Airports Company embraces tech to enhance services
by AKANI CHAUKE
JOHANNESBURG – THE Airports Company South Africa (ACSA) is making the most of technology to enhance customer experience and security across its airport network.
A number of projects and initiatives are currently in the pipeline.
Mthokozisi Mncwabe, ACSA Chief Information Officer, said the organisation has a number of initiatives that will harness the power of artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics to drive self-service functionality through the various touch points at ACSA’s airports.
“For example, we are looking to introduce robotics to enhance the customer experience in line with a global trend that is seeing increased use of this technology for the delivery of retail and food and beverage services at airports,” he added.
Similarly, ACSA is also looking to introduce a biometrics-driven border control system in a project that is being completed jointly with the Department of Home Affairs.
The project will focus on security processing systems that use facial recognition capabilities or biometric information embedded in a bar code in each passenger’s passport.
Mncwabe explained that one of the flagship projects that ACSA is working on is a R150 million initiative with Microsoft to create a personalized customer experience, by leveraging technology to get to know its customers.
“We are looking to create a platform that will integrate all the various customer services that currently operate in silos. We want to use this platform to bring them altogether into one user interface,” he said.
Cyber security plays an integral part in ACSA’s technology drive, with the company having adopted a zero trust architecture approach, leveraging existing investments and adopting a cyber security mesh architecture.
“Unfortunately, cyber security is always a game of catch-up as hackers are dedicated and committed to constantly finding and exploiting new vulnerabilities. The cyber threat landscape continues to evolve in sophistication and frequency of attack, so it is impossible to always defend against malicious activity,” said Mncwabe.
– CAJ News
