Airports Company South Africa (Acsa) is on a major push to improve customer experience across its airport network through the use of technology. The organisation has announced that a number of projects and initiatives are currently in the pipeline.

Acsa CIO Mthokozisi Mncwabe said the need to digitalise the passenger experience, the airport environment and Acsa’s operational processes is a core strategic focus for the business.

As such, Acsa’s vision around technology supports its organisational strategy and is based on the following pillars: building digital infrastructure, improving the passenger and customer experience, digital innovation and how it will enrich the front-end customer experience, and cybersecurity.

“We are currently busy with a number of initiatives that will harness the power of artificial intelligence and robotics to drive self-service functionality through the various touch points at Acsa’s airports,” Mncwabe says.

“For example, we are looking to introduce robotics to enhance the customer experience in line with a global trend that is seeing increased use of this technology for the delivery of retail, food and beverage services at airports.”

Similarly, Acsa is also looking to introduce a biometrics-driven border control system in a project that is being completed jointly with the department of home affairs. The project will focus on security processing systems that use facial recognition capabilities or biometric information embedded in a bar code in each passenger’s passport.

Personalised customer experience

Mncwabe explains that one of the flagship projects that Acsa is working on is a R150-million initiative with Microsoft to create a personalised customer experience, by leveraging technology to get to know its customers.

“We are looking to create a platform that will integrate all the various customer services that currently operate in siloes. We want to use this platform to bring them all together into one user interface,” said Mncwabe. “The idea is that multiple services, such as booking a flight, a car or a hotel will be aggregated and accessed through a single platform and user interface.”

According to him, the project is dependent on the introduction of AI technology that will facilitate and assist with data analysis and personalisation, in line with the motto: “Know you better, serve you better.”

“We are engaging with a number of service providers to ultimately empower the customer by delivering a platform that is user friendly and easy to understand. We will also continue to strengthen digital integration across all of our operations to improve efficiency and enhance the experience of our airports for all stakeholders, especially passengers,” he said.

Cybersecurity plays integral role

He explained that cybersecurity plays an integral part in Acsa’s technology drive, with the company having adopted a zero-trust architecture approach, leveraging existing investments and adopting a cyber security mesh architecture.

“Unfortunately, cybersecurity is always a game of catch-up as hackers are dedicated and committed to constantly finding and exploiting new vulnerabilities. The cyber threat landscape continues to evolve in sophistication and frequency of attack, so it is impossible to always defend against malicious activity.

“However, in the very least, organisations must ensure that their security systems are robust and up to date in terms of the latest security patches. It is important to note that Acsa has significantly improved its cyber and information security maturity by focusing on people, processes and technology.”

Cybersecurity is always a game of catch-up as hackers are dedicated and committed to constantly finding and exploiting new vulnerabilities

He added that the key objective of Acsa’s strategy is to adopt and leverage appropriate technology in order to enhance the customer experience and operational efficiency while simultaneously protecting its systems and information.

“Our IT capabilities are intended to support our value creation process through the delivery of a consistently positive customer experience, paperless travel, automated cost management, greater efficiency, revenue diversification and, ultimately, business growth,” he concluded.