Introduction

The purpose of this document is to highlight the process and results of a real-world implementation of a web and mobile application for Airports Authority of India, by team Appsbee. The document provides virtual guidance on how solutions were provided to every individual requirement, making the aviation project a global product.

Project Requirements

The foremost requirement of Airport Authority of India was to build a unanimous web and mobile platform that would modernize and ease the way customers seek information about Kolkata aviation services. The platform was a visionary need for Kolkata aviation industry to make flying experience a seamless effort on the part of thousands of users/ travelers each day. They performance requirements were to build a user-friendly and updated web and mobility solution that would provide travelers with a wide range of modernized functionality and real time information such as Airport Info, Airlines Schedule, Bags and Baggage, Lost and Found, Cabs and Transportation, Emergency, Maps, Accommodation, and FQA’s about the Kolkata airport. The design requirement were to make a unified information source for the aviation industry, that would be fast, rapidly updated, secure, easy to use, easy to access, and reliable; that would allow stakeholders of the industry and travelers to be a part of seamless online system, in a very modern environment.

Based on the present architecture and data flow of Airport Authority of India, the architects of Appsbee designed the solution which is seamlessly meeting the following requirements:

• Streamline live flight information to their mobile app and website
• Search capability for flight schedule
• Ticket booking facility with the help of (Makemytrip) API
• Shows connected transportation information within the city
• Designed airport map which can be browsed from the app and website
• Carries plenty of other information about airport baggage claim, lost and found materials, lounge info, child care, medical emergency, foods and beverages stores etc

The biggest challenge for the team was to work with the data server which was not connected to the cloud/web. Further, the NSCBIA has never had a well defined API/ data feed which could be pulled from a web based platform or mobile app. Building an online platform which would handle wide list of database, get updated every 2 minutes, and seamlessly sync with multiple platforms was a big challenge itself. The application requirement constantly changed, real time updates poured in every 2 minutes, which Appsbee had to deliver their best hand forward, to make the whole concept a global product.

Project Details

Airports Authority of India (AAI) is the biggest aviation authority of India that came into existence on 1st April, 1995 by merging National Airports of India and International Airports of India. AAI manages 125 airports, including Domestic, International, Customs, and Defense airfields. The project goal was to build a website and mobile application, dedicated to Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport (NSCBIA) that would be the storehouse of all the vital information about the Kolkata aviation industry. The intended outcome was to bring a change to the way people seek any sort of aviation information related to Kolkata International Airport. With the help of this dedicated project/ application, information about airlines, immigration, boarding, security, baggage, transportation has become more accessible to people worldwide.

Significant Features Developed by Appsbee:

Real time airlines tracking- The ‘real time airlines tracking’ is the smartest feature developed by the Appsbee team for the project. The feature enables a traveler to track the real time arrival, departure, delay, and other scheduling information of a flight. Appsbee team had modernized the way people look up for flight status in airport. Unlike before creation of the app, now people could access all the real time flight status/ information within the app itself, and stay updated.

Challenges

The greatest challenge for Appsbee while working on the project was to build an online platform that:

• Proved easy and delivered real time information
• Could handle large size database
• Could provide real time notifications
• Would get updated every 2 minutes

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Solutions provided by Appsbee/ How Appsbee delivered

The AAI team outsourced the development of most of the critical modules to Appsbee. The highly experienced pool of developers of Appsbee, with the leverage of modern technologies, successfully met the requirements.

The team worked very closely with Airport Authority of India’s technical team to understand their present architecture and data flow. It is an informative platform, where millions of user can be benefited by getting updated with information about flights. The app and website is totally synchronized with the real AAI database. Here, the team have used "CodeIgniter" framework which enabled rapid development of both web sites and web applications. To create a high performance application, they have used the "MySQL" database. To optimize traffic, the team has used several rest APIs, which helped to update both website and app in every 2 minutes.