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DIGITALCONNECTIONS By Ronnie L. Garrett Spread the Word FlightView helps Roanoke Regional Airport put priority announcements in plain sight of the traveling public O n Good Friday, 2011, LambertSt. Louis International Airport (STL) took a hard shot to the chin when an EF4 tornado ripped through its historic domed concrete terminal. Two days later like a prize fighter rallying from what might have been a knock-out punch the airport was on its feet again and open for business. When Jeff Lea, Lambert public information officer, shared at JumpStart how airport officials, construction workers and community members came together to make this possible, he mentioned that he wished that there had been an easier way to dispatch emergency notifications and calls for assistance. Today there is, says Michael Benjamin, CEO of FlightView, a Newton, Mass.-based provider of accurate, real-time flight information solutions for the aviation and travel industries. FlightView officials became inspired to create a simpler notification system after hearing Lea's talk. The company combined the power of mobile and the simplicity of Twitter to craft a system that allows airports to easily send out up-tothe-minute emergency advisories to mobile website users. The system works in four easy steps, says Benjamin. The airport creates a Twitter stream specifically for these announcements, FlightView integrates this stream with the airport's mobile website, the airport sends out a Tweet with the desired information on it, and the 18 airportbusiness message is syndicated to the top of the airport's mobile website automatically. "With more than 80 percent of travelers carrying smartphones (as revealed in a 2012 FlightView survey of more than 2,600 people), this new method of disseminating information improves the ease of airport operations, especially for small- to mid-sized airports, as well as passenger experiences by providing them with timely, critical alerts," Benjamin says. INFO ON THE GO It's a system airports like Virginia's Roanoke Regional Airport (ROA) are quickly embracing. ROA offers more than 50 scheduled flights daily, providing nonstop service to nine major cities and transporting nearly 320,000 passengers a year. But a convenient emergency notification system wasn't top of mind until the bustling regional airport decided to develop a mobile version of its website, and hired FlightView to help. "The timing was perfect. We'd been plan- June/July 2013 "… this new method of disseminatng informaton improves the ease of airport operatons, especially for small- to mid-sized airports, as well as passenger experiences by providing them with tmely, critcal alerts." MICHAEL BENJAMIN, CEO, FLIGHTVIEW ning to do a mobile site for awhile," says Sherry Wallace, director of ROA. "FlightView let us know of this new option, and my first thought was: 'Oh I wish we'd had this last winter.' It would have been great for sending emergency weather alerts saying the entire Eastern seaboard is closed to air traffic, go home and call your airline."