TAdviser Interview: The senior vice president of Fraport AG - about the digital strategy of the largest airport of Germany

Rolf Felkel We have a department which works on the development strategy of the airport in Frankfurt and Fraport AG company as the international player and on its different aspects. The strategy of digitalization – one of aspects of this general strategy. It was recently approved and in detail describes in what directions we will develop IT solutions.

Digital strategy covers four blocks. The first is concentrated on clients, on solutions for clients. At the same time clients are meant as not only passengers, but also our business partners, such as airlines and others. The second block is focused in the company – as it works and as it is possible to use technologies to improve its work and to cut down expenses.

One more block covers the solutions focused on personnel of the company including how to make Fraport AG more attractive employer and to increase efficiency of employees.

Both, at last, the fourth and, perhaps, the most difficult block, mentions new business models and their development using technologies. In the latter case it is difficult to plan something: if there is a perspective, an opportunity for any model, then there is a question, to use this chance or not.

After the adoption of digital strategy we are faced by a question now whether we need to create the special organization which is responsible for its implementation, and a position of CDO (Chief Digital Officer) in the company. I expect that these decisions will be made until the end of 2018.

Rolf Felkel The block related to clients includes many projects, and one of them, for example, – implementation of the B2B-platform. The airport is the B2B-company. We interact with airlines, with different administrations, the companies performing land service, and many others. Fraport AG is not only the airport, we manage also other business models. Therefore we have many different clients from business. And now we study the draft of the online platform allowing to communicate in the uniform place with all our clients and to offer them our services through this platform by the most convenient method. We, of course, already have an online platform for passengers, but not for business clients.

Regarding the block mentioning internal processes we now cardinally change our SAP landscape. So far we use the SAP R3 platform and we pass to SAP S/4. At the same time it is not about upgrade, and about cardinal redesign. It is very big program calculated on several years.

And there is an interesting moment influencing redesign of the platform. When Fraport AG only began the business, its primary activity was concentrated in Frankfurt with not so considerable activity in other countries. But 10 years later the main part of traffic which we generate is already not necessary to Frankfurt, and in total on foreign assets. We became the global player, but at the same time the structure of our ERP remains focused on Frankfurt. Therefore now our task – to change the platform so that it provided the best management of our foreign activities.

Concerning passenger service, here we very much depend on partner interaction, with airlines, first of all, on what they are ready to offer the passengers. We can do something. For example, to trace, measure and predict a passenger traffic. We have a system allowing to redirect dynamically passengers to terminals, a management system for flows of passengers, etc. But the complete scope of passenger experience is impossible without interaction with airlines, and it takes time.

One of systems in which implementation we can be carried to one of the first airports is a trade online platform. At the airport in Frankfurt retail is provided physically, but at the same time also digital retail on the online platform is available to passengers. They can be registered in the platform, make purchases and pay them then to receive the order at the boarding gate where it will be delivered, or independently to take away from shop. The loyalty program is integrated into the platform.

Rolf Felkel There are no pilot projects yet, but, as far as I know, use of biometrics is planned, for example, by Lufthansa airline, and my colleagues from department of control of terminals contact to Lufthansa regarding future use of biometrics at the airport of Frankfurt.

Rolf Felkel Big Data are applied at us very widely. We have a large-scale and mature BI platform. The projects relating to it began at the airport of Frankfurt 15 years ago. I would tell that at the Frankfurt airport one of the largest if not the largest, the BI platform from all airports of the world.

All departments of the company – from control of terminals to information security – anyway use analytics and reports on the basis of Big Data.

In this sphere the company relied generally earlier on solutions of SAS which were developed over time. And now we switch to Hadoop. The new platform on Hadoop is already implemented, and now we should master work with it. This platform strongly differs from what we had earlier.

Now we develop the new BI solution in the field of stream analytics which will allow to improve the operational party of the Big Data technologies which are used at us. We developed a format which is called Smart Data Lab. It is applied 1-2 times in a year within 4-6 weeks. At this time analysts of data interact with experts in data from Fraport AG business divisions, and decide how it is possible to respond to the requests proceeding from the top management using data and analytics, and further to develop new solutions in this area.

Two years ago within Smart Data Lab we found out that we can improve significantly forecasting of arrival time of the aircraft for the parking using different information, for example, of data from radars on all airport. This information is very important for department of land service as depending on this time they should begin work on loading, unloading of the vessel. As a result, now we implement the solution of stream analytics on the basis of Hadoop, Kafka and other software to create a separate system for dynamic forecasting of receipt of courts in the airport from all runs.

Rolf Felkel Lately in the field of the open source software for BI and analytics there were serious shifts, more and more such solutions appear. If to pay attention, at the universities teach programming under open platforms, than solutions of vendors more now.

Rolf Felkel Of course. We set up very close cooperation with other airports at the level of the International Council of the Airports (Airports Council International, ACI) which somewhat can be compared to IATA – the organization for airlines. Within Council there is a committee on IT, it consists of the big CIO group of the airports from around the world and allows to exchange experience, information on the current projects, technologies. This exchange is very important for us.

Rolf Felkel The airports in Germany, as well as in other countries of the world, say, are not in a driver's seat. The possibility of implementation of the innovations concerning different aspects of service of passengers often depends on the state. Use of new technologies in many cases requires the corresponding regulatory base.

Especially it concerns the sphere of security. For example, the current legislation in Germany does not allow us to use 3D - scanning of passengers as the instrument of security instead of passing through a framework where it is required to remove from himself all metal objects, etc. There is an approved list of technologies for these purposes, and we are obliged to adhere to it. Undoubtedly, the list will undergo changes in the future, but it is not fast process.

Normative obstacles are also in the field of implementation of biometric technologies at the airports. For example, there are the general regulations on data protection in the European Union, and the organization of use of biometrics at the airports should correspond to it. And it is quite difficult to organize it because the regulations order receiving consent from the passenger to use of such data for different processes. And when every time the consent of the passenger is necessary, it is difficult to provide large-scale implementation. There are questions as to make it when there are passengers not concordant with providing and use of their biometric data, and others.

From the normative point of view the situation is more simply, for example, with technologies of virtual and augmented reality, Internet of Things, Big Data.