Mitteldeutsche Flughafen AGConsolidation of the

Mitteldeutsche Flughafen AG

Consolidation of the Mitteldeutsche Flughafen AG websites based on TYPO3

The Mitteldeutsche Flughafen AG (MDF AG) unites the three subsidiaries Flughafen Leipzig/Halle GmbH, Flughafen Dresden GmbH and the ground handling service provider PortGround GmbH since 2000. The company is publicly owned, with the Free State of Saxony, the State of Saxony-Anhalt and the cities of Leipzig, Dresden and Halle/Saale counting among the shareholders of MDF AG.

Freight volume 2020
> 1.38 million t

Passengers 2020
918,341

Employees
> 1,300

Website Relaunch

After a long period of operation, the websites of our locations required a significant overhaul. In addition, they should be united under one roof. With Netresearch, we had a reliable partner for this project, who gave us excellent support throughout the entire implementation process and who implemented this demanding project for us on time and to our satisfaction.


Inga Backhaus

Head of Marketing/Vice President Marketing
Mitteldeutsche Flughafen AG

The plan


Until June 2020, all subsidiaries operated their own individual websites. Before the start of the project, separate websites existed for the online offers of Mitteldeutsche Flughafen AG, Dresden Airport, Leipzig/Halle Airport and PortGround. A uniform website was desired for all four companies to publicly convey the togetherness and utilize the synergy effects that arise from the merger of the locations. This way, the administration of the website infrastructure is also standardized. The concept for this was developed together with Oberüber Karger Kommunikationagentur GmbH.

Implementation


Thanks to TYPO3 and the underlying infrastructure, the new website of Mitteldeutsche Flughafen AG is very flexible and the system is optimally prepared for later adjustments and expansions. Current and future services can be integrated quickly and easily. Both the flight data and the airline logos of the daily flight plan and the seasonal flight plan are displayed via interfaces and thus ensure that the data displayed on the new website mdf-ag.com is always up-to-date.

The new, unified site was implemented with a cloud-enabled TYPO3 installation. The infrastructure was provisioned with Terraform to comply with the concept “everything as code”. In addition, we rely on CI/CD pipelines for Mitteldeutsche Flughafen AG. This procedure enables us to carry out automated testing before the deployments and to execute the deployments at any time as required.

During development, we made sure to avoid “hard coding” so that our customers have the greatest possible freedom for system configuration in the future. In addition to the technical aspects, we also placed a special focus on the modern requirements for UX/UI design, mobile optimization and data protection compliance in order to create an optimal and secure user experience for website visitors.

Impressions


Key features


 State-of-the-art design
  
 Latest code basis 
  
 Enterprise CMS TYPO3
  
 Modern Docker architecture
  
 AWS Fargate
  
 Multistage system 
  
 Modern CI/CD pipelines
  
 Sync service from editor system to live system

The result


The Mitteldeutsche Flughafen AG received a new website that combines online communication for the company and gradually for all subsidiaries - implemented using TYPO3 version 9. Numerous functions were designed so that information for both airport locations can be looked up and displayed to the website visitor in one single place. For example, with the newly developed flight search, users can browse flights up to one year in advance for either Dresden airport, Leipzig/Halle airport, or both. Search options and an interactive map make looking for flights very convenient for users.

In addition to the production system, the customer received an identical separate editor system for managing and maintaining the content. The TYPO3 extension nr_sync, which was developed by Netresearch and is freely available thanks to the open source concept, editors can transfer new or updated content from the editor system to the production system at any time. Using an incremental sync, the resource requirements of the process can be reduced to a minimum. This enhancement for TYPO3 enables backend users without technical know-how to publish new content themselves.

The new website and online marketing activities are already showing initial results. The time spent on the website increased by 40% after the relaunch, the number of contact inquiries via the website increased by 150% thanks to funnel optimization, and the number of downloads went up by 75%. In addition, the Mitteldeutsche Flughäfen AG generated 7 times more clicks from Facebook to the website within just 3 months.

40 % more time spent on website
150 % more contact requests
75 % more downloads

In this project, Netresearch has proven to be a reliable partner for all matters relating to the customer's online presence. We provide a central point of contact for the future developments and utilization of the new website's potential.

Website Relaunch

Thomas Wilhelm
Consultant web platforms,
CMS, TYPO3

  +49 341 47842241

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 +49 341 - 478420

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