Chatbots talk passengers’ language

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Martin Courtney considers how artificial intelligence, instant messaging, chatbots and virtual reality are edging into the aviation technology ecosystem

Mobile devices such as smartpho nes, tablets and even smartwatches play an increasingly pivotal role in the air passenger’s journey, all the way from bookings and payments to boarding procedures and baggage claim.

Dutch airline KLM estimates that 60% of all the visits to its website are currently initiated from a mobile device, and expects that in another few years that will be 100%. At that point, air passengers are likely be much more demanding in the way that they expect airlines, airports and baggage handlers to communicate with them, and those companies will have to move quickly to identify and adopt new technology platforms to keep passengers satisfied.

KLM chief executive Pieter Elbers does not believe that a mobile app is the best way to engage those customers using such devices in the future, for example. Rather it is about keeping in touch with customers in real time through instant messaging and communications platforms.

“Look at the amount of time people in China spend on WebChat and other platforms. We have stepped up so people can do bookings, check-ins, even payments [that way],” he says. “Rather than convincing millions of Chinese to recognise a small company in Europe, we move to where they are – WhatsApp, Twitter etc; we need to reach out to that [younger] generation.”

Customer experience enhanced: AI and chatbots

Better, faster communication is a key route to improving the customer experience, and the increasing use of automated chatbots driven by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning shows that the implementation of innovative technology does not need to be expensive.

Bobby Healy is chief technology officer at CarTrawler, a company which has developed an online reservation and revenue reporting platform that links airlines with car hire companies and rail operators to deliver joined-up travel experiences for their respective customers (current clients include Air Asia, Emirates, Ryanair Car Hire and JetBlue).

The company makes good use of AI and analytics to provide integrated automated chat messaging in its web and desktop applications and mobile services, recently claiming to have reduced its email handling time from 400 to 20 seconds using an AI chatbot dubbed RoNNy.

“AI has only become available in the last couple of years and now you have software toolkits to help you with natural language processing and speech to text,” says Healy. “The next three to five years should be about airlines improving margins by making better use of this type of technology.”

Finnair also launched an AI chatbot, Finn, to help customers book flights and access travel information in September this year. Contactable via Facebook, Finn can sell flights, tell customers if flights are on time, calculate how much baggage can be taken and redirect customers to the ‘Manage My Booking’ page if needed.

The chatbot constantly updates itself via machine learning. So whilst Finn is able to answer frequently asked questions based on a database of previous enquiries, it passes a message on to a customer service agent when it is unable to formulate a meaningful response. The result is a considerable reduction in call centre operating costs for airlines, as staff have fewer enquiries to handle.

“It is a question of whether airlines can do it for themselves or wait for somebody else to do it first,” adds Healy.

“The data on the customer is far richer if you know their location so all that terrible stuff about travel can be eased with an app that allows airlines to bypass intermediaries and do a better job of managing the customer relationship compared to Google Flights or whatever.”

Amadeus, too, has started to embed AI and machine learning into its digital solutions. It has already implemented the technology into its flight disruption management systems and is looking at ways to use AI-based natural language processing to improve travellers’ shopping experience by analysing location, time and language data with age and interests to customise relevant offers.

Real-time data for baggage handlers

KLM is keen to push technology further down the stack into every aspect of airport operations, including the ramp. Elbers is currently encouraging ground handling companies to use tablet computers, for example, although he admits to encountering some resistance to change as people and companies stick with the old way of doing things.

The people who know best what goes wrong in luggage handling are the people who do it every day; iPads enable them to monitor the process, he says. However there is still some way to go; in order to really take hold, the idea “requires a change in culture because it can be challenging for people who have been working a job in the same way for a long time”.

KLM is also trialling a digital studio, a place where staff can experiment with technology such as virtual reality (VR) for cabin crew training, emergency response exercises and hangar evacuation drills.

“If you do that with VR you get a very different experience and do not have to shut down the hangar,” Elbers points out.

The concept of providing instant, real-time information to the ramp is being taken one step further at Changi Airport in Singapore. Ground handling company SATS is to issue 600 of its staff with smart glasses that use embedded augmented reality (AR) to deliver loading instructions. The Vuzix M300 smart glasses will be phased in gradually over the next nine months, and allow ramp workers to scan visual markers such as QR codes on baggage and cargo containers. SATS estimates the new baggage handling process will shave up to 15 minutes off the operation per flight.

Security concerns and infrastructure upgrades

New technology inevitably brings new challenges, not least of which is how to protect the data that is stored, transmitted and processed from loss, theft or corruption. Whilst the airline industry has not yet fallen victim to the large-scale cyber attacks suffered in other industries, the data breach at US credit monitoring firm Equifax (which involved private and financial deals of up to 143 million American consumers) highlights the perils companies face in preventing information falling into the wrong hands.

Several North American airlines alerted customers and employees about cyber security incidents in 2017, including Virgin America, which detected unauthorised access to systems containing the data of up to 3,100 employees and contractors in March. In July Canada-based WestJet Airlines warned customers that an unauthorised third party had leaked some of its WestJet Rewards member profile data, whilst Ukraine’s largest airport was just one of the many organisations to be affected by the Petya ransomware attack in June.

“The risks are becoming more sophisticated and challenging in aviation operations with new airports, connected aircraft and stakeholders doing everything they can to keep up with IT-savvy passengers,” remarks Georges de Moura, head of group information security, risk and compliance, technology and innovation at Etihad Airways. “We need to keep up with change but also enhance security and safety.

“The aviation industry is very well prepared on physical security but not on cyber security. It varies depending on the airline but there is room for improvement and it is a matter of focussing on the highest areas of risk and tackling those first,” he says.

Etihad has invested heavily in a cyber security programme over the last few years, beefing up its perimeter network security defences to protect users and guests and using analytics to predict cyber threats and identify vulnerabilities in its systems. It has worked to align its data protection requirements with regional privacy and compliance legislation and tighten up cyber security tools and policies along the length of its supply chain.

“Just because you have transferred data to a third party cloud service provider does not mean you should not be controlling it,” de Moura warns. “You need to implement technology to monitor the traffic going in and out of those clouds, and safeguard the data at rest and in transit with encryption.”

IoT leads the way

Another source of mission-critical data that airlines, airports and ground handling companies can use to significant advantage comes from millions of connected Internet of Things (IoT) devices embedded in multiple forms of equipment and components.

One company currently taking IoT connectivity to the next level is GE Aviation, which manufactures a range of engines, components and integrated systems for aircraft and has used IoT to great effect in its global service network.

GE has undergone a radical digital transformation in the last few years, including the construction of a secure end-to-end system that spans cloud-hosted infrastructure at one end and remote monitoring and diagnostic devices at the other. IoT sensors have increased the volume of data the company processes by around 300% as GE unifies its flight, fleet, network and airport operations, for example. All that information is put to good use in improved fault detection and predictive maintenance cycles that allow engineers to reduce costs and turn flights around much more quickly.

“What we see is a very interconnected problem and we cannot solve the bigger, more challenging parts unless we see how they all fit together,” says GE Aviation chief technology officer, John Dunsdon.

The breadth and complexity of that transformation has led GE to partner more than 400 different technology systems integrators, resellers, telcos, and other IT specialists, including Accenture, Capgemini, Cisco, Orange, Cognizant, ServiceNow, PwC, T-Systems, Infosys Dell, WiPro, HCL, Vodafone, BT, SoftBank, Microsoft, Intel, Oracle, Verizon, Huawei and HPE.

“This is not a one-year thing – we have been doing it for five or six already,” adds Dunsdon. “The industry is transforming; airlines like KLM and JetBlue are at the forefront, but others are sensibly watching and waiting. Airlines think they want to get more into retail and marketing but the operations side is another quantum leap and they need help with the transformation there.”

Wider use of IoT could bring significant benefits to airport operations, not least when it comes to baggage tracking, according to Susanne Schadler, global marketing manager, RAIN RFID logistics, smart mobility and retail at NXP Semiconductors.

“RFID is a proven solution in other markets, mostly retail, and has already been introduced by Delta on a global scale whilst others are doing pilots (Hong Kong Airlines and IATA),” she says. Although regarded as too expensive by many, Schadler points out that the cost of large-scale RFID tag deployments can be offset by a 25% reduction in baggage mishandling costs – currently estimated at around US$2.1 billion per year.

Short-range wireless technology has other potential uses too, if low-cost chips are embedded in other identity cards and tickets, for example.

“Airlines are already doing smart things like loyalty cards with tracking technology inside, but let’s think bigger,” she suggests. “We can give passengers secure identities that package all of those things together in one unit, have boarding cards integrated with public transport tickets and so on; there is so much added value there.”

Driving force

As ever, there is a delicate balance to be struck between maintaining legacy systems and minimising operational disruption whilst simultaneously identifying and experimenting with future technology to deliver business innovation and efficiency.

But what concerns Elbers more is the very real possibility that airline and airport staff will still be using outdated hardware, software and manual processes whilst their customers move to adopt new solutions at a much faster rate. To keep up with that pace, KLM believes technology development should not be owned by the IT department, but driven forward by the people that actually use it.

“Traditional organisational structures where one team is responsible for digital, and the rest of the team goes to them, do not work anymore,” Elbers says. “We have to share technology and have everybody use it to make it better.”

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