Who flies, where they come from and how they travel: understanding airport catchment areas to support strategic decision-making
CASE STUDY
chose to work with Motion Analytica and Vodafone Italia to gain detailed insights into the travel habits of passengers using Milan Linate and Milan Malpensa airports, identifying traveller profiles and analysing mobility patterns both within and beyond the airport areas.
The result is a comprehensive overview of the airports’ catchment areas, providing valuable insights to enhance existing services and offerings, while delivering innovative indicators to support future investments and strategic decision-making.
CLIENTE
SEA Milan Airports
MARKET
Travel & Transportation: Aviation
ANALYSIS
Airport mobility analysis
MAIN RESULTS
01.
Understanding the catchment area
A deeper understanding of the catchment areas of the two airports, providing valuable insights to optimise internal operations, engage more effectively with stakeholders, and enhance the customer experience.
02.
True Origin and True Destination
Identification of true origins and true destinations to support the development of shared strategies between Milan Linate and Milan Malpensa airports.
03.
Support for Processes and Investments
Insights supporting the development of new internal processes and investment decisions, aligning strategic choices with the actual demand revealed by the analysis.
04.
Methodological Development for the Sector
Strengthening the collaboration between Motion Analytica and SEA Group, and defining methodological foundations for the airport sector that can support airports, airlines and ground operations through innovative approaches.
THE ANALYSIS
The analyses were defined following discussion on all domain issues involved with the SEA group. This activity was essential to ensure a robust methodology and to design the best data integration strategies with airport proprietary sources.
In this way, it was possible to develop the study of travelers’ attendance and their time at the airport, distinguishing the profiles of arriving and departing passengers, transit passengers, and passengers completing a trip within the day.
In addition, the catchment area was analyzed in detail in relation to:
Italian outbound or inbound travelers: origin of travelers at the level of municipality, province, and region of Italian (telephone) residence, with differentiation by passenger categories;
Incoming foreign travelers: nationalities of origin with differentiation by passenger categories.
With regard to the users observed landing in Italian territory, the “main destination”, i.e., the primary travel destination, was then identified, along with the main characteristics of domestic tourism, such as the analysis of nights spent, or the centrality index of the location within the overall travel or holiday experience.
Next, the study focused on defining the market share, both on individual route to identify travel patterns and preferences and on the territory of interest, identifying the place of departure and the final destination of the trip.
Finally, thanks to valuable input from the SEA Group, an innovative methodology was developed to define two key elements: true destination and true origin.
These two elements expand the possibilities for airports to observe in detail the behavior of their users beyond what is currently achievable with standard approaches.