journey."

Copart said: “We’re very pleased with the way Fast Travel has been received by the industry. The programme has continually exceeded its targets since its inception and the fact that it is not a mandatory programme shows the strength of what Fast Travel provides in terms of a win-win proposition to the industry.”

Industry-wide benefits

While the programme was developed partly in response to the findings of the 2009 IATA Corporate Air Travel Survey (CATS) – which found that the majority of the 10,000 frequent air travellers questioned would like to see the introduction of more self-service options within the industry – Copart explained that the benefits equally extend to airlines and airports.

“Fast Travel benefits the passenger not just because they can do these things themselves, but also because it’s reducing queues and putting the passenger in control of their journey. There’s transparency between the passenger and the airline and that builds confidence and trust,” he said. “For the airport, one of the biggest benefits is maximising the infrastructure, while for airlines it maximises operations at various levels. For example, self-boarding has improved the turnaround time of aircraft at the gate. That allows airlines to optimise their staffing requirements and provide their staff with more added-value passenger-related tasks.”

As well as improving both the passenger experience and the operational efficiency of airlines and airports, Fast Travel also offers a significant financial benefit. “Approximately $1.6 billion dollars could be saved annually should this be implemented fully,” Copart said. This figure only takes into account four of the six projects, with check-in and flight re-booking excluded – the latter of which is subject to the continued development of a business case – meaning that overall savings would be even greater once all of the projects are taken into consideration.

The SITA CUPPS Pilot started in January 2009 at Orlando International Airport with check-in and boarding of WestJet passengers.

CUPPS is a true collaborative industry effort, bringing together airports, airlines and vendors to ensure that all stakeholder needs are considered. For airlines, a single application can be used for all CUPPS sites, regardless of platform provider; it saves on development, training and implementation/support costs, and there are consistent operating procedures across all platform providers. For airports, CUPPS makes it easier to adopt common use by updating the old Recommended Practice, simplifying the airlines’ process for common use, and has the ability to evolve as the industry does. “Furthermore, it will improve the airports ability to attract new airlines, move or change an airline’s facility requirements based on market conditions and/or alliance demands,” said Catherine Mayer, Vice President, Airport Services for SITA.

The SITA CUPPS Pilot started in January 2009 at Orlando International Airport with check-in and boarding of WestJet passengers, followed recently by Continental Airlines passengers. Orlando International Airport currently uses SITA’s AirportConnect Open. This platform is capable of supporting CUPPS, legacy CUTE, proprietary and web-based applications, as well as CUSS kiosk applications. John Vinelli, manager, Information Technology, Greater Orlando Aviation Authority, said: “The CUPPS technology will make a significant difference to airlines as it will replace the CUTE standard and avoid airlines having to develop their own applications to work with different platforms. Orlando is pleased to have been involved in delivering this technology to the industry.”

New Recommended Practice

Continental is participating actively in Pilots at Orlando, Las Vegas and Dublin, using Attachmate’s InfoConnect software. “These tests in the operational environment have gone very smoothly; we have been pleased with the performance of both the platforms and the application,” said Amy Foltz, manager technology, Continental Airlines.

The culmination of the Pilot came when SITA demonstrated that its platform is full compliant with the pre-released version of the IATA CUPPS Technical Specification. “This is a big achievement as it reconfirms our market leader position in the area of common use passenger processing solutions,” said Catherine Mayer, Vice President, Airport Services for SITA. “SITA developed the first CUTE (Common Use Terminal Equipment) system with the airlines in 1984 in response to additional traffic demand at Los Angeles International Airport during the Olympics. SITA has continued to upgrade and evolve the solution by adopting the latest technology and responding to the changing needs of the industry. We are very proud to be the first company to provide the next generation solution to the industry today including backwards compatibility.”

The key lesson learned during the Pilot was that although CUPPS is very complicated, by coming together as one community and sharing ideas, it was possible to develop a new Recommended Practice (RP). Even with the detailed Technical Specification there were still different interpretations of the RP by different companies and developers. The Pilot brought those different understandings to the surface and allowed the CUPPS team to enhance the Technical Standard with those lessons learned. “For software developers, there is nothing more fundamental than working code. The Pilot delivered just that – working code that has proven to be portable across platforms. Throughout the Pilot, if an issue was found, the participants addressed the issue and confirmed the results before continuing,” said Mayer. “The process has been completely transparent, open for input and review by all CUPPS participants, whether they were directly coding in the Pilot or not.”

As part of the CUPPS Recommended Practice, SITA was required to test its platform by a third-party Certified Test Entity (CTE) registered by IATA. Using test cases defined by IATA’s CUPPS Management Group, the CTE confirmed that SITA’s CUPPS platform meets the technical and functional requirements as defined in the IATA CUPPS Technical Specification.

Transition to CUPPS

Airlines from all over the world have been active participants in the development of the CUPPS standard to ensure that it responds to their needs. Now that the solution has been proven to be a reality, airlines will work on migration plans for their applications.

Airlines from all over the world have been active participants in the development of the CUPPS standard to ensure that it responds to their needs. Now that the solution has been proven to be a reality, airlines will work on migration plans for their applications. “I would expect airlines to transition to CUPPS over the next two to five years, which is fine since our AirportConnect solution accommodates traditional CUTE, new CUPPS, CUSS and browser-based applications – all on the same platform. We will continue to work with the airlines on a successful migration to CUPPS at the time of their choosing,” said Mayer.

CUPPS is about ensuring the airline applications are interoperable across all CUPPS platforms. The challenge with CUTE, explained Mayer, was that an airline needed to have a specific application for each of the CUTE solutions. “The key success factor for CUPPS is that an airline can use the same application on any CUPPS platform, whether it is developed by SITA or another company,” she said. “However, having stated this, SITA does have a CUPPS-compliant airline application and it has been tested successfully on another provider’s CUPPS platform.”

Operational tests

A key lesson learned during the CUPPS Pilot Program was that although CUPPS is very complicated, by coming together as one community and sharing ideas, it was possible to develop a new Recommended Practice (RP).

Continental is participating actively in Pilots at Orlando, Las Vegas and Dublin, using Attachmate’s InfoConnect software. “These tests in the operational environment have gone very smoothly; we have been pleased with the performance of both the platforms and the application,” said Amy Foltz, manager technology, Continental Airlines.

She explained that during the trials, a few minor points were identified where the CUPPS Technical Specification can be clarified. “These have been reported to the CUPPS Software & Devices team, who are working to incorporate them into the next version of the Technical Specification. Overall, we have been very impressed with the level of standardisation in the platforms achieved during the Pilot,” said Foltz.
CUPPS should reduce the cost and time required to implement and deploy software changes and new applications to common use environments. Carriers will be able to create a single application that can be deployed to any CUPPS platform, regardless of supplier; therefore, it will be more cost-effective to develop, test and deploy applications. Airports will be able to transition to – or between – CUPPS platforms with less impact to their carriers. “The standardisation of the platform should make troubleshooting issues that arise in production easier on everybody,” said Foltz. Continental believes that CUPPS will be a significant improvement on the current, multiple CUTE environments that exist today, and expects that carriers will realise both cost and time savings due to the standardisation of the platforms and the streamlined certification and deployment processes.

Lufthansa, which is among the biggest users of (agent facing) common use worldwide, has been participating in CUPPS pilot trials with SITA at Orlando and RESA at Brussels.

Lufthansa, which is among the biggest users of (agent facing) common use worldwide, has been participating in CUPPS pilot trials with SITA at Orlando and RESA at Brussels. “The objectives I would say from an air carrier’s perspective are the goal to achieve that one application without any modification runs on any CUPPS platform (portability/compatibility) – that ultimately allows us to reduce cost regarding the certification and deployment processes and the overall support and maintaining of the system that airlines have been waiting for so long,” said Thomas Jeske, senior manager – IT infrastructure, Lufthansa. “I believe in the end the processes will be seamless to the passengers.”

The air transport industry stands on the threshold of a new era with the breakthrough CUPPS technology. CUPPS can be easily integrated with other airport systems such as flight information displays. It brings cost savings associated with check-in and boarding passengers for both airlines and airports and also supports check-in off the airport campus.

CUPPS has been architected as the platform of the future, able to accommodate many things even beyond the agent-facing applications that it will initially address. The biggest benefit will be that one air carrier application will be able to run anywhere on any CUPPS providers platform.

While the technical trials are ongoing, the compliance trial parameters are being defined and the technical specification updated with lessons learned. Errors and omissions are being fixed so that the time required to execute the specification update segment can be minimized.

There are currently four active trials in progress – Las Vegas (ARINC), Orlando (SITA), Dublin (Ultra) and Brussels (RESA). “While the actual execution of the trials has changed over time due to the installation and site-specific needs, the overall progress is proceeding as planned,” said Samuel Ingalls, Assistant Director of Aviation, Information Systems, Las Vegas McCarran International Airport, who is also Chair of the CUPPS Leadership Team. He continued: “Our original goal was to have the technical trials completed by April 15, 2009, but we learned through the pilot process that the critical milestone in the schedule is the publication of the Technical Specification. Each of the four trials is progressing with different tasks, in different orders, based on the participants’ views and needs, and therefore they are completing the trial milestones in different orders. This flexibility has allowed us to learn more in a quicker manner, as well as giving everyone the freedom to complete their tasks in a manner that is comfortable for them.”

Once the technical trials are completed, the applications and platforms will be compliance tested and then certified to the specification. The specification will be updated then published by IATA.

The technical trials are scheduled to be complete on 15 July; the certification trials are scheduled to be complete on 8 July for platforms and 15 July for applications. The technical specification is scheduled for completion by 15 September.

There are currently four active trials in progress – Las Vegas (ARINC), Orlando (SITA), Dublin (Ultra) and Brussels (RESA). Once the technical trials are completed, the applications and platforms will be compliance tested and then certified to the specification. The specification will be updated then published by IATA.

Catherine Mayer, SITA’s Vice-President for Airport Services, explained that the pilot is critical to ensure that the technical standard works as expected, especially the interoperability of CUPPS applications among the different platform vendors. “The intent is to have vendors test their platform with at least two airline applications and for these same airlines to test their new CUPPS application on at least two vendor’s platforms,” she said. “If there are technical issues or discrepancies, the Technical Committee can update the technical specification before its final release, again ensuring success and following a logical practice that is new for aviation industry Recommended Practices. This is the first time that the industry has ever ensured such testing and recommended practice development; it is a great showing of the benefits of industry collaboration.”

SITA began testing at Orlando in January, with WestJet passengers checked-in and boarded using the CUPPS technology. When testing is fully completed, SITA’s AirportConnect Open platform will be considered as CUPPS compliant prior to a general product launch later in the year.

Lufthansa is participating in the pilot trials with SITA at Orlando and RESA at Brussels. “We have been conducting thorough testing of our CUPPS application (CLIP – CUPPS LH Integration Platform) and the platform suppliers’ platforms we are doing pilot trials with,” said Thomas Jeske, senior manager – IT infrastructure, Lufthansa. “It is of no surprise that while for the first time these new platforms and the LH middleware get integrated an array of issues arise that even a very thorough Technical Specification could not foresee. So we have had several test runs (integration tests) in our labs both with SITA and RESA. We have reached a stage where we feel our code is stable enough to provide it to SITA and RESA to do their own testing/integration testing in their labs.”

ARINC’s CUPPS platform went live at Las Vegas McCarran in January. ARINC worked with the international IATA/ATA/ACI CUPPS team to develop the CUPPS Technical Specification published in 2008. The company fast-tracked its deployment of the vMUSE CUPPS platform installed for the CUPPS Pilot Project at Las Vegas McCarran. John Belcher, ARINC Chairman & CEO, said: “This is a true breakthrough for the aviation industry. CUPPS represents a major investment by ARINC that will give the industry tremendous savings. ARINC’s vMUSE platform is now being enhanced to simultaneously run legacy CUTE applications, newer CUPPS applications, and airlines’ native applications – a capability we launched in Singapore in November 2007.”

SITA began testing at Orlando in January, with WestJet passengers checked-in and boarded using the CUPPS technology.

Efficiencies and cost savings

CUPPS has been architected as the platform of the future, able to accommodate many things even beyond the agent-facing applications that it will initially address. The biggest benefit will be that one air carrier application will be able to run anywhere on any CUPPS providers platform. That has been the key foundational principle throughout the course of the initiative. The issue currently is that many different companies are providing differing types of platforms and implementations, requiring the carriers to maintain (in some cases) as many as six different applications, including their own proprietary application. “It can be a rather daunting task for them to update these many applications as their business demands change and/or as security changes or other changes occur in their respective operating environs,” said Ingalls. “I liken this to the rather public standards fights that we are all familiar with. Going back a couple of decades, it was the Beta vs. VHS fight, eventually won by VHS. More recently, it was the BlueRay vs. HD-DVD face-off. By all accounts, the lack of a standard greatly inhibited the public acceptance and uptake of high-definition DVDs. When I play a movie, I don’t want to have to think about whether I have the right manufacturers player. I want to put the DVD in and sit back to relax and enjoy the movie. In somewhat similar fashion, air carriers should be able to easily port their application from one venue to another, not having to consider the peculiarities of a specific vendors platform in a particular airport. The efficiencies and cost savings of being able to accomplish that should be of significant benefit to the industry.”

Jeske similarly believes that streamlined standard processes across vendors, suppliers, airports and airlines will bring costs down for each of the stakeholders. “If we achieve this we should also be able to offer to the passengers a better system for a lower price that in the end could reduce the cost for tickets further – a win-win-win-win solution. So the cost factor is in my eyes a critical part to the overall success of CUPPS,” he said.

Significantly, the CUPPS standard represents the first time that a recommended practice has been jointly owned by both airports and air carriers. In fact, the recommended practice has been approved by three organizations: the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the Air Transport Association (ATA) and Airports Council International (ACI). CUPPS also includes Aviation Information Data Exchange (AIDX).

The platform will evolve over time, unlike the former common use standard, which largely sat untouched for many, many years. The CUPPS standard will be living and breathing, with updates over time. Effective CUPPS oversight is currently being structured to facilitate communication and updates.

What makes CUPPS unique is that it will enable an airline to process passengers using the same application on any CUPPS provider’s platform, eliminating the need to maintain multiple terminal emulator applications and therefore reduce costs. “For airports, it is the first time that they can assure their airline tenants that their system is the same as the one found in other CUPPS airports, regardless of location in the world or provider; CUPPS provides global consistency for the airlines,” said Mayer.

The ‘fast travel initiative’ – a series of six projects designed to streamline the airport experience for passengers and pare back operational costs for carriers. This will be achieved through multi-functional common use self-service (CUSS) kiosks and the IATA 2D bar codes on mobile phones.

IATA’s Paul Behan is the man behind the ‘fast travel initiative’ – a series of six projects designed to streamline the airport experience for passengers and pare back operational costs for carriers. This will be achieved through multi-functional common use self-service (CUSS) kiosks and the IATA 2D bar codes on mobile phones.

IATA has wide hopes for fast travel – aiming to conduct two pilots per project by the end of the year, across Europe, the US and Canada. 96 airports are currently operating CUSS and 105 airlines are developing the system. IATA’s target is a further 130 airports by the end of this year. According to Behan, kiosks will play a far more important role as the first point of contact for passengers from their arrival at departures to their exit at arrivals. The fast travel programme has recognised the need to design the latest in kiosk technology, with projects focusing on self-tagging and depositing baggage, document scanning, flight-rebooking and bag recovery.

IATA has just over 2,000 common use kiosks for bag processing and 11,000 other kiosks are used by airlines worldwide. As part of the fast travel programme, self-service bag processing kiosks will expand in future.

Checking-in through a handset

As Behan explained, the first project is expected to see mobile check-in play its biggest role. “Check-in will cover kiosk and web use, but the main focus will be on mobile technology because of its pervasive use worldwide – everyone is talking about it,” he said.

While mobile check-in is starting new trends as the latest way to check-in, Behan is sceptical about whether it will become the exclusive check-in method of the future. “The programme is more about providing a level of choice for the passenger,” he said.

As part of the check-in project, IATA is piloting the 2D bar code, where travellers can select their aircraft seat from the airline’s website and download flight data through their 3G phone, which represents their boarding pass. The programme has been developed in response to increasing consumer demand for more convenience. “We think it will deliver a more personal service for the passenger – they will have more control over managing how they check-in. It also takes the stress out of having to rush to the airport and queue to get things done,” said Behan.

More self-service options

It is anticipated that airlines will also continue benefiting from IATA’s proposed self-service initiatives. “We know from the US market that a number of airlines are getting over ninety percent of passengers using some sort of self-service check-in and worldwide about forty to fifty percent,” said Behan. “Airlines don’t have to have the capability of providing a service that everyone has to go through, so it’s an efficiency gain for them.”

IATA has just over 2,000 common use kiosks for bag processing and 11,000 other kiosks are used by other airlines worldwide. As part of the fast travel programme, self-service bag processing kiosks will expand in future, said Behan.

IATA’s second project – ‘bags ready to go’ – will trial a multi-functional common use kiosk, where passengers can print off their own tag and later deposit their bag with the carrier. “As well as developing standards for self-tagging baggage, the single drop off points will give airports more capacity to do other things like retail and put more passengers through,” said Behan.

According to Behan, kiosks will play a far more important role as the first point of contact for passengers from their arrival at departures to their exit at arrivals. The fast travel programme has recognised the need to design the latest in kiosk technology, with projects focusing on self-tagging and depositing baggage, document scanning, flight-rebooking and bag recovery. © BAA

Automated boarding

The third project will allow passengers to scan a machine-readable visa and passport into a kiosk, which collects and stores the data. Following on from identification checks, a self-boarding kiosk will be trialled, where passengers can present their boarding pass at the gate with one scan of the machine. Flight re-booking is also being developed across the programme, which would enable passengers to choose their onward journey details through a self-service machine, avoiding the lengthy queues. “If you’ve checked in and there’s a cancellation or delay, it’s a stressful situation and we’re looking at ways to automate these processing steps through a kiosk,” said Behan.

Reclaiming baggage

Baggage recovery is the final of the six projects to be trialled, allowing passengers to scan their baggage receipt at a kiosk to check the status of their luggage. “We’re working with airlines and airports to make sure it works for everyone in the right way and we expect widespread implementation next year,” said Behan.

The Fast Travel pilot projects are due to be extended worldwide throughout 2009.

Ingalls: “All of the common use vendors are prepared to build a transition/migration path between their current common use platforms and the new CUPPS platform. While this should not necessitate a change of hardware per se, it will potentially allow more peripheral equipment options.”

The timing of the ultimate release of CUPPS is dependent on the final outcome of the pilots and the number of tweaks that need to be made to the Technical Specification as a result of those. Samuel Ingalls, Assistant Director of Aviation, Information Systems, Las Vegas McCarran International Airport, is Chair of the CUPPS Leadership Team. He explained that mid-2009 is the target for completion of the Technical Specification and its final publishing and distribution.

“The purpose of the trials will be to ensure that the extensive Technical Specification functions as anticipated and, perhaps most importantly, that true interoperability is achieved by running the same air carrier applications over the various providers’ respective platforms,” said Ingalls.

IATA is playing a key role in driving the initiative. “A lot of work has gone into developing the standard. IATA is absolutely supporting this,” said Peter Stanton, assistant director, airport and inflight, IATA. “These pilots are very important. It’s an ongoing process; ultimately, the standard is only a standard if it works in operation.

Once the standard is proven, I am confident CUPPS will happen. There will then be ongoing development and management of the standard and how it is taken forward as a living, breathing thing.”

CUPPS meetings have been held around the world, in places ranging from Frankfurt (pictured) to Geneva to Beijing to San Francisco, and many, many other venues.

Orlando expects to have its trial, in which it is teaming up with CUTE supplier SITA, up and running by this fall. John Vinelli, manager information technology, Greater Orlando Aviation Authority, is one of the sub-team leads. He said: “We are at the beginning of the process and will be trialling CUPPS over the next 18 months. Orlando has been active with ACI and IATA; we are very active in the common use arena. We want to stay at the forefront of this technology.”

The most significant driver behind the development of CUPPS was the fact that five different vendors were providing different solutions. Accordingly, several air carriers needed to maintain six different applications to address each of the different implementations for the respective vendors. “As such, each change, whether business-driven, security-driven, or otherwise, needed to be made to each of those applications, making it very difficult and time-consuming to roll out these changes,” said Ingalls. “Airports were also faced with opposition to common use in general, as it was perceived by many to limit the air carriers’ business processes. Vendors were also faced with many challenges.”

Tere has been significant industry input into the initiative. Around 80 companies – almost evenly spread between air carriers from around the world, airports and vendors/other entities – with about 200 individual participants, comprise the work effort. A series of ‘foundational principles’ were developed at the start and have served as the touchstone of the effort:

1. Applications run on any platform
2. CUPPS facilitates rather than mandates business processes
3. The CUPPS platform will have minimum defined functionality
4. Affordability
5. Serviceability
6. Predictability

“While all of these are key elements, the first one is really an equal above all. The interoperability of the applications on all of the different vendors’ platforms will bring significant benefit to all parties involved,” said Ingalls.

One of the goals, in line with the Affordability and Serviceability principles, is the simplification of several parts of the process. The certification and deployment part of the common use process has undergone significant focus. Simplified MS Windows printing will also be supported, as will thin-client architecture.

“All of the common use vendors are prepared to build a transition/migration path between their current common use platforms and the new CUPPS platform. While this should not necessitate a change of hardware per se, it will potentially allow more peripheral equipment options,” said Ingalls.

Stanton: “A lot of work has gone into developing the CUPPS standard. IATA is absolutely supporting this.”

Collaborative project

CUPPS replaces CUTE and has, at least from a terminology standpoint, already done so. At the JPSC (Joint Passenger Services Conference) meeting in fall 2007, both IATA and ATA air carriers unanimously approved the recommended practice. Airports Council International (ACI) also rendered its approval at its fall meeting. “This was truly precedent-setting in the industry, being the very first time that all three organisations had developed and owned a joint recommended practice. It was truly an exceptional collaborative project on an industry-wide basis,” said Ingalls.

The CUPPS initiative is moving into a very important stage, in which it will be fully tested in ‘live’ operation.

IATA’s Stanton also highlighted the importance of this cross-industry sponsorship of CUPPS. He explained that it is very much a community project; the Working Group has 80+ members and the major IATA airlines are involved. “We are extremely positive about this and are looking to support the initiative and do whatever we can to make it happen,” said Stanton.

The most recent addition to the CUPPS initiative is a data exchange portion. This was originally known as ‘Flight Information Management Systems’ (FIMS), but has now been renamed ‘Aviation Information Data Exchange’ (AIDX). This is moving toward recommended practice approval this year, as an adjunct to the CUPPS numbering, and involves the IATA/ATA XML working group, as well as the Passenger and Airport Data Interchange Standards (PADIS) working group. “It will greatly smooth the flow of data – for flight information and other systems – between airports, air carriers and other stakeholders,” said Ingalls.

CUPPS has been architectured in such a way that it could adopt other processes in the passenger processing realm, as it did with AIDX. “CUPPS is set up to be a living document – it will evolve over time,” said Vinelli. “We are already seeing evolution taking place – more passengers are checking in through kiosks. We are finding that technology is changing – airports are looking at the idea of self bag tagging. Agent assisted check-in will get much less frequent.”

Vinelli’s vision of the passenger process of the future foresees the passenger walking into the terminal, checking-in at a kiosk, printing their bag tag and taking their bag to a common bag drop. “Passengers would not have to deal with airline personnel until they got to the gate. The entire experience would be seamless,” he said.

Vinelli also foresees more off-site check-in, whereby a third party approved by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) accepts the baggage and gives the boarding pass. “The benefits will be felt at airports where passenger numbers continue to grow and airports, which are restricted in terms of adding more space, are looking for ways to facilitate that growth,” he said.

That is beginning to happen at Orlando, where 15% of passengers are processed off-site. “We envisage that we could actually do this in cities as well. It would particularly help if we could do it a day beforehand. That is where I see big changes happening,” said Vinelli.