But with translation services advancing so quickly, we could be close to eliminating one very obvious source of passenger confusion. It may never be possible to remove airport stress entirely. “We also envisage next-gen parallel reality displays that will show custom messages to multiple travellers simultaneously and translate information passengers are viewing to their native language.” “We see an opportunity for other new technologies on the horizon that could potentially use augmented reality embedded in smartphones,” he says. What’s more, he doesn’t think this will be the final word in airport translation services. “A great opportunity would be to implement this technology in Japan prior to the upcoming 2020 Summer Olympics.” “Passengers travelling through JFK Terminal 4 have been delighted to use the Google Interpreter Mode at the information desks located within the terminal and we see this as a new expectation of the passenger,” he says. Tukavkin thinks others will soon follow suit, recognising the potentialthe technology holds to boost their passenger experience. While JFKIAT may be the only airport to use Interpreter Mode for now, it is unlikely to be the last. “Another example of utilising innovation in the terminal was with the introduction of Aira in May 2019, where travellers who are blind or have low vision can use Aira’s visual interpretation service to access live agents on demand for assistance when navigating the terminal,” says Tukavkin. Over the past few years, the terminal has introduced biometric boarding, launched a cutting-edge Security Operations Center and welcomed CLEAR, which enables passengers to confirm their identity with the blink of an eye. “Now, we are aiming to be more in the lead by having the ability to tap into New York City’s Innovation Hub that includes many innovative technology organisations like Google.” “In the past, our ambition was to be a smart technology follower by introducing technology that was trialled and tested elsewhere,” says Tukavkin.
AIR IN TRAINSLATION TRIAL
Since JFKIAT is the only privately operated terminal in the US (it is owned by Schiphol USA, a US affiliate of the Amsterdam-based Royal Schiphol Group), it has the agility and flexibility to trial these kinds of technologies very quickly. “The technology offers real-time language translation to our passengers for 29 different languages including Arabic, French, German, Japanese, Russian, Spanish and Vietnamese.” “JFKIAT partnered with Google to adopt the Google Assistant’s Interpreter Mode technology using Google Nest Hub technology within JFK Terminal 4 with the aim to reduce language barriers for international travellers,” he explains. At JFKIAT (the private operator of New York’s JFK Airport Terminal 4), his team saw an opportunity to solve the problem. The issue, he says, is that these types of airport initiatives can be complex to manage and difficult to staff. “Passengers have relied on using technology on their smartphones, such as Google Translate.” “Some of these include multilingual information desk staff, multilingual flight information displays, and wayfinding,” he says. Airport translation services are a must.Īs Steve Tukavkin, vice president of IT & Digital for JFK International Air Terminal (JFKIAT) explains, airports have historically used several different services for this purpose. In other words, we’ll see more Chinese, Indian and Indonesian travellers navigating foreign airports, and more foreign travellers navigating Asian ones. According to IATA, we are seeing ‘a geographic reshuffling of world air traffic to the East’, with the Asia-Pacific region driving most of the growth in passenger numbers.
These challenges are set to become more prevalent as passenger numbers grow and their demographics become more diverse. And if you don’t understand the airport announcements, you may struggle when there’s a delay or change of gate. If you can’t make sense of the signage, it’s easy to get lost. These stresses, while universal to some extent, are magnified for those who don’t speak the local language.
AIR IN TRAINSLATION HOW TO
As well as dealing with potential queues, delays, crowds and cancellations, passengers need to work out how to navigate an unfamiliar space and board their flight within a narrow time window. Airports can be stressful environments at the best of times.
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