Background
Leeds Bradford International Airport (LBA) is Yorkshire’s premier airport and one of the fastest growing airports in the UK*. Over the last two years LBA has seen a 55 per cent growth in passenger numbers, with no-frills airlines including Jet2.com, Ryanair and Flybe representing over half the airport’s 2.5 million passengers per year.
The airport has expanded considerably since its origins in 1931 as Yeadon Aerodrome. At that time it covered just 60 acres of grassland along the Bradford Harrogate Road and was mainly used for club flying and training flights. Now, LBA has two runways covering a total area of 328 acres. Since1996 the terminal building has been doubled in size with new and improved arrival and departure facilities, to accommodate the ever increasing number of passengers using the airport.
The Challenge
All airports rely on accurate, comprehensive and timely flight information to manage their various systems and departments effectively. Each airport sends and receives countless IATA (International Air Transport Association) messages every day, detailing everything from flight arrival or departure times to passenger numbers and baggage information.
At present most airports process this operational information manually by phone and fax, but this is time consuming and can inevitably lead to errors and delays.
Like most airports, Leeds Bradford relied on the manual input of passenger figures and flight information, but as the airport rapidly expanded this was becoming an increasingly lengthy process. It became clear that LBA would need to implement a more efficient system for analysing and processing its IATA messages, and so it turned to Modcomp for a solution.
The Solution
After successfully completing a message parsing project for BAA at Heathrow, Modcomp realised that other airports could also benefit from the technology. Consequently Modcomp developed a unique service for airports which automatically processes the IATA messages sent worldwide between carriers and handling agents: Payload Reference & Operational Message Processing & Translation Service (PROMPTS).
PROMPTS extracts relevant information from a range of IATA message types detailing information such as passenger numbers and details, their unusual or specific requirements which the airport should be aware of, aircraft payload information, referenced schedules, aircraft registrations, and even real-time departure/arrival and stand times. It then delivers the information back to the airport via secure internet links which minimise special hardware/software and training requirements for end-users. To enable it to directly receive copies of messages sent to and from an airport, PROMPTS runs on the industry-standard SITA network used by airports around the world to send IATA messages.
PROMPTS automatically analyses and processes the relevant data and makes it available either in batch files in the airport’s preferred format (XML, CSV or custom by FTP or email), or as real-time messages. The service can be customised to specific requirements, supplying to and being fed by primary applications such as flight information systems, staff information systems and billing systems, linking significant areas of airport operation.
Because not all messages follow IATA standards, PROMPTS has built in logic allowing it to quickly and accurately translate messages which don’t follow standard formatting, helping to ensure that all messages are translated correctly.
Conclusion
At LBA, the system was tailored to suit the airport’s existing proprietary billing system, AXIS, which provides PROMPTS with a schedule of each day’s flights against which PROMPTS can check for missing messages. PROMPTS can automatically generate alert ‘Request Messages’ where expected information is deemed not to have been supplied or tally against benchmark records. Once a day the data from PROMPTS is downloaded as an XML file and fed directly back into the airport’s AXIS billing system.
PROMPTS also translates and delivers real-time message data directly to LBA’s operational systems, giving staff at the airport access to a range of accurate and timely information such as passenger numbers, baggage information and details of any passengers who have special requirements such as wheelchair assistance, helping the airport to run more smoothly.
PROMPTS has significantly cut the time previously taken to input passenger data into the airport’s billing system, releasing staff for more important tasks and ensuring the data used for billing and statistics is accurate.
Harjinder Sangha, IT Manager at Leeds Bradford Airport believes PROMPTS is the most cost efficient solution for their needs; “The technology has enabled us to receive reliable, timely information automatically, and has eliminated the risk of human error in our data. The staff at Modcomp were very proactive and efficient, working well with us, and just as importantly working well with our suppliers.”
About MODCOMP
Founded in 1970, Modcomp has been providing data acquisition and system integration solutions for over thirty years, to a wide variety of markets as diverse as retail, financial, government, aerospace, energy, utilities, factory automation, broadcast and communications. Modcomp is an international company with a world-class reputation for bringing quality, high-performance innovations to its customers.
* From ‘UK Regional Air Services – A Study by the Civil Aviation Authority’ CAP 754 - www.caaerg.co.uk