Genève Aéroport (GVA), the second busiest airport in Switzerland, has taken passenger experience and operational efficiency to higher levels.

To cater to growing passenger numbers, GVA improved the security checkpoint layout and increased the staff. In parallel, the decision was also taken to optimise the planning and performance evaluation of the security checkpoints with technology. The airport adopted Veovo’s Queue Management solution to optimise resource use and create operational and managerial visibility. With these measures, Genève Aéroport has reduced the average waiting time at security by 51% from 7 minutes to 3.5 minutes. Also, the airport has increased the number of days with satisfactory performance five fold. 

Using various sensors, the solution measures and analyses all the critical factors for queue development, such as real-time occupancy and dwell time measurements. The insights enable the airport to evaluate why the queue evolved and to analyse where to focus on improvements. It allows the airport to quickly pinpoint the drivers of poor performance, such as inaccurate forecasting or the lack of staff. It has enabled GVA to plan staffing patterns better and respond promptly and effectively to irregular operations and disruptions, preventing bottlenecks.

The improvements have enabled GVA to set new ambitious standards of service. Today the airport aims for 85% of all passengers to experience less than seven minutes of waiting time in the security process and for no passengers to be allowed to wait more than 20 minutes.

“The security planning organisation has been taken to new levels with accurate and trusted plans. This has allowed us to plan for the days ahead but also to make unique daily plans for a whole year in advance. This has significantly increased the quality of the budgeting and capacity planning.” says Ruben Jimenez, Head of Security at Genève Aéroport.

“Veovo has provided us with powerful tools which have allowed us to gain a good understanding of the security check-point dynamics. In combination with the operational experience of our security staff, we work in a more and more proactive way. And most importantly, our customers benefit directly by getting better service”.