Airport retailers part of Airport CDM?

In a recent meeting I was told that a retailer had approached the airport operator to become part of Airport Collaborative Decision Making (A-CDM). They found this rather strange and wanted to find out more.

The retailer had done some research on the passengers waiting in the gate area. They discovered that passengers waiting for the boarding of their delayed flight would not give up their seat - even though they might be hungry or thirsty. The retailer would take this opportunity and approach those passengers to take their orders. In order to be ready for those situations the retailer would like to have early information about delays.

What a great example of opportunities created by information sharing! However, this will require reliable and accurate information about an expected delay and most probably the retailer will not be happy by just providing a FIDS screen to monitor himself all the time.

Just another thought. Suppose that the delay is rather long? Why not changing the gate to keep passengers moving through the restaurants and shops?

There is no such thing as 'Collaborative Decision Making'

Group Decision Making or Collaborative Decision Making (CDM) is about bringing people together to solve problems with the idea that they are more effective than individuals. But how are collaborative decisions actually made? By vote? By secret ballot?

When was the last time we actually made a 'collaborative decision'? Sure, we may have listened to arguments, we may have taken every possible information into account, we may have thought about all possible impacts of a decision. But in the end, for what is considered as my responsibilty and accountability, the decision will be mine. There is no such thing as 'Collaborative Decision Making'. There is information sharing, collaboration, decision making and performance.

When to publish the gate information?

How many hours before departure should the gate information be published? Airports would usually publish this information at fixed times, maybe when the operational day starts, maybe a few hours prior to departure, depending on whether it is an international, regional or domestic flight.

I am sure airlines will want the airport to publish the gate information as early as possible because they want the passengers at the gate to make sure that there is no delay because of late passengers. Now here comes retail and tells operation to publish the gate as late as possible in order to keep the passengers shopping. In other words, to increase the dwell time.

I  had a rather bad experience as a passenger last year in a shiny new terminal which seemed to be run by retail. There was no gate info available, neither on my boarding pass nor on the FIDS screens. This was not a problem, I was sure, I would get that information in due time. I used the time before the indicated boarding time to stroll around, maybe actually do some shopping. When the expected boarding time came closer, I noticed that I had changed my behaviour. I had started sneaking around a FIDS screen, hoping to get some update. Nothing. The expected boarding time passed by and we were getting towards the scheduled departure time. Now my comfort level dropped immediately. I started to check on other screens. The same. Then, right before the scheduled departure time, the gate was published and I was rushing to the gate. Upon arrival at the gate, the latest information there told me that the flight would be delayed by 20 minutes. Now, apart from this experience, do you think that the delay would only be 20 minutes without the boarding having started?

So, you have both extremes where the passenger already knows the gate upon check-in, and the other end where the airport waits until the latest possible moment which includes possible gate changes. Maybe the answer is something in the middle, where the gate is published based on the best information available, actually known as dynamic gate publication. In such an 'intelligent airport' the passenger will actually be steered through the terminal, i.e. the airport operation can direct the passenger flow. There is evidence that this works and even increases retail spend. See also this older post.