Newcastle International Airport has been the North East's largest airport for almost a century, now welcoming 5.2 million passengers each year and connecting both leisure and business passengers directly to over 80 destinations worldwide. Winner of numerous Best Airport awards, the airport works with both regional and overseas organisations on imaginative campaigns to drive visitors to the region.
Phase 1
The challenge
Building on our long-standing relationship as their digital partner, we worked with the airport’s team to optimise key web user journeys and landing pages to strengthen conversions, and create a modern, frictionless online experience for their visitors.
Whilst the airport had invested continually in improving their web platform, the site’s functionality and information architecture had grown organically in step with evolving demands, and required a fresh take to meet user needs and business priorities.
A back-to-basics UX review and assessment was needed in order to make the airport’s digital presence performant and targeted for modern users, and to further realise the airport’s portfolio of revenue streams.
Re-imagining key journeys also presented the opportunity to move the airport’s platform to the latest version of Umbraco, and with that unlock the potential to implement new best practice front-end components and composable page layouts.
Phase 2
The approach
We began with a collaborative discovery workshop to surface ideas, challenges, and opportunities, and to align on shared objectives for the project. This brought together known priorities from the airport team alongside insights from our Shout-led UX review, ensuring the solution balanced business goals with the latest in UX best practice.
Going bold with our vision, we agreed that a significant overhaul of site navigation and the introduction of a new suite of reusable front-end components were essential to achieving ambitions for the site. These components were designed to be visually engaging, intuitive, and highly reusable—providing flexibility not only for immediate needs, but also for any future changes as the website continues to evolve.
With this strong foundation in place, we delivered a series of high-impact improvements, including:
Homepage transformation
Wholesale improvements to the homepage, transforming it into a more compelling and effective digital shop window
Optimised user journeys
Simplified and optimised user journeys, with particular focus on revenue-generating flows such as parking bookings and ecommerce services
Reusable components
A refreshed UI supported by a library of reusable, composable components
Eat, shop & drink
An enhanced ‘Eat, Shop, Drink’ experience to better showcase the airport’s retail and hospitality offers
Passenger and corporate platforms
Clear separation of passenger and corporate content into distinct spaces and journeys
Upgraded payment options
Integration of Apple Pay and Google Pay to reduce friction and improve conversion
This multi-stream programme of work spanned UX research and design, front-end and back-end development, and close collaboration with stakeholders across the airport’s Commercial, Marketing, and Operational teams — where continuous, close working was essential to delivering a cohesive and successful outcome.
Results
Engagement +11%
Key event conversion +42%
eCommerce purchases +8.9%
Tracked metrics show a clear uplift across all targeted areas of our work, demonstrating strong improvements across the user journey.
User engagement has increased by +11%, with visitors interacting more deeply with refreshed content experiences. This improved engagement is translating into stronger conversion performance, with a 42% increase in key event conversion for sign-ups, form completions and bookings.
An 8.9% increase in transactions highlights the value of streamlined e-commerce journeys, enabling users to transact more quickly and easily while delivering measurable commercial benefits for airport stakeholders.
Beyond the data, stakeholders at Newcastle Airport have welcomed the separation of Corporate and Customer journeys, which has streamlined the experience for both audiences and provided a dedicated space to communicate key business objectives, including the airport’s commitment to net zero carbon and its 15-year Masterplan.
Finally, the upgraded Umbraco platform has improved efficiency across content management, simplified onboarding and enabled greater flexibility through reusable, composable components — future-proofing the website to support evolving business needs.
Services & requirements
Digital strategy
Working collaboratively with multiple stakeholder groups to create a unified digital strategy, which balanced user needs with commercial and operational objectives, driving income, efficiency and long-term scalability for the airport.
Website design and development
A refreshed UI, visually engaging and frictionless user journeys, a strong focus on increasing conversion, and drawing a distinction between passenger and corporate user journeys - resulting in vastly improved experiences across both key segments.
Innovation
By leveraging the latest Umbraco capabilities, we implemented a composable, component-driven approach that enables flexibility, speed of iteration, and ongoing evolution of the platform.
Enterprise architecture
Strategic approach to infrastructure through an Azure based hosting solution, capable of efficient and secure deployments, scaling and availability.
Phase 3
The outcome
Our long-standing relationship with Newcastle International Airport—built on trust, shared ambition, and deep understanding of their digital estate—provided the perfect foundation to innovate together in this latest chapter of our partnership. The result is a future-proofed platform that balances performance, resilience, and maintainability, offering a flexible digital foundation to support ongoing growth, innovation, and exceptional experiences for passengers and partners alike.
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