Covid-19: GMR takes digital route to ensure passenger safety at Hyderabad airport

GMR's two leading airports in Delhi and Hyderabad have partnered with HOI to leverage a passenger engagement platform to address varied passenger needs and help them navigate their entire travel journey seamlessly.

HOI passenger engagement platform - available in multiple forms such as a mobile app for Android & IOS, Webapp, and Digital Self Order Kiosks at airports –is a cognitive and intuitive platform that comes with smart airport integration and commerce features.

HOI offers a plethora of valuable features that assist passengers at every stage of their travel. Passengers need to add their upcoming travel details to HOI either manually or get it automatically uploaded by scanning the travel document. Thereafter passengers can track their upcoming flights and get real-time alerts about gate changes, weather forecast at the destination. Further, they can explore and book commute options to and from the airport.

"Passenger experience is paramount to us, more so at this challenging time. As social distancing norms have become the new normal, we have adopted multiple initiatives to enhance passenger safety at our airports. In HOI, we have a unique platform that helps us to extend the contactless and digital experience to our flyers to enable a safe travel experience for them. HOI app comes with a comprehensive set of features that lets passengers enjoy frictionless travel, right from their homes to end destination, with most of our airport processes being enabled digitally," said a GMR Airport spokesperson.

Top 10,000 products from across 80 popular outlets and brands covering diverse categories such as duty-free, retail, food, and beverage, lounges, parking, cabs, etc. have been brought under a single platform to facilitate an end-to-end service for passengers.

Now passengers arriving at the airports can conveniently pre-book a cab from the authorized cab service providers through this platform.

On the day of travel, the application's intuitive trip recommendation feature helps passengers plan their trip smartly based on various factors such as traffic, time to check-in, time for security (immigration for international travelers) and distance to the boarding gate, truly leveraging the travel companion's help.

HOI is the foremost platform to offer a 'Predictive Time to Gate' feature using real-time congestion information at various touchpoints helping passengers effectively pace their travel from wherever they are in the city onward to the airport and all the way to their boarding gate.

Once at the airport, the Indoor Navigation with Voice Guidance helps them find their way to their boarding gate. Passengers can discover their favorite brand to shop, dine or search for facilities nearby such as washrooms, baby care room, etc., and en route their gates using HOI's digital terminal maps

By scanning the bag tag information, HOI notifies passengers that their baggage has been loaded into the aircraft, giving them the much required relief. In the meantime, if there is a gate change for any particular flight, passengers are promptly notified by HOI without even having to stay hooked at the Flight Display Screens at the terminal.

The first of its kind Auto Check-in feature at Hyderabad airport helps automatically check-in passengers using the geo-fencing capability once they reach the airport, allowing them to proceed directly for security screening, thereby saving them a lot of time.

HOI app is devised of several valuable features that not only cater to passengers as a one-stop travel solution but is also very useful to them as an enhanced safety measure amid the widespread pandemic.

Contactless ordering and Gate delivery of Food and beverage items of choice at Delhi and Hyderabad airports have resonated well with the passengers as it provides them significant convenience when they are waiting with spare time at boarding gates.