Mr. Fabian Ramos Costa, CTO, OPAIN shared his experience of the engagement. This video captures excerpts of the conversation with him.

Kudos to OPAIN for realizing this key step in its journey of digital transformation through a successful association with Arprotec and GrayMatter!

The post OPAIN leadership team shares thoughts on Store Sense appeared first on Airport Analytics.

The event will host 10000+ attendees, 400+ expert speakers, across 130+ countries amidst this wonderful opportunity for industry leaders to share insights and exchange information.

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Sometimes your past experience leads you to a solution that overcomes a pain point. That’s the case with Air Service Development. I came into the Air Service Development role at Winnipeg Airports Authority a few years back and instantly found a pain point. Data wasn’t free flowing. Where are people flying? And to which destination? On what day of the week? Through what connect point? On which airline?

We subscribe to a system that provides this sort of data. There was just one problem; a three-month delay in getting up to date info. I had executives coming to me asking how we were doing in the current month with respect to being on budget for passengers and I couldn’t give them an accurate answer.

I would go on monthly calls with airlines asking them how Winnipeg was performing in their network with no context from any data I had in my hands.

It was time to be better. That’s when I sought out a data point. Baggage source messages (BSM).

This was new territory for Winnipeg. Up until 2011 when we opened our brand new airport, we had not required baggage sortation. We didn’t need to allocate bags to outbound carousels because each lane was a separate system. Once we opened the terminal and began our subscription, we recognized that the data was invaluable. After months of massaging the data along with a good calibration and scaling plan, I could now begin to answer questions.

I could tell you with greater accuracy how originating Winnipeg passengers were making the trek to the Philippines. I knew what flights they were taking, how many passengers were on each flight number, and which airlines they were connecting on. I could tell you how many people were connecting in Winnipeg to continue their travels to destinations beyond our airport, and on average, how long those connections were, and at what time on each day of the week. I could even tell you how many people were taking flights to follow our local hockey team the Winnipeg Jets on road trips (and how they were getting there).

And I could tell you how they did it yesterday. This gave me a clearer picture when I was talking to airlines. No longer did I have to ask them about their top 10 markets out of Winnipeg; I knew that already. The conversation was able to go deeper than just the usual high-level approach. I could tell the executives how we were trending in the current month and what was happening with traffic as it happened. One point of clarification; knowing where a passenger wants to go and how they got there is only one data point in a large pool of information. Average fares, QSI, stimulation, etc. are all important in their own right.

Once we recognized the power of the insights we had gathered, we began working on dashboards. We wanted to automate the process so that the data was readily available in a usable language. (Believe me, this has taken a long time. In fact, it’s still ongoing!)

In collaboration with GrayMatter, a company we had met through other operational dashboard work, we set out to develop a suite of turnkey solutions for others that might also have this pain point. After months of planning and development, we created SkyEdge. This is a set of dashboards that can instantly provide access to insights for passenger traffic. The system ties into your BSM subscription and allows you to convert baggage info into a usable set of data points for passenger traffic.

We’re proud of the collaboration and being able to provide a solution to others that have shared this similar pain point.

Through this process I’ve learned that a thorough understanding of systems and data feeds within the organization can help solve a pain point for an area in a different department. Collaborative multi-department discussions must take place in order to maximize the value of what is laying right under your nose.

Now if only I could find an algorithm for that laundry folder.

The post Passenger Data – A Eureka Innovation Moment appeared first on Airport Analytics.

No-one today questions that passengers flying from an airport past a vast range of prices, and not just depending on the destination they are flying to.
Within a single departing aircraft, passengers will have paid different fares depending on:

• when they booked,
• how long they will be away for,
• how close to the front of the plane they are sitting,
• the size of their seat,
• whether they are travelling alone or in a group,
• whether their journey keeps them away over a weekend,
• Did they pay for any ‘extras’ like fast-track, or insurance, or lounge access?

And for the same aircraft, the mix of fares paid between e.g. a Monday departure and a Thursday departure will vary considerably as the journey purpose mix changes. Indeed, it is common for airlines to swap aircraft types or cabin configurations on the same service depending on day or week or time of year to reflect changing demand.

The airlines have invested in in-house or 3rd party software to record historic transactions (booking date, travel date, channel, price etc.) at a segmentation level which lets them dynamically price future seats based on history, rule and parameters and a close study of booking pace. Pricing smarter is recognized as far more beneficial than cost saving, as a way of growing overall business growth.

With the airlines having been long term adaptors of the art and science of revenue management, is it any wonder that airports are catching on and catching up given they have the same customers? They both have perishable assets (seats or spaces) and a segment able client base each with their own journey purpose.

What options are available to the airport?
Car Park booking engines generally offer a rudimentary pricing capability, increasing price as occupancy thresholds are reached, applying booking limits to stop sales and enabling promotional discounts to be applied.
However, these are not scientifically applied, e.g. if 50% of sales are sold 2 weeks in advance this suggests far higher demand than if they were sold 2 days in advance but the booking engine would apply the same step change in price. In reality, prices should probably have been higher earlier in the former case, and probably should be lower in the latter case. And when to stop sales is based on a guesstimate of how many un-booked cars will be in the car park, an estimate which is probably too cautious and infrequently updated.
Similarly, the attentive manager will probably manually apply overrides to the next few dates as these become the focus of attention, although the opportunity to exploit demand is generally lost by then. And this process relies on having good reports often requiring expensive development or a lot of time and skill in Excel or similar.

This is where the airlines were in the 1980s. Dedicated individuals using what data they had to make short term decisions.
But now there are huge potential benefits for airports to go down the automated airport car parking revenue management route, using technologies and methods established in air transport and similar fields

• The building block is finely tuned demand forecasts of arrivals broken down by time of day, car park, product, market segment and duration of stay
• These forecasts predict the peaks and gaps in space availability enabling prices to be selected which maximize revenue to the airport
• Nightly price optimization
• Selecting the best length of stay controls (not blocking valuable spaces with cars on discounted longer stays)
• Accurate prediction of drive ups means that bookable spaces aren’t turned off too-early (potential revenue split) or too-late (customer service failures)
• An automated solution is setting and modifying prices months into the future, not just days
• Re-allocating demand between car parks as space becomes scarce
• Exception reporting tells the users where recommended prices are being changed rapidly, prompting review of forecasts and/or available prices.
• Deep BI enables the user to see all their KPIs, split by car park, product and channel. Rather than removing running the business from the user, the system is empowering the user with a battery of information. The car park manager has never been better informed on what has happened and what will happen.

What does a typical revenue management product look like?
The GrayMatter’s Car Park Revenue Management (CPRM) product is a good illustration of a demand-driven dynamic car park pricing engine. CPRM predicts and recommends predict and recommends future price every day for few days ahead based on historical data analytics, algorithms and business rules. Airport Car Parking Revenue Management (CPRM) not only recommends and applies optimal pricing but also provides critical data-driven insights to maximize revenue and management control, for both pre-bookings and drive-ups. Here are some example showing

• Booking Pace (how do sales compare with this time last year)
• How many arrivals do we forecast?
• How accurate are our forecasts?
• Where is the system making price changes?

Book a Free Demonstration of GrayMatter’s CPRM Product!!

As well as the suite of information through the BI, at a quality exceeding costly inhouse developments GrayMatter’s Car Parking Revenue Management (CPRM) provides clear revenue gains.
There are likely to be in the scale of:

Depending on the airport a total revenue gain of circa 8%. An airport with USD 5m in turnover will achieve full ROI in year one including implementation costs. If you still aren’t sure, invite our Solution Consultants to do an appraisal of the potential benefits at your airport. You have much to gain and nothing to lose.

About the Author of this Blog: Mark is a senior revenue management professional and the founder of Parking Revenue Solutions. As a consultant he has helped design, develop and implement GrayMatter’s Car Park Revenue Management Solution

The post Price it Right – Maximize Your Airport Car Park Revenues appeared first on Airport Analytics.

The system will provide real-time, non-intrusive extraction of sales data from POS terminals at the airport stores using Store Sense, GrayMatter’s proprietary IoT device. The data extracted will interface with billing system and will be further processed for income computation that forms the basis for invoicing concessionaires. Data from Store Sense is also analyzed to enable decision making through data-driven business insights around performance of F&B outlets, retail stores, duty-free shops, product categories, products as well as around customer preferences.

Mr. Fabian Ramos Acosta, CIO, El Dorado Airport said, “We are looking forward to this implementation lending heightened visibility into retail revenue reporting as well as providing vital data-driven insights”

Mrs. Martha Betancourt, Country Manager, Arprotec said, “We are glad to partner with GrayMatter for this engagement. We look forward to working together to make this engagement a resounding success story for El Dorado Airport”

Mr. Vikas Gupta, CEO, GrayMatter said “We are happy to partner with Arprotec for this wonderful opportunity to work for El Dorado Airport. I look forward to this system bringing in immense benefits to El Dorado Airport business”

About GrayMatter

GrayMatter is a Big Data and Data Science specialist with a strong BI & Analytics background having over 170+ successful project implementations across USA, EMEA & APAC spanning multiple industries. Collaboration with strategic technical partners like Pentaho, SAP and Microsoft besides in-house engineering excellence has given rise to innovative industry specific product offerings. Products like Airport Analytics, Insurance Analytics IA+, Finance Analytics FA+, and Manufacturing Analytics MA+ have already taken big strides in the global markets. GrayMatter is Head Quartered in Bangalore, India with offices in USA, Europe, Malaysia & Middle East with Global R & D Centre in Helsinki, Finland. Visit their website at www.graymatter.co.in

About Arprotec S.A

ARPROTECSA, develops and implements technology solutions, processes, document management, technology consulting and computer security aligned with the company’s strategies, with human resources certified and supported by the best technologies. Visit their website at arprotecsa.com/

The post GrayMatter and Arprotec S.A to implement Airport Concessions Revenue Management & Analytics at Colombia’s El Dorado International Airport appeared first on Airport Analytics.

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The post GrayMatter successfully implements Airport concessions Sales Information System at Bangalore Airport appeared first on Airport Analytics.

In this blog, we shall focus on queue time optimization to enhance passenger experience by easing the passenger journey at an airport. Queue time optimization is required at following touch points:

• Check-in counters
• Security gates
• Immigration check gate

Speak to GrayMatter’s Airport Analytics experts now!

Due to continuous increase in passenger movement and limited resource availability at airport, forecasting passenger movement helps in better resource planning. Effective ultra-short-term passenger projections go a long way to enable queue time optimization at the touch points mentioned above. Outlined below is the ultra-short-term projections solution:

• Daily projection- Forecasting passenger count once in every 5 minutes for next 8 hours at various touch points to plan out resources and their availability at any given point of time
• Weekly projection – Forecasting passengers at the beginning of the week in days and hours for the whole week
• Consider load factors, passenger volumes, transfer percentages and airline data
• Account for effects of holidays / weather / terminal moves / sporting events etc.
• Use knowledge, intuition and past experience of passenger volumes at various points of time

The post Ultra-Short-Term Passenger Forecasting at Airports appeared first on Airport Analytics.

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The event will host 7350+ attendees, 375+ expert speakers, across 100+ countries amidst this wonderful opportunity for industry leaders to share insights and exchange information.

The post Passenger Terminal Expo 2019 appeared first on Airport Analytics.