The digitisation of the airport experience has rapidly evolved in recent years. From cheap flight websites to advanced online booking for car parks and transfers when you land, customers often have to navigate multiple digital touchpoints before they even reach the airport. Then, once they are at the airport, the digital journey continues – from check-in through to passport control.
Designed to optimise efficiency and improve the passenger experience, this investment in digital infrastructure has been significant. However, like many organisations, airports are still playing catch up on their approach to digital accessibility to ensure that nobody is excluded or disadvantaged by these technological advancements.
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The specific digital accessibility needs of airport passengers are varied and can arise due to a wide range of different conditions, including sight and hearing impairments, reading or cognitive problems, fine motor difficulties, or more general impairments associated with ageing.
With the implementation deadline of the European Accessibility Act (the EAA) now less than 12 months away, there is a need for airport operators to focus on digital accessibility across all areas of digital infrastructure.
What is the European Accessibility Act?
The EAA is designed to make digital accessibility a customer-service priority and will affect businesses that operate within the EU and those that have European customers.
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Importantly, the EAA expands the scope of EU accessibility requirements from websites and mobile apps to include ‘physical’ self-service terminals such as payment terminals, ticketing and check-in machines, kiosks, and ATMs.
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By GlobalDataWhile the deadline to make websites and apps accessible is 2025, the EU have recognised that making self-service terminals accessible to all is a much harder, more complex task, with requirements on both the providers of kiosk hardware and the software that runs on them. Therefore, the deadline for the accessibility of new terminals is in June 2030.
However, given the challenging task ahead, it will be prudent to use this transition period to prepare. While the full details of penalties for non-compliance in each Member State are still to be defined, they could range from significant fines to imprisonment, with reputational damage thrown in for good measure.
So, how can airport operators get themselves ready for the EAA?
Building on good progress
The good news is that airports are already doing well in making various parts of their user journeys accessible. Navigation signage, for example, uses hi-visibility colour schemes to ensure information is clearly visible at large distances, which also helps people with visual impairments.
The airlines themselves are also making improvements. Last year, the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) released its Airline Digital Accessibility Report. It reviewed the websites of 11 airlines with the highest passenger numbers from UK airports, rating them in terms of their technical accessibility as well as their ease of use for making bookings for people with disabilities.
While no airline fully delivers on accessibility across the entire consumer journey, it was also clear that they are increasingly prioritising website accessibility, and many have already started to take action on some of the findings and recommendations highlighted in the report.
That said, there is often a disconnect between the airline’s approach to digital accessibility and that of the airport. Too often, we hear anecdotal feedback of a ‘one size fits all’ approach to accessibility at airports, which focuses exclusively on physical mobility impairments, when the needs of millions of customers are much more diverse.
This failure to consider the specific needs of individual passengers who may have difficulty in using digital infrastructure around the airport only serves to increase stress and anxiety and makes for a poor customer experience.
With the EAA on the horizon, there is now an added impetus for airport operators to get their digital accessibility house in order.
Getting digital accessibility right
There are multiple digital touchpoints that consumers may need to navigate, from websites, apps, and emails to social media messaging, notifications, and digital baggage check-ins. All these need to be accessible to ensure a smooth end-to-end user experience.
There are several important steps airport operators can take. Firstly, they can define responsibility and get senior buy-in. It is important to have a champion for accessibility at a senior level. Having a Digital Accessibility Programme Manager who can lead a project team to understand the EAA and create, own, run, and report progress against your strategic accessibility plans is essential.
Secondly, they require accessibility from suppliers and partners, as well as from internal teams. Great accessibility is only possible if the whole organisation is aware of it and actively ensures it is part of the design and creation of any digital product or communication. Key to this will be taking your wider supply chain – especially your kiosk hardware vendors and software creators – on this journey with you, by ensuring digital accessibility is a key part of procurement processes and contracts.
Third, there should be a design focus on accessibility throughout the development process. Airport operators need to ensure accessibility is embedded throughout the development process of all products – not just websites and apps, but also their ‘physical’ digital estate, including kiosks and digital displays. They should also ensure that their accessibility is regularly monitored, checked, and fixed.
Preparing for the European Accessibility Act
With around a year to go until the first deadline of the EAA comes into force, there will be a considerable amount of information and complexity to get to grips with to deliver to the EAA requirements, which may be implemented in slightly different ways in each Member State.
As such, it’s critical for airports to get a plan in place to ensure the entire digital estate is compliant.
Hassell Inclusion is currently helping many businesses to understand the requirements of the EAA, how to put in place a feasible plan to deliver what they need ahead of the deadlines, and how to ensure they can benefit from the Return-on-Investment opportunities of accessibility from this work.
