Airport / Ground
New lounge at Helsinki Airport wants travellers to feel at home
27 January 2012 | In Helsinki Airport’s newest lounge, visitors can wear woollen socks and read books on a vintage sofa. Counterbalancing the often sterile and pompous airport lounges, it is a cosy place whose furniture and atmosphere aim to bring to mind a Finnish home. The idea behind the lounge is to provide a homey rest stop for hurried passengers, tapping into the so-called “being space” trend, as coined by trendwatching.com.
Kitchen, book corner, woollen socks
Operated by airport restaurateur SSP Finland, The Almost@home lounge has been decorated with original artwork, handicraft, furniture and household items by renowned Finnish designers such as Wirkkala vases and Artek ‘2nd Cycle’ chairs.
The heart of the lounge is a fully equipped kitchen and dining area with a variety of fresh food, drinks, snacks, and bakery products where travellers can make their own snacks. In the living room passengers can watch TV or sit on a sofa in the book corner and pick up a book from one of the book shelves to read and borrow a pair of comfortable woollen socks at the reception.
Other amenities include a long dining room area with ‘Club Med’ style joined tables, working stations with HP computers, a gaming zone equipped with PS3, an LCD screen and 2 ‘Fat Boy’ sofas, and bathrooms and showers. Visitors have access to work space where their privacy is guaranteed. It is also possible to book a meeting room in the lounge. There is a room for families and a play and games corner for children.
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European airports roll out the red carpet for Chinese travellers
25 January 2012 | Rising disposable income in emerging economies such as the BRICs and the N-11s has allowed the rapidly growing middle classes in these countries to start travelling by air. According to IATA estimates, the number of air travellers worldwide will grow with 800 million to 3.3 billion in 2014 (up from 2.5 billion passengers in 2009), with China alone accounting for more than a quarter of this growth. Although air travel in China is still mainly on domestic and regional routes, an increasing number of leisure and business travellers are flying overseas.
‘Red carpet’
With Chinese outbound tourism recording more than 20 percent annual growth in recent years and overseas spending by Chinese tourists in 2011 expected to total around USD55 billion, airlines, airports and tourism destinations around the world are rolling out the red carpet to make Chinese travellers feel more at home.
Says Reinier Evers, founder of trend agency trendwatching.com, “China is the new emperor, and outpaced companies, flailing nations and even broke monetary unions are looking to the Chinese to bail them out. No wonder red carpets are being rolled out wherever Chinese politicians and CEOs currently set foot. In 2012’s global consumption arena we see a similar picture: department stores, airlines, hotels, theme parks and museums, if not entire cities, around the world are going out of their way to shower Chinese customers with tailored services and perks, and in general, lavish them with attention and respect.”
Since there are around 160 cities in China with populations of over 1 million people, airlines such as KLM (Chengdu, Xiamen, Hangzhou), Lufthansa (Shenyang, Qingdao), Air France (Wuhan), Finnair (Chongqing), Qatar Airways (Chongqing) and Etihad (Chengdu) have opened routes to second-tier cities in the country. These airlines also employ Asian cabin crew on board and offer localized amenities such as Chinese food and beverages, movies, music, newspapers and magazines.
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Instant banner vending kiosk at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport lets family and friends give travellers a warm welcome
5 December 2011 | Many people will be familiar with the sight of families and friends lined up in the arrival hall, anxiously waiting to welcome their loved ones, and displaying home-made banners to add an extra dimension to the occasion. Always on the lookout for an innovative amenity to improve an already well-regarded airport experience, Amsterdam Schiphol Airport has just installed a self-service banner vending machine, called the BannerXpress. The instant banner (‘spandoeken’ in Dutch’) kiosk allows people who are meeting passengers at the airport to design and print their own personalised banners.
The BannerXpress machine, a world’s first, lets users create a personalised banner in a few steps. They start with choosing the size (40, 130 or 300 cm wide; the height is a standard 30 cm), and then select the background and theme. The last step is entering the text they wish to appear on the banner, and after paying with a debit or credit card, the banner is printed out on canvas. The price of a the banner ranges from EUR 3.95 (USD 5) to EUR 14.95 (USD 20).
Says Otto Ambagtsheer, Director Business Area Consumers at Schiphol Airport, “The banners by BannerXpress allow the airport to offer people who are coming to pick someone up with the chance to surprise them in a playful way. For now we only have this one dispenser in Arrival Hall 2, but we may add more at other locations if it proves popular.” According to the New York Times reports that in the first month of operation, the banner machine “has been churning out about 50 banners a day.”
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London Gatwick rethinks airport security to reduce passenger processing times
By Ryan Ghee, Editor, Future Travel Experience
17 November 2011 | While the first priority of airport security is to ensure the safety of passengers and fully secure the air travel process, increasing passenger expectations also demand that the process is completed as quickly and efficiently as possible. Even in the age of an increased threat from terrorism and the subsequent introduction of strict rules on the carriage of liquids, aerosols and gels, passengers have set a high benchmark for what they expect from airport security. The weight of importance placed on enhancing the process is highlighted by IATA’s vision for the ‘Checkpoint of the Future’, which was outlined earlier this year.
This concept envisages an end to the one-size-fits-all approach to airport security through a triple-pronged approach: Strengthened security by focusing resources where risk is greatest; supporting this risk-based approach by integrating passenger information into the checkpoint process; and maximising throughput for the vast majority of travellers who are deemed to be low-risk with no compromise on security levels. Although the concept appears strong on paper, making significant changes to such a vital process is bound to come with complexities and some have questioned whether it is, in fact, realistic.
London Gatwick rethinks the security process
However, with the opening of its new 19-lane South Terminal Security product, Gatwick Airport provides an example of the significant enhancements that can be made to the existing airport security process. In a first of its kind project, the airport has adopted ‘Iris at a Distance’ technology to automate and expedite entry to the security area, while colour coding, screens displaying accurate queuing times, and specific assistance lanes, have also been adopted. Read full article »
Aeroports de Paris teams up with consumer brands to offer free airport amenities
See our Facebook page for more images
7 November 2011 | Faced with ever more experienced consumers, who routinely ignore the commercials and ads thrown at them, brands have found new ways to break through the advertising clutter to reach and engage consumers. Coined by trendwatching.com, ‘tryvertising’ can be thought of as “product placement in the real world, whereby brands integrate their goods and services into daily life in a relevant way, so that consumers can make up their minds based on their experience, not on the message.” Being high-traffic locations with a diverse and international mix of consumers, brands see airports as a good setting for tryvertising campaigns, while for airports they are an economical way to improve the service, or even as an additional source of revenue.
The free, branded, airport amenities are also examples of the ‘marketing as a service’ trend (or ‘Brand Butlers’ in trendwatching.com lingo). When advertising no longer talks at you but actually does something for you, then it becomes a service. Brands get meaningful exposure, airports get happier travellers and consumers perceive the brand as an emphatic and helpful resource.
While tryvertising/brand butler services can be found at airports around the world (see our Facebook page for an extensive slideshow), Aéroports de Paris, which operates Paris’ Charles de Gaulle (CDG) and Orly airports, has embraced the concept on a large scale.
Samsung and Sony brand spaces
At the end of July 2011, consumer electronics brand Samsung opened the ‘Samsung SoundCorner’ at Charles de Gaulle airport’s terminal 2B boarding lounge. The free entertainment and music lounge consists of individual alcoves equipped with Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablets to relax while listening to music. The tablets give access to the SoundCorner application, developed by Universal Music, which offers a selection of a hundred songs to listen (the selection is renewed every month). The alcoves also have connection stations to plug in passengers’ own devices so they can listen to their own music via the directional sound speakers fitted in every alcove. A central screen also plays video clips non-stop.
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Airports go futuristic with driverless pods, e-paper guides and an ‘aeroponic’ garden
27 September 2011 | Airports are high-traffic locations with a diverse and international mix of consumers, which makes them well-suited to trial novel technologies (see also our article on airports’ experiments with virtual technologies). The latest futuristic showcases are laser-guided travel pods, electronic paper guide cards and a hydroponic vegetable garden.
London Heathrow
In mid-September, laser-guided pods that transport passengers without drivers or timetables were officially launched at London Heathrow Airport’s Terminal 5, following a 6-month trial.The 21 pods, which carry up to four passengers and their luggage between the business car park and the main terminal building, are laser-guided and run along tracks. They take an average of ten minutes less for the two-mile route than the airport buses, mainly by avoiding traffic on the roads around Heathrow.
Passengers use a touch screen to choose their destination and there are no timetables (and no waiting), as a central computer ensures that pods are distributed at each station according to passenger demand. When waiting for a passenger, the pods recharge themselves at battery points. The 21 low energy, battery powered, zero emission vehicles, which use 70 percent less energy than it takes to power a car, and 50 percent less than a bus, can transport up to 500,000 passengers each year and replace 50,000 shuttle bus journeys.
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Pittsburgh Airport opens free security fast lane for fliers with only one carry-on bag
18 September 2011 | Technological developments now allow any traveller to check-in, label and drop their luggage and even board the aircraft themselves. However, despite advances in biometric solutions, immigration and security screening has remained a bottleneck for non-premium passengers. Following an earlier initiative by the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which lets travellers self-select their security lanes based on how experienced they are with checkpoint procedures, Pittsburgh International Airport has come up with a novel solution in the so-called ‘war on wait’.
One bag-only express lane
Since mid-September, Pittsburgh International Airport offers a special security checkpoint lane dedicated exclusively to travellers with only one carry-on bag, including purses, briefcases and computer cases. Jackets aren’t counted as an extra item, but anything else would require passengers to use the other security lines. “It’s sort of like the supermarket where you go through the 12-items-or-less line,” Pittsburgh Airport spokeswoman JoAnn Jenny said. “But there will be someone there to count so you can’t sneak into the line like you can do at the supermarket.” The Pittsburgh-only program has the approval of the TSA who is staffing the express lane.
The one bag-only express lane, reportedly the first of its kind in the U.S, is the result of long security lines at Pittsburgh airport over the summer — sometimes an hour or longer during peak periods. Security wait times at many airports in the U.S. have increased in the past years, as fewer passengers are checking bags and taking more and larger bags through security checkpoints at the airport to avoid rising checked luggage fees. Pittsburgh International hopes the express lane will get more people thinking about packing light. Says the airport’s CEO Brad Penrod: “The Express Lane is a way to streamline the wait at the checkpoint for those who pack light and fit it all in one bag. The move comes as a result of more people carrying more items through the checkpoint to avoid airline bag fees.” Read full article »
BA and KLM first airlines to equip cabin crew with iPads
27 August 2011 | We recently published an overview of how airlines and airports around the world have made Apple’s popular iPad device available to passengers in their lounges, rent them out in the air, or use them as self-service kiosk, customer survey tool, and food ordering tool (see: “11 ways how airlines are deploying the iPad”). In the past week several new initiatives have been announced by British Airways, KLM and Changi Airport, using the device to improve customer service on the ground and in the air.
British Airways
British Airways has just equipped its cabin crew with iPads to enable them to have prior awareness of customer preferences and a greater understanding of each customer’s previous travel arrangements, allowing them to offer a more personalised service. The iPad lets BA crew identify where each customer is seated, who they are travelling with, their frequent flyer status, any special meal requests, as well as customer service updates. The latter means that any issues can be logged with ground-based colleagues around the network prior to departure, so solutions can be delivered while the flight is airborne. When all the passengers have boarded and just before the doors are shut, cabin crew are currently handed a long scroll of paper, listing up to 337 customers. With the new iPads cabin crew will simply refresh their screen when the doors have closed through wireless 3G networks and they will have a complete list of passengers on board. The iPad is currently being trialled with 100 cabin crew with the aim to roll it out to all 1,800 senior crew members across the airline in the coming months. More images here.
KLM
On a similar note, KLM will provide a group of 50 senior pursers with iPads on board as part of a 6-month trial project starting in October 2011. KLM says it feels it is essential that cabin crew have easy access to the latest information in the air, as personal contact with passengers on the ground is becoming rarer due to the increased deployment of self-service kiosks. As part of the same ‘pilot’, KLM will also equip 50 pilots with iPads, providing them with an extra tool during flight operations that is more efficient than the large volume of forms, briefing documentation and manuals they usually take along.
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Sleepbox ‘sleeping pod’ debuts at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport
25 August 2011 | Inspired by Japan’s ‘capsule hotels’, which have been around since the 1970s, several airports in Europe (Yotel), the USA (Minute Suites) and Asia (e.g, Tokyo Narita) have opened small-sized resting rooms in areas post-security (air-side), that can be rented for several hours by passengers with long transit times or delayed flights.
Sleepbox
Russian architecture bureau Arch Group has come up with a new twist on the ‘transit room’ concept, called the Sleepbox. Shaped like a giant, rounded box measuring 2 meters long, 1.4 metres wide and 2.3 metres high, the ‘pod’ can be positioned near boarding gates, so passengers can rent them for periods as short as 30 minutes. Designers of the Sleepbox, Mikhail Krymov and Alexei Goryainov, say the box allows passengers to stay near the gates, cutting down on hotel transit times even more. According to Krymov, the inspiration for the box came from their personal frequent flying experiences. “We travel a lot and many times we faced a problem of rest and privacy in airports. And as we are architects, we like to think of solutions.”
A prototype of the Sleepbox is currently being exhibited for demonstration purposes at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport. As Arch Group’s Krymov tells airlinetrends.com: “Currently one Sleepbox is on display at Sheremetyevo with a second one being added soon. Sleepbox plans to be open for the public at the airport in 3 to 4 months, when there will be aproximately 5 of them installed. The expected fee will be USD10 to 15 per hour. There will be a concierge available, who will take payments, give keys, etcetera, but in the near future passengers the Sleepboxes will be self-service, with users paying by credit card.”
The model on display (video and images here and here) is a simple design with two bunk-style two-meter-long beds, space for luggage, a window, a fold-out desk, a night stand with drawers and minimal electronic capabilities such as electrical outlets and lighting. The designers, however, say that they are planning to build Sleepboxes with WiFi, LCD screens and displays with flight information. Read full article »
How Korean Air is catering to the growing number of female passengers
23 August 2011 | Airlines traditionally have been catering to the stereotype male business traveler in his forties, but the growing economic power of women, the greying of society, and the emergence of more travelers from non-Western countries is changing this archetypical passenger. For example, in the U.S. women already make up over 40 percent of business travellers and 50 percent of frequent flyer program members. Although still limited, some airlines have begun to offer specific amenities for female passengers, which go beyond the traditional amenity kit. Lufthansa and Air France publish dedicated lifestyle magazines for premium female passengers with titles such as Woman’s World and Madame, while Asiana offers additional services for expectant mothers, called ‘PreMom’. South Korean flag carrier Korean Air, however, is going the extra mile to cater to the growing number of female passengers, which make up 45 percent of its passengers.
Dedicated lounge area for female passengers
Korean Air recently opened an expanded Prestige Lounge at Incheon International airport. Among the lounge’s features is a dedicated area for female travellers, which to our knowledge, is a first for an airline.
Says Korean Air’s spokeswoman Mi Hyun Kim: “These days more and more female travellers are traveling around the world. In order to respond to their increasing needs, we have designed a special area fully dedicated to female travellers, which includes a female restroom, sleeping room and powder room. Also, female travellers can taste quality food and snacks and change diapers of their babies without any distraction in this area. In the powder room, there is a dressing table with a large mirror and a chair to help female travelers to do their make-up. In the sleeping room, there are two comfortable couch-type chairs which can be reclined upon adjustment.”
Women-only onboard bathroom
Korean Air is also among a handful airlines in the world that have dedicated bathrooms onboard for use by female passengers only. The airline has been offering this ‘ladies-only’ facility, which is available on long-haul aircraft such as A380s, B747s, B777s and A300s, since 2007. Korean Air’s ladies-only lavatory is decorated with pink coloured wallpapers, has a diaper board for babies and provides extra cosmetics.
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11 ways airlines are deploying the Apple iPad
8 August 2011 | Updated December 2011
The iPad, which began primarily as an entertainment device when it was launched in 2010, has captured the imagination of many other industries in ways that Apple never even imagined. We have reported several times on airlinetrends.com how airlines have made Apple’s versatile iPad device available to passengers in their lounges, rent them out in the air, or use them as self-service kiosk, customer survey tool, and food ordering tool. As the list of applications continues to grow, here is the latest overview of how airlines and airports are deploying the iPad worldwide.
1. Book, check-in
Cathay Pacific in July 2010 became the first airline to launch a dedicated application for the Apple iPad that lets users book Cathay Pacific flights, manage their flight booking, check the status of their flight, and check-in. Similar apps are today offered by American Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, THAI, and Alitalia.
In June 2010, Malaysia Airlines, in cooperation with SITA, introduced the world’s first airline kiosk that uses the iPad. Passengers can use the ‘MHkiosk’ to search and book flights and check-in online. The kiosks are installed at the airline’s ticket office at Kuala Lumpur’s central station.
2. Airport service
Spanish airline Iberia has equipped customer service staff at its Madrid-Barajas hub with iPads to provide them with real-time access to the information they need to make decisions and to keep passengers informed. Iberia’s so-called IBPad is loaded with 30 different applications which, according to the airline, together put the entire airport in the palm of the employee’s hand. Iberia says the IBPad has improved everyday operations and dealings with customers, boosting communications and staff decision-making autonomy, while eliminating the use of paper.
Since March 2011, so-called Changi Experience Agents (CEAs) have been walking the grounds at Singapore Changi Airport, assisting passengers with special needs, and helping passengers with wayfinding at the airport. Locating missing luggage, facilitating passengers with check-in needs and assisting transit or transfer passengers with their onward connections also form part of the CEAs’ duties. Each CEA is equipped with an iPad with which they can retrieve information, such as the latest flight updates, store location, check-in gates, etcetera. The CEAs are on duty all day except from 1am – 6am when passenger traffic is low.
3. Airport lounge
To keep passengers entertained whilst waiting for their flight, several airlines have made iPads available in their lounges. Since July 2010, KLM offers 8 iPads in each of its two lounges at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport. Lounge guests can use the device to access the Internet, watch content from the airlines’s IFE programming, play games, view KLM images and use a series of pre-installed apps. Cathay Pacific, meanwhile, offers 21 Wi-Fi enabled iPads in its ‘The Cabin’ lounge, which opened in early October 2010. The devices come pre-loaded with apps such as newspapers, magazines and games. Other airlines, such as ANA and airBaltic, also make iPads available upon request to lounge guests at respectively Tokyo Haneda and Riga. Read full article »
Turkish Airlines goes ‘Byzantine chic’ with its new lounge at Istanbul Ataturk Airport
1 August 2011 | Ambitious Turkish Airlines (THY), Europe’s fourth biggest airline and voted best airline in Europe in the 2011 Skytrax survey, has seen passengers soar as a result of an aggressive strategy to turn Istanbul’s Atatürk Airport into a hub for passengers travelling between Europe, Asia and Africa. One third of THY’s passengers currently transits in Istanbul and the airline plans to double this in the near future. To offer the rapidly growing number of passengers a better experience on the ground, Turkish Airlines has just opened a renovated and expanded lounge at Istanbul Airport.
Byzantine chic
The large, 3,000 m2 lounge (nearly three times the size of the former 1100m2 lounge) can accomodate 2,000 passengers per day and is divided in several sections, among which are a billiard hall and library, a TV wall, business centre, and a play room for children. The lounge also includes private relaxation rooms, showers with special toiletry kits, and a private infant room.
Catering in the lounges is provided by gourmet catering company Turkish Do&Co and passengers can help themselves on an extensive menu of hot and cold dishes, pastry, while a Turkish pizza (pide) kitchen prepares fresh pizzas on the spot. Besides a fresh juice bar, the beverage section offers Turkish brands such as Uludağ soda and Efes beer.
The design of Turkish Airlines’ lounge oozes an ambience of ‘Byzantine chic’ with curved arches that reflect the airline’s Ottoman roots (see also our recent whitepaper for more on how airlines can use their heritage to differentiate the passenger experience). The lounge also features a 150-year old olive tree and automatic piano that reportedly allows passengers to connect their iPod into to have it play their music. The lounge is accessible to Turkish Airlines’ business class passengers as well as and elite-tier members of THY and Star Alliance loyalty programs.
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Amsterdam Airport offers transit passengers a city tour by amphibious bus-boat
26 July 2011 | Airports that heavily depend on transfer traffic, such as Seoul Incheon and Hong Kong International offer layover tours of the city, so passengers with several hours to kill before their connecting flight departs can get a taste of their transit destination. Changi Airport and Turkish Airlines even offer passengers a quick tour of respectively Singapore and Istanbul for free. Now, Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, where 40 percent of arriving passengers connects to another flight, has come up with a concept for passengers in transit to experience the city in a very original way.
Floating Dutchman
In a partnership between Schiphol Airport, local canal cruise company Lovers and the City of Amsterdam, an amphibious bus-boat vehicle, dubbed the ‘Floating Dutchman’, has been launched that offers travellers an opportunity to explore the city in a short span of time. Passengers with a layover of at least 4 hours can hop on to the bus-boat from the airport, take a tour of the city and return back to the airport for their connecting flight. The bus-boat has been built by a consortium of companies, called Dutch Amphibious Transport Vehicles, of which canal cruise company Lovers is a co-owner.
From July 20th on, the Floating Dutchman departs from Schiphol Airport by road into Amsterdam’s city centre, where it ‘splashes’ into the canals at a specially prepared zone to set off for a 45 minute boat tour of the city’s canals. After the trip, the vehicle emerges from the water and continues its journey back to Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. Images and a video of the tour here and here).
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Airports experiment with the latest virtual technologies to improve customer service
22 June 2011 | Airports around Europe have recently introduced new virtual technologies such as augmented reality, video-conferencing and holograms, which besides their novelty factor, aim to improve customer service at the airport.
Augmented reality
Copenhagen Airport’s latest version of its ‘CPH iPhone’ application features ‘augmented reality’ technology that can be used as a wayfinder inside the airport terminals. Augmented reality combines a camera, GPS and compass in a smartphone to enable the phone’s camera to recognize an object or place that a user is pointing to. Developed in cooperation with airline technology provicer SITA, Copenhagen Airport’s app lets users ‘scan’ the terminals with their iPhone camera and then shows their distance to shops, restaurants and gates and in which direction they are located.
Because GPS signals cannot penetrate concrete structures, it can’t be used to determine a location inside the terminal buildings, so instead the airport is using its finely meshed Wi-Fi infrastructure to provide positioning accurate down to a few metres.
Copenhagen Airport claims to be the first airport in the world to incorporate augmented reality in its iPhone application, and says it hopes to “make it even easier and more fun for passengers to find their way.” Says the airport’s Head of IT Christian Poulsen, “This is a first version of this new technology and we already have many ideas for further development. However, we are launching it now to get an indication from passengers of whether they agree with us that this could be one of the ways of improving wayfinding at the airport”. The ‘CPH iPhone app’ is available for free from the iTunes app store.
Video conferencing
Also aiming to improve passenger way-finding around the airport are Munich Airport’s new ‘InfoGates’. Passengers can use one of six InfoGates to get connected directly to a ‘real’ information service representative via videoconference for a live conversation on life-sized screens. According to Munich Airport the InfoGates will help passengers get their bearings more quickly and allow them to request individual directions in areas of the airport where there was previously no opportunity for face-to-face contact with airport staff.
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Stockholm Arlanda Airport allows ‘eco taxis’ to cut the line
15 June 2011 | Stockholm’s Arlanda Airport last year introduced a simple but effective system to achieve more sustainable taxi services at the airport. To reduce emissions, a dispatch system for taxis was introduced that gives priority to so-called ‘eco taxis’ – vehicles that emit less than 120 gram of CO2 per kilometer – in the airport’s taxi lanes. The fewer emissions a taxi produces, the shorter the waiting time will be for being dispatched to the taxi lane in front of the terminal. Says one taxi driver at the airport: “I save at least one hour a day in this way, as I do not have to stand at the end of the ‘normal’ taxi line.”
CO2 emissions-based dispatch system
According to the airport, the taxi dispatch system is the only one of its kind in the world that automatically gives the shortest waiting times to cars with the lowest environmental impact, such as hybrid, biofuel or flexi-fuel powered vehicles. All taxis that deliver and pick up customers at Stockholm-Arlanda are gathered in a designated remote parking area. To get physical access to this area, and participate in the queue system, a taxi has to be registered at the airport. This provides Arlanda Airport with the opportunity to calculate CO2 emissions based on the vehicle’s registration certificate. In line with the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency’s emissions model, a 65 percent deduction in emissions is made for cars that run on ethanol and an 85 percent deduction is made for those that run on biogas, as net emissions are lower with green fuel.
To ensure vehicles that run on ‘green’ fuel actually refuel with it, there is a monitoring system that checks to ensure whether the car has at least 80 percent of the fuel indicated. To make things easier for green fuel taxis, Sweden’s biggest biogas filling station also opened at the airport in September 2010. Taxi companies that serve the airport have been replacing their taxis with less CO2 emitting cars, which also has a positive effect on the whole region.
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