Wellington Airport gains flexibility through adoption of Amadeus Cloud solution
Last week, Wellington Airport moved to Amadeus’ Airport Cloud Use Service (ACUS).
Before, airline agents at the airport used on-site systems comprised of local servers and energy intensive workstations. This required on-site technicians and acted as an economic and environmental drain. The transition to ACUS simplified how the agents access airline systems.
The system hosts airline applications on regional cloud infrastructure as opposed to local servers within the airport’s own mini-data centre. This has allowed Wellington Airport to completely remove ten of its own servers.
Jeremy Burrows, Wellington Airport’s Head of Technology said:
“With Amadeus’ Airport Cloud Use Service (ACUS), airline staff can now log on to access any airline system they need for check-in and boarding. It means we’ve been able to retire 37 traditional workstations and ten servers, replacing them with modern thin clients which are ten times more energy efficient. It’s good for our bottom-line and for the planet to be greatly reducing our energy consumption like this.
Airline agents have seen an increase in speed and responsiveness with ACUS in comparison to the previous solution, and it’s easy for our team to maintain. It also provides greater flexibility to provide passenger services in different locations quickly and easily if needed. For example, if there was a natural disaster all we need is power and an internet connection to operate rather than bulky physical infrastructure.”
Thin-client devices are simple, low-power, computers that provide an interface to the cloud, where computing tasks are undertaken by more efficient servers.
Currently with the Amadeus system, agents can offer a personalised service to passengers at check-in and boarding when flying on six airlines at Wellington including Qantas, Jetstar, and Fiji Airways. The service will eventually be scaled up to support all airlines flying from the airport.
Wellington Airport are also now considering introducing off-airport check-in and bag collection services with the flexibility that the cloud offers. One example given was placing agents at major sporting events including the 2023 FIA Women’s World Cup to check in passengers in away from the airport, reducing the potential for queues and improving the passenger experience.
Sarah Samuel, Senior Vice President of Airport and Airline Operations, APAC, Amadeus said:
“Wellington Airport needed to move to a new system extremely quickly during a period when the world faced considerable uncertainty in global hardware supply chains. The tight deadline underlines how the cloud supports more flexible passenger services, as agents can deliver an outstanding service anywhere they have an internet connection.”
