More self-service, connectivity urged for Naia

Passengers check-in for international flights on Naia Terminal 3, which resumed such operations today since March 28, 2020 during the enhanced community quarantine period.
INQUIRER PHOTO/LYN RILLON

MANILA  -The chosen private sector partner for the P170.6-billion Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) rehabilitation project should focus on setting up more self-service counters and improving internet connectivity for better passenger experience, according to technology company Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise (ALE).

Ilya Gutlin, ALE senior vice president sales for Asia-Pacific, said that modern technology should be implemented at the country’s main international gateway in order to speed up processing of passengers.

“The world has been going towards self-service for 25 years,” he said. Apart from bag drops and other service kiosks, Gutlin said that further digitalization must be in place in immigration. “It is a matter of thinking end-to-end and implementing it step by step,” Gutlin explained.

ALE country manager Kit Andal said the chosen private sector partner should also ramp up WiFi network as passengers always seek connectivity whenever they are in airports.

“If you are connected to the WiFi, sometimes the queueing, you don’t mind — [it allows] communicating with your family, chatting, posting on social media,” Andal said.

Apart from improving passenger convenience, establishing a reliable WiFi is also strategic for airport operators. Gutlin said this could help airports in gathering data about passenger movement in the terminals.

“If you want to eliminate queues, get data on how passengers move through the airports and [identify] where the choke points are,” he explained. Such data, he said, could be used to implement better on-ground strategy.