There’s no place like house…there’s no place like house. There’s no place like house.
I closed my eyes and clicked my heels collectively 3 times and once I opened them, I used to be nonetheless caught on the gate together with just a few thousand different weary vacationers at New York’s LaGuardia airport.
My flight, together with what appeared like 80% of the opposite departing flights on the display screen had been canceled. It was half-hour earlier than takeoff and like the remainder of the annoyed passengers, I debated whether or not to face within the lengthy line on the counter or name the airline and hope to get via. I made a decision to do each whereas my spouse tried to seek out one of many final remaining resort rooms in Queens as we reluctantly started to just accept our destiny.
It wouldn’t have been so unhealthy besides that the identical factor had occurred to me the week earlier than in Detroit. My 9 p.m. flight ended up taking off at 2 a.m. Our aircraft was sitting on the tarmac able to go, however there have been no pilots obtainable to fly it. The airport eating places had closed, so I ate some Tic Tacs for dinner and handed the time taking part in Phrases with Buddies whereas many of the different passengers tried to get an excellent evening’s sleep on the ground.
What’s occurred to air journey? It’s by no means been what anybody would name “enjoyable” however between pent-up pandemic demand, labor shortages, and unhealthy climate, flying the pleasant skies has turn out to be some of the unfriendly experiences you possibly can have.
As I sat in my resort room making an attempt to determine how I used to be going to get house, my nerdy thoughts started to marvel if there have been any tech options to this worldwide air journey downside. Certainly, I assumed, with all the trendy know-how there have to be a greater approach.
Because it seems, there’s.
The “sensible airports” of the longer term will (hopefully) be fully completely different from what we have now at the moment.
Many of the up-and-coming sensible airport applied sciences concentrate on lowering the time spent standing in traces, lowering the variety of delays and last-minute cancellations, and making air journey extra predictable.
Think about a courier service (or in the future a drone) that picks up your baggage at your home just a few hours earlier than your flight and a baggage monitoring system that means that you can pull up a cellular app that tracks the situation of your baggage in real-time. Or image a safety examine and boarding course of that makes use of AI (synthetic intelligence) and facial recognition know-how to hurry up the method of getting via TSA and getting everybody on the aircraft.
Automated runway snowplows, self-driving baggage loading vans, and even robotic automobile parking methods are within the works. Predictive analytics that anticipate delays and cancellations earlier than they occur, automated ramps that connect with the aircraft as quickly because it will get to the gate—the listing goes on.
Identical to the reworking tasks we see at many airports across the nation (LaGuardia was truly very nice), implementing these applied sciences will take time. Balancing prices, privateness, and safety issues is not going to be simple. However as I sat there in my resort room drained and annoyed, I couldn’t assist however suppose the funding could be nicely price it for the billions of passengers that can undergo airports worldwide every year.
Once we lastly acquired house a day later, I figured that with my bout of unhealthy luck I used to be due for some good luck the following time I traveled. Nicely…sadly I figured improper. To be continued…
JJ Rosen is the founding father of Atiba. A Nashville customized software program improvement and IT assist firm. Go to www.atiba.com or www.atibanetworkservices.com for more information.