Gatwick CIO plans to harness big data and make airport 'the Uber of aviation'

Analysis of customer data is leading to new and improved products and services, says Michael Ibbitson

Gatwick Airport is developing a new service that it claims will be the "Uber of air travel", after analysing big data and determining that it's something that passengers want.

That's according to Gatwick Airport chief information officer Michael Ibbitson, who was speaking at WANdisco's Big Data Breakfast event at London's City Hall. Ibbitson has previously discussed his enthusiasm for data and analytics in an interview with Computing, with the airport harnessing big data to provide passengers with the best service possible.

And the Gatwick CIO signalled that he intends to keep basing strategy on big data, detailing how, thanks to analysis of passenger data, the airport is preparing to offer an entirely new service for flight transfers.

"Gatwick has over 200 destinations served - compared to 185 for Heathrow - and if you add to that the railway station, we have a huge transportation hub," Ibbitson explained.

"However, we don't have one of the major alliances operating out of Gatwick, but does that mean people aren't transferring? We suspected that wasn't the case."

Ibbitson described how passengers were asked about their flight plans and whether they were using Gatwick to transfer by purchasing a single ticket to the airport then using another single to get to their destination.

"To our surprise, there were far more people than we ever imagined doing it," he said. "The reason they're doing it is because they're smart consumers and they find two flights that are cheaper via Gatwick than a through flight by one of the alliances through Heathrow."

Ibbitson told the audience how Gatwick Airport therefore examined search data to determine how people were going about booking these self-connected flights.

"We used a data analytics lab and brought our data about what we knew the passengers were doing themselves and we brought their search data and compared the two sets to see what the potential market might be and how those two datasets were put together."

Ibbitson described how the data showed that many of these self-connected routes weren't covered by what people were searching for, thus leaving a gaping hole in the market.

"To our great surprise, the top 10 destinations that were regularly flown by people who were finding these self-connections, as we call them, were not the same as the ones people were searching for and then not being able to book," he said.

"That led us to believe there's definitely a much bigger market out there if we can create a product where the airport plays the role that guarantees the connection, rather than the airline."

The data analysis has therefore directly led to Gatwick Airport looking to offer a new service to its passengers, one that it believes will provide flyers with previously difficult to obtain options and alternatives.

"Over the next year or two, you'll see a product called Gatwick Connect come to the fore which will have its own search capability and a single ticket booking which will allow you to connect through Gatwick without using the traditional airlines," said Ibbitson, who suggested Gatwick Connect will revolutionise air travel in the same way Uber has changed booking a taxi.

"This will break apart some of the monopoly environments that have been created around the big alliances and it'll really start to challenge the aviation market in very similar ways to which Uber has started to challenge the [taxi] market."

The idea, he continued, is to eventually add train journeys to the service, which will provide passengers with "a single ticket booking on the train from anywhere in the UK to Gatwick, then onward on an aircraft".

Ibbitson believes analytics is the key to simplifying air travel.

"We really believe that this type of product and this type of market is very much the future of aviation and the way that people travel," he said.

"We call this entire journey postcode-to-postcode travel. There are lots of ways in which data and the analytics of that data can be used to change the travel industry for the better," Ibbitson concluded.

Earlier in the day, NHS national director for patients and information Tim Kelsey also stressed the importance of big data and analytics, telling the audience that 2015 will be the year big data goes big in the health service.