The view to the city at the end of PTE 2016. Image:MekoI thought, as I wrote up this report, that the last Passenger Terminal Expo that I had personally attended was about three years ago, but on checking our database, I found it was seven years ago. How time flies when you’re having so much fun! As I was in Germany for CeBIT and some other meetings, I thought I would go along to the event which was, this year at the Messe in Cologne, to have a look and find out what is happening in Flight Information Displays or FIDs as they are known. The show tends to move each year and next year is in Amsterdam.
As it turned out, so close to ISE, there were no new products in the big display area. We did think, for a moment, that we might have found one, but it turned out that “It’s all NEC here” (although that company does also sometimes supply other brands).
There was also little excitement or coverage of display hardware. I think this is because, by and large, the display vendors are now able to supply what airports need. Years ago, building a big video image of good quality and with high brightness was a challenge, but now the only challenge is in financing it and exploiting it well with appropriate and high quality content. Still we found some things to report on!
The organisers reported record numbers at “more than” 5,000 visitors. Next year’s PTE is at the RAI in Amsterdam from 14th to 17th March 2017.
(As a frequent flyer, I felt my heart drop when I read this comment from the conference agenda “How do we ensure that all the passenger processes are supporting the good dwell time required to ensure an opportunity conducive to spending?”. I really just want to get through as fast as possible!!!)
