What ideas and thoughts come to mind, and what feelings and memories you relive when you think of an airport?

Travel, fatigue, vacation, business, adventure, leaving and reuniting, discovery, awaiting or haste, luggage, crowd, uncertainty, controls, take offs, delays, weather forecast, connections, gifts, hunger, thirst and craving for a cigarette, money, silence, credit cards, exchange, pilots and stewardesses, comfort or cram, open space or small rooms, rent-a-car, buses and tourist guides, signs, maps, billboards  and ads, foreign languages, time zone, GPS, phone, rush, Internet, hotel, stress, rest and many, many, much to many others.

 

How to manage them all, without help from friends and with little effort?

It all gets easier when you have quick and precise access to the information you need. This was exactly our priority and concern at Trencadis, when developing the new website of the Bucharest Airports National Company.

Where did we start from?

The old website bucharestairports.com integrated a main site and several subsites, without uniform design, coherent formatting and clear links to the main page. The information was not clearly organized, thus hard to find by visitors, and the site was facing a high bounce rate. The pages included many elements developed in the old Flash technology, which limited the site’s functionality and seriously hindered visibility on mobile devices.

 

What was our strategy?

At the outset of the project we set ourselves three major objectives:

• access to every information on site in maximum 4 clicks
• a 20% drop-down in information requests received by the airport administration through phone and email, due to clear and intuitive content organization
• a 35% drop-down of the bounce rate, meaning a major decrease in the number of visitors who leave the site after landing on the homepage, because of failing to find their way on the web site

 

What was our solution?

The main elements of our solution were:

• a new, attractive, clean, modern, unitary design
• an efficient information structure
• a friendly and easy content management system
• mobile applications for users who access the information from a mobile device (smartphone or tablet)

 

What does the new website contain?

The new web platform developed by Trencadis includes the Bucharest Airports National Company’s website, as well as the subsites dedicated to the essential components for the company’s activity:

• Henri Coanda Airport - Otopeni
• Aurel Vlaicu Airport - Baneasa
• VIP Services of the company
• B2B Services of BANC

From the main page, as well as from every secondary page, the visitor can access with one click any other page dedicated to BANC activity and the annual event Bucharest International Air Show.

The main page and each of the subsites have a simple page structure, with clearly organized sections and complete sub-menus with explanatory names, so the information can be found in a small number of steps. The sub-menu options are dynamically and intuitively ordered, considering the interested shown by the visitors, so the most relevant information are listed at the top of the menu. The visitors can switch between subsites from any page.

What are the benefits for passengers and airport visitors?

The portal users receive real time updated information about the flight schedule, take-offs and landings, delays or cancellations, simultaneous with the airport screens. In maximum 2 clicks, users can obtain the necessary information about check-in, access to the airport, parking, transport, accommodation, customs and border check, luggage, local services, and all the other available facilities.

Therefore, an institution of high public interest, with complex activity and with a certain specificity that makes it difficult to communicate, opens up to visitors with transparency, precision and promptness.

 

What are the benefits for the airport business partners?

All generic categories of BANC business partners were taken into consideration when developing the website, so each group rapidly and precisely finds all the necessary information for conducting commercial affairs.

Suppliers find all the necessary data for acquisitions processes, flight operators have immediate access to the full list of operations and available airport charges, and collaborators in the service area (catering, shopping, advertising etc.) find the shortest way to information dedicated to potential partnerships.

 

What are the benefits for airport VIP clients?

The usual or occasional users of the airport protocol, business class and VIP services now have a pragmatic and efficient communication interface, so they can find, at any time, precise information about availability, details and costs of these services.

The contact details of the assistance and service departments are easy to find, and the process of making a commercial transaction is thus facilitated and encouraged.

 

What are the benefits for mass-media representatives?

The public communication section of the portal, hosted on the BANC page, was created with regards to all the generic communication partners of the company, especially journalists. There is a special section dedicated to press releases, accreditations, last minute information, generous photo and video galleries. Photography and aviation passionates have online access facilities to guided tours, photo sessions inside the airports and in the restricted areas.

This module also holds information about special events, history, culture, management team, economic data, and Corporate Social Responsibility of the company, all categorized and clearly organized.

 

What are the benefits for the web page admins?

A simple, friendly and easy to use menu even for the uninitiated helps the NCBA communication department to post and manage a set of dynamic and timely information on site, to analyze real time performance, audience and visibility of each section of the website.

The content management system interface is dynamic and gives the possibility to define multiple admin user accounts with different access roles. It also allows different configuration and allocation priorities for the site’s sections, in order for the users to receive the most important and relevant up-to-date information. At the same time, the content management system makes it easy for the site’s admins to manage the site’s content.

The website also has an efficient system for managing the advertising space available on site and for generating detailed statistics which show the visitors’ amenity of each section.