Airport surface access and mobile apps

Abstract

Purpose: Airport Surface Access faces two main opposite issues: (1) cars, being the main transport mode, contribute to the increasing level of congestion and pollution of cities; and (2) simultaneously, parking fees are one important source of airports commercial revenue, creating a dilemma for airports when facing the problem. Following the recent trend of air passengers travelling with Smartphone (78% in 2013), the purpose of this paper is to monitor the adoption of mobile Applications (Apps) by airports and to analyze if the information and functions provided in those Apps can help to overcome the above two issues. Design/methodology: 31 iPhone App of some of the largest European airports were evaluated in the lab using the evaluation model of Destinations Mobile Applications (Scolari & Fernández-Cavia, 2014) adapted for the Airport Surface Access on Airport Apps. Findings: The Apps evaluated provided a very limited functionality to help passengers to plan and book their trips to/from the airports on public transports and gave high priority to parking information and services. Originality/value: Although Airport Surface Access has been a widely researched, the originality of this paper is the analysis of airport mobile Apps as a potential tool for airports to deal with the surface airport access problems.