The next time you go to the airport there will be many changes in response to the COVID and many of the changes will remain after the COVID situation returns to what was normal. The normal is lots of people meeting together and enjoying it.

In an article by Tracy Rucinski of Reuters the airport leading the change is Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) largely because American Airlines uses DFW as its hub. At the moment, the DFW airport is the world’s busiest airport thanks to the American Airlines.

The new normal is going to more and more around self service said Sean Donohue, chief executive of the DFW Airport. There is self check in for luggage, all its restrooms with technology developed by Infax Inc.

For check in, DFW is piloting 3 technology options for luggage: Amadeus It Group, SA’s ICM, SITA and Materna IPS.

Last year DFW rooled out biometric boarding where your face is the the boarding pass for international passengers. This year domestic passengers are included. The makers of the technology is VeriScan

In the HVAC system, DFW is starting to use ultraviolet technology that can kill germs before they circulate in the system.

To pay for all the cleaning, DFW has uspending about $100 million on capital expenses and trying to reduce operating costs by 20%.

In April only 10,000 passengers a day used DFW, the numbers have increased to 114,000 on July 11 which is half of last year.

Airports have expanded over the past years to include a great deal of shopping and dining space, to increase revenues. Will the business model be changing?

Linking to dividend paying stocks, airports similar to DFW can invest in the technology solutions to ensure they not only feel safe but are safe as passengers expectations change. It will take time before regional airports which will need to do the safe thing have the same technology because similar to all technology the earlier versions are more expensive. As time goes on, the price drops to where all can afford. To be a market leader is a wonderful thing, but it comes with the price that innovation has to be in the budgets and not cut. If your company begins to slip and spends less on innovation it is time to find alternatives.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.