Imagine sitting in your hotel room or your office’s conference area, and being checked-in for your flight even before you leave for the airport. This is just one of the options that Amadeus’ Airport Common Use Service (ACUS) offers to improve the way airports and airlines serve their passengers.
Amadeus has introduced ACUS to key stakeholders in the Indian aviation industry at India’s first Common Use Roundtable, an event that was held recently, and hosted by Amadeus and Bird Group. The launch of Amadeus ACUS means, airports in India can offer a futuristic, more efficient and convenient check-in service as the number of international and domestic travellers increases.
Image source: Airport Suppliers
India has experienced a six-fold increase in air passenger numbers over the past decade as its citizens take advantage of better connectivity and cheaper fares. This has also brought the problem of congested airports. The architecture of Amadeus ACUS allows ‘fixed’ check-in counters to be rapidly re-deployed anywhere within the terminal, and to ‘off airport’ locations, to enable the airport to access additional passenger capacity on demand to meet short notice or seasonal fluctuations.
Amadeus Airport Common Use Service represents a leap forward in common use platforms. Leveraging cloud technology to deliver application virtualisation, ACUS brings greater business agility, operational resilience, scalability and flexibility to make passenger processing more efficient than ever before. ACUS is also fast and easy to implement and can be used on a PC, laptop or mobile device, once a secure network connection is in place.
Some of ACUS’ key features include- application virtualization technology, delivered via SaaS model, centrally hosted in a state-of-the-art data center, based on secure network connectivity and 4G communications, connection to all airline Departure Control System and airport applications, complete end-to-end solution delivery, compatible with industry standards, and one Common Use platform for all airports.
The common use platform contributes to achieving substantial cost savings, by eliminating the need for costly on-site servers and ongoing maintenance, as well as reducing energy costs. Providing airports, airlines and ground handlers with a complete end-to-end solution, ACUS is fully scalable and can be adapted to unique business needs. It helps gain ‘real’ business agility by deploying and relocating operations rapidly and seamlessly, anywhere on and off the airport.
Sarah Samuel, Head of Airport IT, Asia Pacific of Amadeus said, “The rapid growth of passengers travelling in India means airports are under a lot pressure. Now more than ever, they need to think differently to provide the service expected by consumers. The airport industry has advanced tremendously from the days of dedicated airline check-in desks towards a much more flexible and shared environment.”
Airlines across the world are already running many critical applications that are centrally hosted and accessible by their agents via the internet. The airport industry can now follow this trend with Amadeus ACUS, to enable the ecosystem to use its resources wisely, ultimately improving passenger experience and moving towards becoming the airport of the future.
