Training the airport manager in a post-COVID-19 world

Understandably, the overall approach of airports to the post-COVID-19 pandemic has been focused on cultural adaptation with a view to securing economic sustenance. It follows therefore that economic sustenance would depend on whether the passenger would choose to go through a particular airport if he or she has other choices, particularly in transit. The operative word in this context would be ‘confidence’ that the airport would generate in the passenger. The qualities of service that airports have offered thus far are efficiency in delivering services and convenience. These essential qualities would have to mesh with a new relationship with the passenger whereby the airport offers assurance of awareness of the passenger’s health concerns. This paper discusses the possibilities available to airports in the digital age, with which airports can assure the passenger of information sharing in the overall consideration of health and privacy as well as act through a global system that encapsulates precautionary measures that airports could take based on their connectivity to the outside world. The paper also posits that at the centre of this shift of focus is the need to subvert the dominant paradigm of efficiency per se to a combination of efficiency and professional empathy. This is where the manager would come in, and in turn his role would be dependent on the management training he undergoes. In that sense, this paper serves both the manager and the trainer, where the manager would take away the essential elements of predictive intelligence, prioritising and strategising the needs of the passenger that would impact the entire journey of the passenger and not merely his airport experience. The trainer would benefit from the ethical, moral and legal concepts discussed herein that could be incorporated into the training package through the spectrum of digital technology.