How we rebooted the Belfast City Airport experience

What if you could make sure an airport never stopped?

"When you imagine what it takes to keep an airport running smoothly, you might not immediately think of connectivity. But it has a knock-on effect on so many things: security, passenger flow management, cross functional team collaboration, IoT connectivity and the customer experience – the list goes on. Since partnering with Virgin Media Business we no longer have to spend time and energy worrying about connectivity. Everything just works, which means we can focus on the things that matter. Our staff can get on with doing their jobs. Our passengers can take full advantage of the vital connectivity for business or pleasure ensuring their time in the airport is productive and enjoyable.”

The challenge

As one of Northern Ireland’s busiest airports Belfast City Airport serves two-and-a-half million passengers every year. Connectivity is absolutely critical to modern life, and for airport customers this is especially true, whether they’re there for business or leisure or even travelling students. It powers everything from the passenger experience to the way employees communicate with each other.

But with so many people using the network, the airport needed something that could cope with huge and fluctuating demand. We partnered with the team on-site to design and implement a 360-degree connectivity solution that would allow staff and passengers to stay connected all day, every day, wherever they happen to be.

Our role

After consulting with the business and technical teams at the airport to determine exactly what they needed, we worked with them to implement a Cisco Meraki hardware and software solution, supported by high-speed dedicated internet access (DIA).

With the help of our technology and expertise, the airport’s IT team was able to rapidly deploy improved WiFi across the premises. The service included seamless firmware upgrades to remove any vulnerabilities in the network and make sure every device is always secure.

Virgin Media Business' superfast DIA gave the airport the speed and reliability they needed to keep everything and everyone in the airport connected at all times, whatever the demand.

Results

Belfast City Airport has already seen a huge improvement in the passenger experience.

Thanks to improved connectivity, for example, the wait times at security have reduced significantly, to 6 mins, the fastest in the UK.

The connected Airfield Operations team makes sure that BCA remains the most punctual airport in the UK.This means passenger spend much less ‘dead time’ standing in queues, or being delayed, which improves the business and leisure travellers experience.

As we’ve enabled free WiFi for passengers, those freed-up hours become even more productive and valuable. People going on holiday can look up the best place to eat when they get there. People travelling for business can get that last bit of work done. Everyone gets to use their time more wisely.