Shifting the airport paradigm

At Dubai Airports our goal is to reimagine and reinvent the airport experience. We want to shift the paradigm and design airport processes that ease travel and create experiences that surprise and delight. It’s at the heart of our vision to become the world’s leading airport company.

Getting there won’t be easy but we are well en-route to our destination. We already connect the world for some 90 million passengers per year on 130 airlines serving +260 destinations across two airports (Dubai International and Dubai World Central). We strive to provide air travellers with smooth passage through our airports and deliver great service and unique and engaging experiences. Whether it’s an in-airport rock concert, bouncing on a trampoline between flights, going for a swim, relaxing at a spa, browsing through the world’s leading duty-free retail environment or sampling the offerings of the over 150 restaurants in our airport, we have a plethora of options that suit all needs, tastes and budgets.

That said, there is more to do. Airports can be stressful places. The current industry processes are often not customer friendly as the passenger moves between different organisations with different priorities. Our strong desire is to turn that on its head… to make them a memorable part of the journey in all the right ways. To eliminate queues. To create experiences that make the airport a destination in itself. With traffic expected to reach 120 million by 2025 across our two airports we are focused on using technology, big data and process to improve service and increase capacity. In the long term, we will build the world’s biggest and most advanced airport – the next phase of Dubai World Central which will accommodate up to 240 million passengers and set a new standard for customer convenience and experience.

What is needed to make this happen…both in Dubai and across our sector globally …. is breakthrough thinking with the customer at its centre. As an industry, we need to foster an environment that is collaborative, uses a common language, has common objectives and does not hide behind boundaries. We need the adoption of global industry standards for initiatives such as a single biometric footprint to help transform the customer experience, by enabling a one-time capture of data which can then be used at multiple points in the customer journey in a seamless and non-intrusive way. The possibility then emerges to re-order the entire travel process around customer service.

What if that journey could start at multiple points of convenience near where people live or work? What if the airport terminal and building could be disaggregated into multiple smaller, convenient entry points into an airport transit system that can take customers from their homes or places of work directly to their plane? What if we could bypass all the changes of mode, baggage issues, queues, multiple documentation and security checks and long walking distances – all the things we hate when we travel? What if pods could take customers from their chosen point of entry directly to their plane in a matter of a few minutes. A seamless, door to door solution will make the entire journey experience faster, more relaxing and more efficient.

At Dubai Airports we continue to explore the ‘what-ifs’ with the long-term aspirational goal of revolutionising the travel experience propelling us forward.