Sector(s)
Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA), the large government body managing LAX and Van Nuys airports, needed a modern, flexible, and stable web platform that can scale as the LA airports continue to grow and evolve. Their existing content management system (CMS), Sitecore, was being deprecated, forcing them to migrate to a new platform.
LAWA sought a solution that would not only replicate existing functionalities but also enhance performance, security, and user experience. To accomplish this, LAWA reached out to us to help them make this dream a reality and we're so glad they did. Our team was able to smoothly migrate their three major websites to Drupal 10 on Acquia hosting and significantly boost the user experience.
About the project
Our primary objective was to migrate three websites—lawa.org, flylax.com, and flyvny.com—along with the employee portal to the latest Drupal 10 CMS, but it was more than that. We needed to:
- Simplify their web component structure and reduce maintenance downtime
- Transition from deprecated Sitecore environment to Drupal 10
- Make sure the sites remain operational during this migration
Our team needed to transition all data and functionalities to Drupal while leveraging its module-driven architecture. The migration included mapping all existing content, rebuilding components within the Drupal ecosystem, and ensuring that all necessary integrations were preserved.
The previous Sitecore environment required extensive development efforts for content updates, whereas the new Drupal system introduced a more user-friendly, component-based approach that empowered internal teams to make updates without technical assistance.
Of course, like all of our projects, we had to make sure to implement best practices to improve search visibility and mobile responsiveness. This included structured data improvements, metadata optimization, and responsive design updates to enhance user experience across all devices.
A core need for LAWA was for us to build custom APIs for existing features, including baggage tracking, flight status, and traffic updates. These integrations were developed to maintain real-time data synchronization, enhancing the user experience with accurate and up-to-date information.
To officially kick things off, Hounder hosted a discovery meeting with LAWA to align on challenges and goals for the project. Following that, we conducted a site crawl audit for all three domains and evaluated the best approach for a detailed migration and change management plan.
Every migration comes with its share of hiccups, but with a dedicated bug tracker in place, the Hounder and LAWA teams were able to stay one step ahead. This real-time tracking allowed us to quickly identify and resolve issues before they escalated, keeping the project on track and running smoothly from start to finish.
Results from the project included:
- 96% faster page load speed
- 75% improved web stability
- 20% increase in operational efficiency
- 11,745 pages migrated
Why Drupal was chosen
Drupal was chosen because our team was able to move all three websites to Drupal’s drag-and-drop page builder, empowering LAWA’s internal teams to update content without requiring developer assistance. By creating consistent component themes in this environment, managing these websites doesn’t require in-depth technical expertise, making them much more user-friendly.
Technical Specifications
Drupal version:
