Airports across the world face mounting pressure as passenger numbers continue to rise. While much of the baggage handling system (BHS) is highly automated, the ground handling processes between the BHS and the aircraft have seen little innovation in recent decades. Ground handlers still perform some of the most physically demanding and least automated tasks, including loading departing baggage into containers and carts and unloading arriving baggage from these under tight time constraints. These manual activities are labor intensive and highly repetitive, putting pressure on and straining staff and infrastructure during peak periods.

Continue reading OPINION: End‑to‑end baggage automation – why the handler process needs a new approach at Passenger Terminal Today.

Commercial aircraft accidents are very rare. That’s a good thing. It is the most powerful evidence that aviation is the safest form of transportation. And that is very good news for the five billion travelers who will fly this year.

But success has created a paradox. In the early days of flying, one of the biggest drivers of safety improvements was accident reports. In 2005, for example, there was one accident for every 268,703 flights.

Continue reading OPINION: The safety paradox – fewer accidents, greater responsibility at Passenger Terminal Today.

Hayden Davies, GM of product at Veovo, argues that it’s time airports took a fresh look at how they manage and use their data

I’ve spent much of my career in mission-critical systems, and few environments are as demanding or interconnected as an airport. What strikes me most, though, isn’t the complexity of the operation; it’s the gap between how airports operate today and the systems that are supposed to support them.

Continue reading OPINION: Rebuilding the core of airport operations at Passenger Terminal Today.

Caitlin Thomas, accessibility programs coordinator at Calgary Airports, leads initiatives that identify and remove barriers to equal access, implements innovative solutions, and facilitates meaningful dialog through the airport’s Accessibility Advisory Committee. 

We will rarely hear someone say aloud “accessibility doesn’t matter’, but it’s said silently hundreds of times a day – in the way passengers with disabilities are treated as exceptions and accommodations are reactive rather than built-in.

Continue reading OPINION: From intent to impact – Accessibility’s hidden risk at Passenger Terminal Today.

Harald Jentsch, director of sales for aviation security scanners at Rohde & Schwarz, explains how the company is seeking to advance airport security with walk-through scanning technology

Today’s airports are busier than ever and need cutting-edge technology to address the challenge of efficiently screening the rapidly growing number of passengers. Rohde & Schwarz is deploying advanced security screening technology at airports worldwide, aiming to improve both efficiency and threat detection.

Continue reading OPINION: How to advance airport security with walk-through scanning technology at Passenger Terminal Today.

Passenger growth is colliding with practical constraints at the airport checkpoint. Terminals cannot be expanded indefinitely, security footprints are often fixed, and operating budgets remain under pressure. Yet expectations continue to rise: higher throughput, strong security outcomes and a calmer passenger experience.

Against that backdrop, the checkpoint is being redefined. Rather than a collection of standalone technologies, it is evolving into an integrated operating system – orchestrating passenger flow, and screening decisions and performance across the process.

Continue reading OPINION: Rethinking checkpoint operations end to end at Passenger Terminal Today.

Justin Keene is product manager at Veovo, specializing in resource planning and management. He began his career as a programmer and technical consultant, working hands-on with airports to implement RMS platforms. That grounding shaped his view of how plans behave under pressure. Today, he leads the rollout of a new generation of AI-assisted resource planning tools

A gate or stand plan always looks calm at first glance.

Continue reading OPINION: AI for gate planning – where it works and why it matters at Passenger Terminal Today.

Baggage handling at airports is not only a complex logistic process, but in certain areas, it can also require considerable physical effort. Manual encoding stations (MES) are one of the work areas where physical labor is still a part of daily operations. Here, bag tags are read manually. This means that staff needs to repetitively lift suitcases weighing up to 32kg. Such work can cause health issues over time, resulting in missed workdays and increased operational costs.

Continue reading OPINION: How Vision Encoding can help airports move from manual to fully automated bag tag reading at Passenger Terminal Today.

Lounges may impress. Concessions may delight. However, what defines a great journey is often simpler – a flight that departs on time, a connection that’s stress-free and an arrival that’s swift.

Behind every missed connection, every long queue, every ‘where’s my bag?’ moment is a quiet set of decisions: how flights are assigned to gates, belts, counters and buses. For years, these choices were treated as pieces of a capacity planning jigsaw. But that’s no longer enough.

Continue reading OPINION: The hidden battleground for airport experience and resource management at Passenger Terminal Today.

As global air travel continues to grow and airports strive to modernize operations, AeroCloud is spotlighting the critical role of real-time passenger tracking in shaping the next generation of airport management. Whether it’s improving flow, tracking dwell, understanding flow rates, boosting revenue or preparing for long-term growth, understanding how all types of passengers move through a terminal is fast becoming a mandatory advantage if an airport wants to prosper.

Passenger tracking delivers real-time, anonymous insights into passenger behavior, empowering airports to make faster decisions, deploy staff efficiently, meet regulatory requirements and provide more accurate information to travelers.

Continue reading OPINION: Championing the power of passenger tracking for smarter, more profitable airports at Passenger Terminal Today.