Can technology help airports cope with traffic?

Question: How can technology help airports cope with increasing passenger traffic?

Expert: SITA vice president, airline services Catherine Mayer

Five years after the concept development was first approved at the International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) Joint Passenger Services Conference in October 2004, the next generation of common-use is now at the point of being delivered to the market by SITA in a move that will radically overhaul common-use passenger processing and save millions of dollars for an industry which has suffered two years of financial turmoil.

CUPPS (Common Use Passenger Processing Systems) will eventually replace the current CUTE (Common Use Terminal Equipment) technology standard which SITA brought to the market in time for use at the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 1984 but which has not been updated for many years. Additionally, a proliferation of different providers each with their own respective platforms and/or implementation methodologies has since made support of airline applications and airport environments difficult.

The goal of CUPPS is to provide a common system platform that reduces support costs — by allowing the use of one application by an air carrier, to run on all CUPPS common-use environments — and enables integration with other airport systems such as those supporting flight information display and dynamic signage. CUPPS brings cost savings associated with check-in and boarding passengers for both airlines and airports, while simplifying these processes for the passengers.

The development of CUPPS is an official IATA, Air Transport Association and Airports Council International sanctioned process and each has a recommended practice in place. It is the first time that all three organisations have come together to mandate the development of a new standard for the industry.

The breakthrough is a major benefit to airlines, airports and passengers. It will encourage greater take-up of common-use while bringing down costs through greater uniformity in airport business models and a more consistent approach to network connectivity. CUPPS will also support passenger processing outside of the traditional airport check-in desk environment.

Advertisement

FEATURED COMMENT Please click here to comment on this article

Following four years of research and development, SITA announced in January successful testing of CUPPS for common use passenger processing in a live airport environment. Over a three week period, Orlando passengers on Canadian low-cost carrier, WestJet, were both checked-in and boarded using the ground-breaking CUPPS technology.

In July, SITA announced that Continental Airlines, the world’s fifth largest airline, was working with SITA to use CUPPS to board passengers at Orlando International Airport thus fulfilling one of the main requirements for CUPPS to be approved as the new standard for passenger processing by airlines and airports worldwide: the successful deployment of the technology with two airlines out of the same airport. Orlando airport uses SITA’s

AirportConnect Open at present.

This platform is the only fully-integrated, field-tested, common-use check-in and boarding platform capable of supporting CUPPS, legacy CUTE, proprietary and web-based applications as well as CUSS (Common Use Self Service) kiosk applications. SITA’s CUPPS solution is inter-operable with other CUPPS platforms i.e. the CUPPS application can run on multiple vendor platforms and therefore eliminate the cost to the airline of certifying the application on each platform.

SITA is the first platform provider to achieve CUPPS compliance and to successfully complete the requirements for the CUPPS pilot programme. SITA is currently the only compliance testing entity approved to test airlines’ applications before they can be put into operation on the CUPPS platform and Lufthansa has become the first airline to be declared CUPPS compliant by SITA.

Lufthansa’s full suite of passenger processing applications including check-in, boarding, weight and balance have run successfully on the SITA CUPPS platform in Orlando. Check-in agents welcomed the increased speed of the application and printing using the CUPPS platform. The airline is ready to introduce CUPPS at any airport once IATA officially releases the CUPPS technical specifications in November 2009.

Middle Eastern airports have been using SITA’s AirportConnect Open check-in platform for the last three years and so are well-placed to upgrade to the new CUPPS technology in order to enjoy faster processes and cost savings.

---