Throughout 2020, urgent new customer needs have emerged overnight. At KLM Digital we needed to put all our agility into practice to respond to these needs. In this short video, we will clearly define several phases and categories in these customer needs. Furthermore, we will share examples of how digital products still help KLM to manage this situation. Agility, communication, collaboration, data analysis and customer feedback play the main part. What did we learn? What will be in store for us in 2021?

What the audience will learn

• How Covid-19 changed passengers' online and offline behavior
• New opportunities: digital products and services in managing Covid-19
• Perspectives on standardization and international collaboration for documentation

Helsinki Airport, a leading airport in northern Europe, has been a leader in Covid-19 actions. We've followed all the aviation recommendations during the crisis, and also introduced innovative new solutions such as Covid-19 dogs, new technology and service models to ensure excellent customer experience for airlines and passengers. Together with highly skilled teams, we have enabled the airport facilities operations of Finland's authorities.

What the audience will learn

• Leading all airport processes during the Covid-19 crisis
• Covid-19 dogs – the first in Europe
• New service models during changing global travel restrictions

Now that Covid-19 has dramatically altered the travel industry landscape, it has become clearer than ever that biometrics will play a vital role in getting the world moving again. How can we work to ensure a seamless and safe end-to-end experience for passengers? How to reinstill passenger confidence in regard to health and safety when using an airport?

What the audience will learn

• To what extent Covid-19 is affecting the passenger expectations of the future
• The challenges behind implementing a touchless passenger experience
• Is ‘seamless travel’ still the end goal for airports?

Cork Airport has seen a significant impact on passenger numbers and flights due to Covid-19, which has decimated aviation across the globe. As head of communications at Cork Airport in Ireland, Kevin Cullinane has witnessed first hand the serious reduction in passenger numbers, as well as flight cancellations and disruptions. Despite the current crisis, he believes passionately that communications objectives still need to follow business objectives without being tone-deaf to the unfolding crisis. In this presentation, he shares how Cork Airport has stayed close to its customers digitally and emotionally throughout the pandemic by staying relevant.

What the audience will learn

• Leaders need to think differently in a crisis
• Communications objectives still need to follow business objectives
• Companies with communications issues probably aren't communicating effectively
• Adapting social media strategy is a key pillar
• Stay true to your brand promise

The presentation will describe the various actions that DOH undertook to remain operational despite the pandemic, ensuring that the well-being of passengers remained at the heart of its strategy. Passenger and staff safety and security remain the top priority while deploying an operation recovery plan in line with multiple stakeholder requirements. New hygiene measures were introduced across the terminal to ensure passengers' confidence in safe travel is restored.

What the audience will learn

• How the airport showed incredible nimbleness in adapting to the changed circumstances
• How the airport co-created the ‘pandemic’ passenger experience with the national airline Qatar Airways
• Lessons in effective passenger communication and community engagement
• Unlocking the power of technology to rebuild travel trust with innovative travel experiences

From a currently reactive response to the pandemic situation we see a move toward proactive design measures. Some address the mind, body and human well-being, others the spaces we inhabit. Overlaying six pandemic design ideas with the work of the WELL Airport Advisory, we can create tools moving to a more resilient and prepared environment. How to enable free passage, anti-anxiety entries, breathable buildings and improved urban mobility are only a few of the topics related to airport architecture that we will discuss.

What the audience will learn

• How architectural design can be a catalyst to move post-pandemic
• The benefits of collaborating across sectors and learning from each other
• How WELL certification can help airports to invest in healthy spaces

Clean and healthy airports are always important, but especially during a pandemic. Airports have installed plexiglass barriers, increased the frequency of cleaning throughout terminals, and placed signs reminding passengers to distance themselves and wear masks. Some airports increased fresh air delivery and air filtration, and installed sanitizing robots, all at a time when revenues from travel have plummeted. Which measures reduce health risks, and which are a ‘hygiene theater’?

What the audience will learn

• The background of microbes in our world and typical daily exposures
• The additional risk posed by the SARS-CoV2 virus
• The best methods of reducing risks from SARS-CoV2

By supporting awareness of health and wellness programs and policies, organizations can promote health literacy and encourage engagement with health resources, leading to individual benefits such as increased participation in healthy behaviors and use of health services, and also employer benefits, providing an estimated 4:1 return on investment. Establishing a health-centered mission and orienting stakeholders as to how the organization will adhere to that mission and WELL features through design and operations, helps individuals remain engaged in the space and empowers them to utilize all available health and wellness programs and policies.

What the audience will learn

• How educational materials and communications can help promote health literacy and increase positive health outcomes
• How to cultivate a culture of health by reinforcing programs, amenities and policies available to support health and safety, including regular communications, occupant education and health risk assessments
• Support healthy behavior through signage that communicates important health safety actions and information

As an airport operator, how can you fundamentally improve the health and well-being of staff, and what are the current efforts and evolving challenges?

What the audience will learn

• As an airport operator, how can you fundamentally improve the health and well-being of staff, and what are the current efforts and evolving challenges?
• The whole airport as a place where daily life has to be facilitated and animated
• Covid crisis as an accelerator of sanitary solutions implementation at a global level

The airport can play a supporting role in a healthier and happier society. For instance, changing dwell time to swell time. For passengers to have a more joyful airport experience, basic human needs must come first. Transforming the dreaded, discretionary spending-focused dwell time into swell time should be at the forefront of any airport’s post-pandemic transformation moving forward. Dwell time is about making money, not passenger happiness. Happy passengers are willing to spend more of their time and money in airports.

What the audience will learn

• Current examples of global airport wellness touchpoints employed
• How integrating wellness touchpoints will directly increase non-aeronautical revenues and improve human mood
• Adopting a holistic airport well-being mindset in the age of Covid-19

City, regional and airport planners play a critical role in enabling urban air mobility (UAM) services. Traditionally, aviation planning has not been a principal consideration in urban and regional transportation planning processes. As electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft and other emerging aviation technologies will enable new forms of mobility, it is essential that planning processes and municipal zoning codes address the integration of new types of aviation infrastructure and low-altitude operations. This presentation will consider a broad range of planning issues associated with UAM, from airspace integration to infrastructure planning and permitting, and related community engagement.

What the audience will learn

• Some of the key areas for city, regional and airport planners to be thinking about as they consider UAM
• The role of the federal/national aviation regulators in informing local and regional planning
• Policy frameworks in development across the globe

Advanced aerial mobility is getting closer. Without vertiports, there will be limited applications for this new technology. This presentation looks at how to navigate the timing and revenue uncertainties of a new industry with the large capital expenditure required for airport infrastructure.

What the audience will learn

• Infrastructure is vital for the success of the AAM industry
• Lack of defined revenue streams and large capex requirements are hard to reconcile

The presentation will discuss the many areas of consideration for airports. Should the vertiport be landside or airside? Accommodating multiple types of aircraft with varying performance capabilities. Do we model it along with existing helicopter operations or a completely new ConOps? Infrastructure requirements – common use or exclusive use? Do we allow for multiple landing sites on one airport? Does the PA invest in the development or do we leave that to the operators? Ensuring UAM operation has no impact on the existing airport flows. What safety and electrical power infrastructures are required?

What the audience will learn

• Airport infrastructure considerations: placement of vertiport on the airport
• Airspace considerations: how will these aircraft be accommodated, especially in complex airspace. A-CDM is critical for successful implementation
• Common use of exclusive-use vertiports
• Terminal access for passengers. Do we utilize airside or landside portions of the airports?
• Varying aircraft performance capabilities: range, vertical climb and speed

In the current context of environmental transition in air transport and economic recovery, the Paris region, Groupe ADP and RATP Group are developing a unique urban air mobility initiative with a focus on electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL). The partners have decided to bring together all the conditions to make the emergence of this new mode of transport possible. The prospect of the 2024 Olympic Games provides an exceptional opportunity to involve an entire industry in order to make the Paris region a leader in the global urban air mobility market.

What the audience will learn

• How to create/animate an ecosystem of stakeholders to accelerate the implementation of this new mobility service
• The five key challenges to orchestrate and develop the urban air mobility (UAM) roadmap
• Why a UAM living lab is fundamental and what should be tested
• What this new service will look like from a passenger perspective
• Key insights into the future business model of a vertiport

The challenges Covid has brought to the sector in 2020 are unprecedented and many entities have undergone a significant reduction in operations and associated restructuring this year, while facing an uncertain future. In the new world of Covid, one challenge is not to underestimate the impact on our workforce and their capability, from both internal and external pressures. The presentation will consider the impact of skill fade on security staff, the risk of losing experienced staff from the sector, as well as the link between training, human factors and security culture.

What the audience will learn

• The importance of not disregarding human factors in aviation security during times of crisis
• What is skill fade and how to mitigate its impact
• Why a robust security culture is more critical now than ever

The presentation will outline the Covid-19 measures at Copenhagen Airport and the impact of the pandemic on the airport’s operations. This will include the security and safety operation, from lockdown to resuming operations, and adjusting for the future: a smaller airport.

What the audience will learn

• Covid-19 lockdown in March 2020
• Resuming operations after lockdown
• Safe passenger journey measures at Copenhagen Airport
• Security challenges in view of the Covid-19 pandemic
• How to motivate staff – both managers and employees – in a time of uncertainty

Covid-19 has brought unprecedented challenges to the aviation industry as a whole and has driven a reimagining of the role of airline security departments. This session will discuss how aviation security teams had to pivot in their approach to managing risk and supporting operations in light of the changes brought about by the pandemic.

What the audience will learn

• How airports and airlines are dealing with the impact of the pandemic
• Sustainable security, safety and training
• Lessons being learned and where the industry may be heading

The Covid-19 pandemic has posed many challenges for the health and safety of the public and our members of service. Decisive action and the ability to make swift changes have allowed us to maintain a high level of readiness in keeping the public and our facilities safe.

What the audience will learn

• Gain an understanding of the procedural implementations/modifications made throughout the Port Authority Police Department
• Port Authority Police Covid-19 Task Force initiative and tasks performed
• Receive an overview of the interagency law enforcement collaboration during the Covid-19 pandemic
• Maintaining counterterrorism presence during the Covid-19 pandemic

This presentation will focus on global best practices related to Covid-19 at airport facilities, and a case study of how the Seattle airport is managing facilities during this pandemic. A major focus will be a discussion of practical and proven implementation issues for Covid-19 compared with theoretical sales pitches. Topics will include touchless technologies, HVAC, UVC light cleaning, sanitation stations, cleaning frequencies for restrooms and other terminal areas, Covid cleaning certification, signage, concessions, social distancing, Covid-19 testing at the airport, restoring passenger confidence, and risk-based decision making with limited financial resources.

What the audience will learn

• Discussion of practical and proven implementation issues for Covid-19 compared with theoretical sales pitches
• Risk-based decision making for airports with limited financial resources
• ASHRAE recommendations for HVAC mechanical systems and high-efficiency filtration
• Exciting trends for touchless travel and social distancing through queue management
• Strategies for restoring passenger confidence and airports as a model for best practices in health safety

Having ISO 55001 in place better prepares you to make knowledge-driven decisions that meet health needs and resiliency efforts, and drive staffing during uncertain times. Atlanta Airlines Terminal Corporation’s vice president of facilities will provide an overview of the company's ISO journey and demonstrate how its tools drove a quicker staffing response to the pandemic. Critical system response strategies saved millions of dollars in the first six months by leveraging in-depth knowledge of HVAC and vertical transportation, and helped provide executive leadership with energy optimization strategies. Ongoing efforts will make H-JAIA a safer and more efficient operating airport as the recovery continues.

What the audience will learn

• Overview of ISO 55001 tools to help manage risks
• How tools drove AATC staffing levels on-site, preventing the spread of Covid-19 while maintaining a high service level
• HVAC and energy optimization strategies – saving US$6.3m on energy in six months
• System upgrade recommendations: HVAC to vertical transportation – providing capital planning numbers and language for now and the future

Steve will discuss the crippling impacts of Covid-19 on Edmonton International Airport (EIA) and the entire aviation industry. Safety will always be EIA's top priority for passengers and employees, and in this presentation Steve will detail safety measures put in place while also remaining flexible and adjusting in real time. With every challenge comes opportunity, and EIA has continued along its innovative path, pivoting its approach to address the impacts of Covid-19 through rapid testing solutions and touchless technologies.

What the audience will learn

• Passenger confidence is crucial. Understanding passengers' needs and concerns related to health safety helps to restore air service
• Implementing health measures such as mandatory face masks and physical distance floor markers helps to create a safe airport experience
• The ability to pivot and remain flexible in airport operations is key
• Alignment with stakeholders and partners creates a consistent experience for passengers
• We all want travel to get back to normal – a rapid testing solution will help us get there safely

This presentation will focus on management of operations during Covid-19. Key issues will include operating on the airport with closed terminals and gates, designated access routes to parked aircraft for required maintenance, transitioning back to 'normal' operations, maintaining FAA certification during Covid-19 for airfield checks and required maintenance, traffic updates and safety measures inside the terminal. The presentation will also highlight exciting plans for a new 39-gate terminal and 6,300-space parking garage that will replace existing Terminals A, B and C.

What the audience will learn

• Safety measures inside the terminal
• Passenger traffic update
• Transitioning back to “normal” operations during COVID-19
• Maintaining FAA certification during COVID-19 for certification and inspection
• Plans for a new 39-gate terminal that will replace existing Terminals A, B, and C