Heathrow airport is the UK’s only hub airport and the best-connected airport in the world. It handles over 450,000 flights annually, serves 89 airlines, enables transport of 1.43 million tonnes of cargo annually, provides employment opportunities for 92,000 people and this year is set to welcome over 82 million passengers. Its mission is ‘Making every journey better’ providing leading travel and trade connections to passengers and delivering on its vision ‘To be an extraordinary airport fit for the future.’
The scale and complexity of Heathrow’s operations means that it has worked with trusted partners for many years, leveraging specialist expertise where it is needed. Redcentric has been working with the Heathrow team for over 20 years, delivering projects on its Azure platform to support ‘the digital experience’ for its workforce and its customer.
Complex requirements with many touchpoints – Digital projects support two key types of customers: passengers and airlines. An ecosystem of partners help
to create an exceptional customer experience: surface access, travel operators, property, and parking facilities, as well as retail and hospitality, all of which need secure access to different datasets within Heathrow’s systems.
Seamless digital experience – Heathrow aims to create a frictionless digital experience for anyone logging into its services and apps. Common to all projects is the need to work as a tightly knit team with other technology partners, sharing expertise, and collaborating to ensure that systems can interact with each other.
The Redcentric team provides Azure expertise and works within a dedicated development team for commercial systems, while also collaborating with Heathrow’s technology partners. Key to the successful working relationship is the longevity of Redcentric’s engagement with Heathrow and the ability to leverage knowledge of Heathrow’s ecosystem to deliver successful projects.
Development: The team delivers new systems and continuous improvement of existing commercial systems. Development projects are managed using a disciplined agile methodology structured within the project quality process.
Managed services: DevOps based support includes 24/7/365 monitoring and support and an ‘Evergreen’ project allowance to draw down resource which enable changes driven by the Azure roadmap to be resourced.
Alignment with Heathrow’s ‘foundations’: Heathrow relies on the Redcentric team to deliver the quality of coding, adherence to best practice, security and assurance which aligns with Heathrow’s guiding foundations of excellence in ‘Safety, Security and Compliance’, ‘Service and Operations ‘, and ‘Governance and Financial Resilience’.
To create pace within digital, you need people who understand the interfaces into the different systems and the roles they play as part of our ecosystem. We value the continuity of our relationship with Redcentric. We know we can trust them and that they will do the right thing for Heathrow.
Passenger Information Hub – Ensuring passengers have vital information to plan and inform their journeys. This entailed delivering API feeds of passenger focussed data to internal and 3rd party systems including web, app and digital signage.
Operational Information Hub – A project to serve B2B data to airline customers.
Enterprise search – A search solution for heathrow.com and Heathrow Boutique using Azure Cognitive Search, enabling passengers to find relevant information and search for it quickly.
Azure Virtual Desktop – Provided a tailored virtual desktop with a view into the Heathrow network for suppliers to login and securely access relevant data.
Security Tap-In-Tap-Out – Enabled monitoring of the attendance and availability of security staff.
Common Azure Data Integration Service – For services where data integration is required, this created a secure layer to give users access to relevant data.
“The team has all the Azure skills and expertise we expect, but more importantly Redcentric understands how we work, the quality and the standards required, and it can pull systems together to deliver services which contribute to the Heathrow ‘digital experience’.”
The ecosystem of partners we work with is key to us being able to deliver successful projects. Redcentric works very closely with Heathrow; we have relationships at all levels of the organisation from the developers right through to senior leadership.”
Enhanced operational efficiency: Heathrow has seen significant improvements in the operational efficiency of its digital platforms. The seamless integration of services such as the main website, parking systems, Heathrow Boutique, and loyalty programmes has been facilitated by backend solutions generating efficiencies.
Robust data security and compliance: Secure, compliant, and reliable digital solutions protect sensitive passenger and operational data, contributing to overall governance and financial resilience.
Scalable digital infrastructure: Scalability is crucial for handling the high number of passengers and flights and for the airport’s vision of future growth and expansion.
Sustainability initiatives: Digital systems help optimise resource allocation and enhance the efficiency of airport operations.
Improved customer experience: Passengers and airlines benefit from a range of digital touchpoints that make navigating the airport and accessing services easy; the Passenger Information Hub provides real-time data on flight updates and other passenger data.
Personalised services: A new loyalty platform and other personalised services offer tailored experiences to passengers increasing satisfaction and loyalty.
Enhanced accessibility and mobility: Secure single sign-on simplifies how customers interact with Heathrow’s services online, whether it’s booking parking or querying customer service. This ease of access improves the mobility of passengers within the airport, contributing to a smoother travel experience.
Data-driven decision making: The operational information hub provides data filtered according to end user needs for B2B use, for example for airline customers.
Community and stakeholder engagement: Digital enhancements also foster better communication with local communities and stakeholders, upholding its commitment to improving local and global connectivity
Working with Redcentric has meant Heathrow Airport has enhanced its operational capabilities and passenger services, and has a partner who can help it with its digital strategy, so that it can pursue its goal of being ‘an exceptional airport fit for the future’.
“We value Redcentric because the team understand what we are trying to achieve at Heathrow, and how we work with our partners. For us, it’s all about creating that winning team which allows us to be fast and focused, so that we can pursue our digital strategy.”
