The holiday period has been famous as the time of the year when passengers need to brace themselves at the airport and prepare for the worst – coming way earlier than they should  because there will be lines everywhere! This might sound like the worst case scenario, but is less likely to happen in the coming years as several major global airports have partnered up with omnidata intelligence company Skyfii Limited (ASX: SKF) to deploy Skyfii’s market leading queue management and passenger flow solutions.

Key contracts in the global airports vertical with a combined total contract value of US$2 million include: 

• Phoenix Sky Harbour International Airport, the ninth busiest airport in the US by passenger boardings has signed a 5-year deal for a LiDAR-based queue analytic system to improve the passenger experience across five security checkpoints
• Newark Liberty International Airport, the 14th busiest airport in the US by passenger boardings has signed a 3 year agreement with Skyfii for the provision of a security focussed video analytics solution
• Miami International Airport, the 10th busiest airport in the US has signed a 5 year deal to upgrade one of its ten security checkpoints to Skyfii’s leading LiDAR technology
• Aberdeen Airport, with over 3 million passengers processed every year, has engaged Skyfii for the deployment of LiDAR technology across the airport’s security checkpoints.
• VIP Lounges Brazil, has signed a contract for the provision of WiFi services across four airports and a further five airport VIP lounges in Brazil

Wayne Arthur, Chief Executive Officer, Skyfii, commented: “The expansion into these major airports further strengthens our position as the leading provider of passenger flow analytics to the airport industry where we already service major airports such as Sydney International and London Stansted.”

“We are continuing to see very strong demand for our industry leading LiDAR solutions, across a range of verticals, which coupled with our strong project pipeline provides us continued confidence in our guidance of delivering sustainable positive cash flow in 2H FY23 and achieving $20m in ARR.”

Skyfii’s solutions allow airports to gain a complete view of passenger movement through their venue from the curbside all the way to the gate, delivering insights that improve the passenger experience and create efficiency in airport operations to improve throughput. Experiencing very strong demand for queue management solutions for ticketing and LiDAR based security checkpoint solutions, Skyfii’s technology has been deployed across other busy airports in the USA including JFK, Austin, and Charlotte, as well as several of the world’s largest airports outside of the USA, including Sydney International and London Stansted Airport. 

The technology deployments have to date been limited to one or a select number of terminals, check in halls or security checkpoints, but the Company is eyeing for expansion opportunities to service the whole airport terminal especially during the busy Christmas period. The addressable market within the existing customer base is highly material as airports look to passenger flow analytics to measure and manage the entire passenger ‘curb to gate’ experience. 

Skyfii’s IO platform unifies data points on one proprietary platform and ingests data from a diverse range of technologies including WiFi, Camera, People counting, LiDAR, CCTV and IoT devices. These datasets will be combined with contextual data like weather, retail sales and sociodemographic to improve operational performance for retailers, airports, stadiums, smart cities and other public and commercial venues. Skyfii also offers additional data insight augmentation through Data & Marketing Services offering, in which the Company helps clients to harness more value from the data. 

Other than airports, Skyfii has been deploying its customer experience analytics technology to Quick Service Restaurants (QSR), including McDonalds and Nando’s Australia, as well as an unnamed premium fast food chain in the UK. 

The Company secured $5.4m revenue in the September quarter and spent $0.9m in operation expenses. Though these were an improvement over the previous corresponding quarter of $5.1m revenue and $0.29m expenses, Skyfii’s cash at bank decreased by 26% from $5.8m on pcp to $4.3m in Q1 FY23. The cash reduction is primarily due to delays in key annual renewals in EMEA and the Northern American region, a seasonally slower start to the year due to an extended summer break in the Northern Hemisphere.

Despite the headwinds experienced during the September quarter due to slower than expected customer activity and a slowdown in closing out of key projects due to the supply chain impacts, Skyfii is expecting a stronger Q2 due to $31m in advanced stage deal pipeline that includes the major airport deals and 61% sales opportunities outside the Asia Pacific region.