London Heathrow Airport has announced a partnership with Copenhagen Optimization to integrate the cloud-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) application, Better Airport. The Better Airport solution has been designed to optimise the planning, execution and evaluation of airport operations.
Heathrow has selected the solution following a one-month trial period with Better Airport’s security, check-in, and baggage modules implemented across the airport. After the trial period, Copenhagen Optimization and Heathrow identified a list of possible enhancements to the software to match the complex operation at the airport.
“The really exciting part of this solution roll-out is that Heathrow is future proofing and professionalising their entire planning process across all of security, baggage and check-in,” says Kasper Hounsgaard, Managing Partner at Copenhagen Optimization. “Better Airport passed the test in one of the most complex airport operations in the world. We already have a solid base to build on and are looking forward to the partnership with Heathrow.
“With Better Airport, the skilled planning team at Heathrow can optimise and automate their current planning processes, including the ability to quantify any what-if scenarios with hard numbers, which will lead to better resource allocation and higher cost savings. Heathrow is ready for significant future growth.”
As Heathrow Airport is expecting to see 78 million passengers in 2018 and to expand capacity to 130 million passengers per year in the coming years, Copenhagen Optimization’s Better Airport will ensure the planning and decision making process is fully professionalised across all departments.
Mark Burgess, Head of Operational Planning, Performance & Transformation, Heathrow Airport, adds: “Our team have an overall strategy called Operate to Plan, in which we create a tactical plan about nine months out and continuously update it as we get new information. Better Airport allows us to make those updates automatically and in real-time based on continuously updated information.
“We are now able to make better informed operational decisions based on shared, common data. We are improving the check-in, security and baggage processes, and aligning the entire planning process across operations. This will allow us to decrease wait times and continue to improve operations and passenger experience, as we prepare for the future of airport experience.”
