Aberdeen International Airport

A personalised Digital Experience

Aberdeen International Airport (AIA) is best known for being the gateway to Europe’s energy capital, serving more than three million travellers a year. It serves a wide range of international and national destinations to its passengers via chartered and scheduled flights. Having split from Heathrow Airport Holdings, AIA has a fresh outlook and is going from strength to strength with increasing passenger numbers year on year.

Aberdeen Airport live flight

The Brief

KMP were engaged to deliver a 3 phase project for Aberdeen. Our mission was to create a new site which is professional, clear, and informative with a view to increasing site conversion for the airport. Our primary objectives were to

  • increase non-aeronautical revenue
  • improve the digital user journey
  • increase the number of inbound and outbound passengers
  • clearly communicate the range of destinations on offer from the airport

Here’s how we did it…

phase-01

Phase 1 – Port site onto new web platform

For the first phase we helped Aberdeen International Airport transition away from the Heathrow Airport (BAA) CMS platform and move their website onto a new content management system. This was time sensitive so we pulled out all the stops and managed to rebuild the site and deploy it onto the very capable Umbraco CMS platform in record time.

 

phase-02

Phase 2 – New functionality

For the second phase we added some new high priority functionality. Aberdeen were keen to ensure users had all of the information they needed at their fingertips so we introduced live flight updates by twitter. To achieve this we constructed a tweeting departure board for the airport, allowing users to be kept up to date with the status of their flight by DMing their flight number and receiving regular messages back. We also gave users the option to receive email updates on their flight status which incorporated an option for those customers signing up to opt-in to future marketing emails from the airport. Aberdeen were also in need of a new ad platform for their site so KMP deployed functionality within the CMS to allow the airport’s marketing department to have total control over ad management across the site. Previously this had been managed by a third party so this both reduced running costs and provided Aberdeen Airport with the facility to ensure this key revenue stream continues to be relevant and profitable.

 

phase-03

Phase 3 – Redesign

The third phase was completed in early 2015 and in this phase we completely redesigned the look and feel of the website, introducing an enhanced colour scheme and a new layout which focuses on the airport’s red routes. While maintaining all of the sites existing functionality we have also introduced a number of new features: Using advanced geo-location technology, the website is designed to provide a personalised service, offering information dependent on users’ destination selections and geographical location. The site presents a more engaging user experience with superior and mobile-optimised search and navigation, and the capability of providing tailored information to each and every visitor.

 

image of ipad with map on

 

New mega menu style navigation offers users a cleaner, less cluttered and easier to navigate experience; and allows Aberdeen Airport to bring their most important content to the forefront, guiding users to key touch points.

Improved destination map based on Google Maps along with a range of expert destination guides covering all routes the airport serves. These guides allow AIA to communicate effectively with their passengers while also promoting their destination offering. Users now have access to everything from travel tips to the local weather in that country or city, allowing them to make a more informed choice on their holiday destination.

 

Aberdeen destinations map

 

We’ve completely redesigned the way the live flight information is displayed on the site. An innovative new pinning option allows users to “pin” one or more live flights to their browser, providing up to the minute status updates.     Because the new site is fully responsive, those users accessing the site via their smartphone can enjoy a streamlined, easy-to-use experience optimised for their device that allows users to keep up to date with their flight information on the move. The new site builds on the improvements made in 2014 which are already enjoyed by over 100,000 visitors each month, with over 1.2million people visiting the site in 2014 alone.

 

image of liveflight table with a mobile view

What we said

Simon Haven, Head of Client Services at KMP Digitata said: “We’ve worked closely with the airport to ensure that we’ve used insight and innovation to really push the boundaries of what the site can do.  We set out to deliver a unique user experience for passengers providing innovative functionality to enhance the overall airport experience”.

Our thoughts

Our solution is an eye-catching, fully responsive website that ensured functionality was persisted across mobile, tablet and desktop platforms. The site is built with HTML5 and on an open source CMS -Umbraco version 6, the popular .NET CMS which combines a fully-featured solution with a large amount of flexibility. The modular, component based design allows content editors at Aberdeen Airport to easily create varying templates based on underlying content modules. We are incredibly excited about delivering Aberdeen Airport’s website, we’ve worked really closely with the airport to ensure that we’ve used insight and innovation to really push the boundaries of what the site can do in a way that will be truly effective.  We set out to deliver a delightful user experience for Aberdeen Airport’s passengers providing useful and innovative functionality to enhance the overall airport experience.

 

image of macbook and iphone with homepage and my flight page being shown



The Result

The new Aberdeen International Airport website offers a bold fresh look and an enhanced digital experience for its visitors. Although the new site has only been live for a short time, we are already seeing improvements in engagement. When compared to the same week last year:
  • Page views are up by 11%
  • Time spent on the website increased by 56%
  • Bounce rate has decreased by 26%
Jason Stewart E-Commerce Manager, Aberdeen International Airport

After 13 months of research into the needs of our online stakeholders, we are delighted with the outcome. The new aberdeenairport.com is unique in terms of airport websites - we have implemented technology to understand our users based on their locations and flight selections and serve them the content they are most likely to want to see using this information. This approach is designed to enable our users to enjoy a seamless online experience as part of their overall travel journey. The new site really does meet the requirements set out in the brief and we feel this marks a real step-change in airport website technology. We are particularly pleased with the personalisation of content and ability to seamlessly enjoy this across a multitude of devices.