The Old FIDS Era Is Over: What Airports Need to Know Now
- Abagael Rudock
- Sep 30
- 5 min read
Traditional approaches to sharing essential travel information are over. At FTE Global 2025, Synect’s panel of industry visionaries declared the obvious: the old model is obsolete.
Disparate FIDS, BIDS, GIDS, and one-off digital signs are being replaced by content-first strategies and smart Digital Content Management Systems (DCMS).
This new approach to communication earns passenger attention, drives efficiency, boosts revenue, and saves money.
Attention is Currency, and You Have to Earn It
Synect CEO Yahav Ran began with a truth every airport should know: passenger needs are in constant flux. Travelers seek control, familiarity, and options—but what they need shifts from moment to moment:
“From passenger perspectives, they are in constant needs-fulfillment mode … the need might be a sense of control, it might be options available to me, it might be familiarity with the space.”
Meeting those needs is what earns attention. But attention is scarce, as Yahav went on to explain: “Attention is really the currency of today’s mobile-first world … you only get a second here, two seconds there, not more than that.”
For airports, designing for communication respects those fleeting moments is critical for capturing passenger attention.
Yahav outlined the three-step framework for earning passenger attention:
Attract by surfacing relevant, timely information at key anchor points.
Relate by aligning that information directly to a traveler’s immediate need.
Engage by enabling action, such as guiding them to concessions, helping them through security, or reducing uncertainty with clear wayfinding.
Done well, strategic content nudges passengers toward the desired behavior while also helping airports build their brand reputation, grow revenue, and drive efficiency.
Scaling for Impact
DFW International Airport’s Prasad Yarlagadda, AVP of Enterprise Systems, explained that the key is not just designing for one need, but for a stream of shifting needs:
“It becomes very crucial for us to make sure that we are conveying the right information at the right time and make sure people are able to take advantage of it.”
DFW’s strategy is to make content both precise and scalable. Every display, from a FIDS board to a wayfinding sign to rental car signage, is part of one centrally managed system. This ensures consistency and agility.
The point is not just to tell passengers where to go, but to relieve stress and reduce friction, and to do so with content that adapts to who is traveling. For example,
“When a plane from Japan lands, we make sure the content is displayed in the languages customers understand. That makes it easier for them to navigate.”
By recognizing that needs are dynamic, changing by time of day, flight profile, or traveler type, DFW processes passengers better and addresses their needs in a way that boosts the airport and passenger experience. Part of this success comes from understanding how passengers view the space. Prasad wryly noted that for arriving passengers, the focus is on what awaits:
“As much as we all love airports, all our customers want to get out of the airport as fast as possible. By providing these capabilities, it makes it easier."
Prasad demonstrated this concept by sharing upcoming work for DFW’s rental car facility, highlighting how they're transforming passenger experience with content strategy.
Old-School FIDS Died at FTE. DCMS is Taking the Throne.
Ian Birnbaum, Project Manager at Burns Engineering, delivered the bluntest assessment: “Everyone in this room is now beyond FIDS … that’s obsolete technology.”
While evolving passenger needs and expectations help drive the change, cost and efficiency reinforces the need and provides a method to get there. At Hollywood Burbank Airport, legacy plans for traditional FIDS were replaced with a DCMS approach.
The impact was immediate. Instead of overspending on low-impact, single-use systems, the airport realized major savings by implementing an airport-wide DCMS that delivers flight information, branding, alerts, and advertising in one integrated system.
“Burbank proved that it doesn’t break the bank. We ended up beating the budget that we had … by more than 70%. We saved by going down this road.”
Better passenger experiences. Lower costs. Stronger revenue potential. That’s the new reality, and it’s why the old FIDS mindset cannot survive.
“Content strategy is moving beyond FIDS. Typically when you think of screens in an airport, you think your FIDS, your BIDS, your GIDS. You can have smarter systems that encompass all of that. One of the key factors of a DCMS is the realization that FIDS is just another form of content."
This is a profound shift in thinking, because content can be anything. Airports can have FIDS, GIDS, BIDS and any other data they need. But they can also have branding, advertising, messaging, and more, all built into one engaging, visually appealing package that addresses passenger needs and boosts airports’ revenue, reputation, and efficiency.
How to Set Yourself Up for Success
Faith Varwig, Founder and Managing Principal of Faith Group, reminded the audience that success doesn’t come from adding more displays at the end of a project. It comes from building strategy and governance at the beginning. Too often, she said, budgets bury content and display budgets in “electrical numbers,” or worse, ignore digital entirely until it’s too late. That’s when airports end up with fragmented systems, duplicate investments, and no clear ownership of content.
Deliberate planning is the key to creating consistent and exceptional passenger experiences. Steering committees, governance frameworks, and early stakeholder alignment ensure that airports are investing in a living system that serves operations, passengers, and revenue long term rather than just buying hardware.
As Faith explained, she still hears leaders ask, “Why do I need digital signage? I have one of these [phones].” But phones don’t replace infrastructure. Connectivity fails. Batteries die. Passengers tune out. A DCMS-driven ecosystem, by contrast, ensures that every screen is purposeful, coordinated, and adaptable.
As Yahav shared post-event:
“Airports need systems that can change everything based on real live airport activity. Can you change a template in one second? Can you change it to a whole different look and feel? No. This is the key factor in using effective communication strategies and a smart DCMS.”
The lesson: don’t bolt content on after the fact. Bake it into capital programs. Gain cost and operational efficiencies by defining one content strategy and selecting one system that can scale from curbside to gates and beyond. Govern it across departments and invest with the future in mind. That’s how airports set themselves up for success.
The Takeaway
At FTE Global, our expert panel was clear: airports that keep investing in legacy FIDS, BIDS, or GIDS are spending on systems that are already obsolete.
The shift isn’t toward more or better screens. It’s toward a strategic, unified content strategy and an airport-wide platform that treats every display as part of a coordinated whole.
There are four key lessons we want every airport to understand after our panel:
Passenger needs are fluid, and content has to adapt in real time.
Attract → Relate → Engage offers airports a practical framework for earning attention when it matters most.
A centralized DCMS allows airports to consolidate all signs and systems under one platform, ensuring consistency, efficiency, and enhanced passenger experience across from curb to gate.
The costs favor change: airports can achieve broader impact and better passenger experiences at lower cost.
The message from the stage was blunt: airports that keep planning around FIDS are already behind.
We’re sharing this message to help airports of every size achieve real reputation, revenue, and efficiency gains.
Ready to move beyond legacy FIDS? Contact us now.
