Making the journey through the gates as comfortable as possible
Apart from frequent flyers, most passengers visit Brussels Airport only once or twice a year. Navigating the airport can be tricky and leaving for a vacation or a last-minute business trip can be overwhelming. As Brussels Airport (BAC) consists of a large group of companies (airlines, retailers, vending), they have no direct contact with passengers as such. The goal is to enable exactly that, keeping the airport attractive and the journey through the gates as comfortable as possible.
The Airport Flight Planner
Before we started, we did our homework. We analysed the user behaviour in the airport’s previous app, which gave us the data to rethink the concept from a user’s perspective. Thorough research & numerous iterations, resulted in a clean intuitive design, which makes complex tasks simple for the airport visitor. Plan your trip from door to gate, track your flight and organise your stay at the airport. The Brussels Airport app provides you all the relevant info to board your plane while leaving stress at home (or even without stress).
- The app allows you to track specific flights, receive updates through push notifications, stay up-to-date with actual waiting times at security or find out about last minute gate changes.
- No more searching for the right check-in row, simply scan your ticket to add a flight and you will receive push notifications when it’s time to board
- Waiting to board? The shop & dine section is without a doubt your buddy during your stay at the airport. Together with the overview of the shops, restaurants & bars, you can check out the vouchers and deals for one of the delicious meals the restaurants provide.
- Find the cheapest parking rate with our ultra handy parking widget or map out your public transport itinerary from your front door to the gate.
150 beacons throughout the airport
The context aware app can inform passengers on 3 different dimensions: flight, time and location. We've installed over 150 minutely calibrated beacons at entrances, check-ins, screenings, shops and gates across the airport. They push information to the Brussels Airport app on a traveler’s smartphone, based on his exact location. To communicate with travellers, the beacons activate interactions at the exact right moment and place: the feature showing the queue time at the check-in disappears immediately as that check-in is passed. So the contextual feed updates and changes constantly, avoiding unnecessary or outdated info for each and every visitor. Notifications are only pushed when the gates open. Still got 2 hours to go? You will get info on shops and retailers on your route through the airport. In a hurry? The app will show you how long it will take to get to your gate
Through our beacon platform Harald, Brussel Airport gets an overview of their beacon campaigns, the interaction rate and the overall data. It allows them to analyze their customer behaviour (such as passenger flows, heat maps and dwelling times) in a more efficient and direct way. It also enables them to send customers relevant contextual information such as vouchers, in-store coupons, boarding time or gates changes at the right time.
Triple win
This way, we created a win-win-win for Brussels Airport Company:
- An operational win: passengers arrive on time
- A commercial win: passengers are at ease and can use their remaining time to shop.
- A customer plus: travellers are informed step-by-step, making the trip a lot more enjoyable.
The results
In 2016, 157,000 travellers used the Brussels Airport app to plan their trip. The beacon campaign reached an average click-through rate of 6% for commercial promotions (the benchmark for mobile advertising CTR is 0.4%).
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