IoT to improve Charleroi Airport passenger experience in new partnership

Brussels South Charleroi Airport SA (BSCA) and Telenet Group SPRL have announced the signing of a strategic partnership on the Internet of Things (IoT). 

The five-year collaboration aims to make Charleroi Airport a true “digital dome”. Its main objective is to optimise the operation of the airport and improve the passenger experience from home to the boarding gate, thanks to digital solutions such as smart parking, network optimisation Wi-Fi offered to the public and analysis of visitor location data.

BSCA, the second largest airport in Belgium, has seen rapid growth in passenger numbers over the last few years and the new partnership aims to improve the customer experience.

The partnership will initially focus on two solutions: analysis of passenger flows and a smart and connected parking system. 

The former will come as BSCA and Telenet will develop a solution for mapping and analysing passenger and visitor flows that will enable BSCA to better understand, manage, monetise and improve public movements in the airport.

Telenet will initially improve the Wi-Fi network at the airport and will then make available to BSCA the location data of its visitors. BSCA will then be able to study their travels in order to optimise the organisation of the airport, offer them personalised services and guide them throughout their journey. Telenet hopes to finalise the improvement of the Wi-Fi network and make the first data available to the airport during 2019.

The latter, will provide a system wherein booking and paying for an online slot via the app is available. Smart cameras will then automatically recognise the license plate at the entrance of the car park, while sensors connected via the Telenet NB-IoT network will indicate the remaining spaces. A first batch of 500 places should be made available via this new system in the summer of  2019.

The ambitions of the partnership will not be limited to these two solutions, however. The objective is indeed to continue the development of IoT solutions on the BSCA site as well as to enrich the Charleroi Airport application.

Jean-Jacques Cloquet, CEO of BSCA, said: “We are delighted to have concluded this partnership with Telenet. With this, we are at the dawn of a new era in technology, with the goal of improving passenger service. It is important for us to facilitate the journey of people passing through our facilities and we can now, thanks to Telenet, help them from home to the plane. Becoming a connected airport was one of our priorities and we now have the foundation stone to build the BSCA digital dome for a more enjoyable passenger experience.” 

John Porter, CEO of Telenet, added: “We are very pleased to be able to contribute to the development of an economic hub such as Charleroi Airport. Telenet is already a major telecom operator in Wallonia, but we hope that this strategic partnership will serve as a showcase for our technological expertise, and as a starting point for launching new collaborations, both with private companies and with local authorities.”