Ready for new heights.
With more than 250 awards tucked under its belt, the Changi Airport in Singapore is ranked as one of the world’s best airports. This year alone, the airport received top marks from numerous travel organizations in a wide range of categories, and is expected to raise the competitive bar even higher when its new Terminal 3 goes into operation in January 2008.

When it comes to duty free goods, Changi Airport is already a competitive powerhouse, with an award-winning range of products and prices that reflect a prudent selection of vendors. The airport’s operator, the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS), takes pride in its particular selection of shop operators and technical partners – with Wincor Nixdorf being one of them. The IT equipment manufacturer and service provider not only supplies advanced hardware and innovative software products, but has also taken over operation of the airport’s retail (Glossary)  Point-of-Sales (POS) systems. Wincor Nixdorf’s technology has proven itself over the years in Terminals 1 and 2, and will be deployed in Terminal 3 as well, where 300 POS terminals are to be installed.

Larger, more comfortable and technically more advanced.
With 80 airlines serving more than 50 countries, Changi Airport has, meanwhile, emerged as the largest aviation hub in the Asia-Pacific region and plans to defend this position with the addition of Terminal 3. With the new terminal, which is equipped to handle the giant Airbus A380, the airport will increase capacity by 22 million passengers to more than 64 million. The terminal will boast eight gates to manage arrivals and departures for the new jumbo jet. For passengers on the ground, Changi Airport aims to make their stay as relaxing as possible. They can shop at more than 160 retail stores or eat at 80 restaurants, and they pay at Wincor Nixdorf POS terminals.

For more than a decade, Wincor Nixdorf has been able to meet the high requirements of CAAS, initially delivering 300 Beetle/60 terminals. The systems have been customized to ensure secure use of confidential data such as flight numbers, handle different currencies and offer a number of interfaces defined by the aviation authority.

Wincor Nixdorf developed the software solution, which is designed to poll data from individual POS, compile, process and store data at a central site. “As a solution provider, we must understand CAAS’ requirements and deliver the services that comply to CAAS’ requirements, and ensure that CAAS and its tenants are satisfied with us,” says Kiew Hui Soon, Service Director of Wincor Nixdorf Singapore. The POS system captures customers’ flights details and nationalities during purchase, with which the system can provide statistical information to CAAS for planning purposes.