The challenge
A key challenge for airports posed by the Olympic and Paralympic Games is managing the surges in passenger and baggage demand on peak days, in particular on the main departure day. The emphasis is on absolute preparedness to avoid negative impact on the operation and the airport’s reputation.
This means addressing all aspects of the operation, providing accurate capacity and resource planning, smooth processes and active management, robust security procedures, good passenger preparation and effective communication strategies for the end-to-end processes. To overcome capacity limiters airports have also employed strategies to complete some processing work in advance and therefore reduce the scale of the peak day task.
o&i consulting supported Sydney International Airport in 2000, Athens International Airport in 2004, and London Heathrow Airport in 2012 in the lead up to and during the Olympic and Paralympic Games in their respective Host Cities. We provided the airport companies with arrivals and departures logistics advice; operations planning, improvement and design expertise; process implementation and operations management skills.
Our role
Taking our work for Heathrow Airport as an example, o&i consulting supported the airport operator in providing a smooth, stress free arrivals and departures experience for thousands of Olympic and Paralympic passengers. Using our experience of supporting previous host airports, we provided operations planning, design, and operations management services to Heathrow Airport in the 2 year period leading up to and through the London 2012 Games.
The o&i team worked in partnership with Heathrow Airport, becoming fully integrated into its Olympic and Paralympic Planning team. We worked with multiple airport, airline and ground handler stakeholders as well as LOCOG (the London Olympic Games Organising Committee) to develop and test new baggage and passenger operating processes and create detailed operating plans for both the Games Terminal (a dedicated temporary terminal for the use of athletes and team officials) and the Athletes’ Village Remote Check-in Operations. Members of the o&i team also took on key roles in managing these operations and engaged specialists from our team to deliver functional, operational and leadership expertise.
Together with stakeholders, we assessed the options for Heathrow to develop sufficient capacity to process increased demand during the Olympic period, without negatively impacting business-as-usual passengers, whilst delivering high levels of customer service and a unique experience to its passengers.
A key element of our final Olympics processing solution for Heathrow was creating an innovative, secure check-in solution for a unique set of circumstances: complex planning parameters, restricted resources, unfamiliar facilities and many risks. It was necessary to provide the capacity to manage a high volume of additional passengers and bags on peak departure days, while continuing normal operations and meeting service and security expectations.
We created a process that involved segregating the athletes and their baggage from the business as usual activity in the terminals. This was achieved by developing a remote check-in operation at athletes’ accommodation within the Olympic Village and designing a temporary, dedicated Games Terminal to screen Olympic passengers and their hand baggage. As part of this unique solution, a logistics operation was designed and managed to securely pick up and transfer hold baggage from the Athletes’ Village to a logistics facility at Heathrow, and then inject it into the baggage system for screening at off-peak times to avoid congestion.
The Outcome
Overall the solution was successful in creating additional, temporary capacity for very high volumes of passengers, with tight security requirements, in exceptional circumstances. By managing the timing of arrival of passengers and baggage from the Athletes’ Village, it was possible to avoid peaks in demand that would have otherwise congested the airport.
The airport was therefore able to continue to provide a high level of service within its business as usual operations, while creating a unique, memorable airport experience for thousands of Olympic and Paralympic athletes.
