KLM Airlines - Airport Wayfinding

For an Airline, it’s important to have as few missing passengers and missed connections as possible. If a passenger cannot find the gate or is stuck in security and cannot get to the gate on time. His baggage has to be offloaded off the plane. This means that ground personnel has to crawl into the containers holding the baggage and find the individual suitcase. This can take up to 20 minutes. The result is that other passengers might not make their connecting flights and the plane burns extra fuel trying to make up for the lost time.

Therefore, helping passengers navigate the airport by helping them find their way to their lounge, point of interest, but especially to their departing gate, is important.

From a technology perspective especially finding a good solution for Indoor Location was the most challenging part. We started off with Beacons with turned out to be a very unreliable solution. We experimented with dead reckoning solutions but eventually, we found Apple core location – if the Airport has been “fingerprinted” – to be the most reliable solution for iOS.

Today, there are currently 28 Airport maps available in the KLM app, AirFrance app and the apps that are used by ground and flying personnel of both brands.

The feature shows your own location on the Airport map, your departing gate. And search results are filtered based on the distance to your own location. It’s interesting to see that most passengers have the most trouble finding the smoking areas and the lounges.

Building this fundamental product first opened up a wide range of possibilities and features around Airport wayfinding and the location of passengers.

Role: Product Strategy, Product Management
Dates: 2015 - 2019
Employer: KLM Airlines