Today, aviation stakeholders are turning to digital technology to relieve the pressures of the global capacity crisis and to provide seamless passenger experiences while increasing the non-aeronautical revenue streams. Making digital solutions truly effective has as prerequisite the consensus on standards and methods for effective data sharing between airports and aviation stakeholders.
Data Sharing: A win-win Situation
It is without doubt that the challenges of a truly understanding and collaborative sharing of data between passengers, airlines, control authorities, retailers and airports are quite big. If the key players of this game, such as airlines & airports, agree to share data, the first ones can benefit from providing a stress-free customer experience, by using airport infrastructure to send push notifications at any time.
On the other hand, passengers could get real-time updates for all standard operating procedures at the airport providing them all the necessary elements to be relaxed. Upon reaching that level of relaxation, stakeholders (restaurants, retailers, etc.) can promote to them their personalized products and offers, which will eventually lead to increased interaction with passengers and, at the very end, increase in revenues! Airports, finally, could more efficiently manage all operational flows in and out of the terminal, in order to optimize the utilization of their infrastructure, strengthen security and of course, increase their revenues!
Towards Truly Collaborative Aviation Data Sharing
The airport only owns between 5% and 20% of the data the aviation process generates. This is not much at all. According to a survey conducted by SITA [Data Sharing Services for Airport Management], 80% of airports and 50% of airlines would like to share the data with each other. Moreover, 55% of passengers also agree to share their personal information for a better airport experience. We need to figure out what kind of data can be shared and try to reach to an agreement between airport and all relevant parties. Aviation industry faces increasing regulatory challenges for data sharing. We need to overcome all arising difficulties in all planning phases of data sharing, in order for all operators to have access to high-quality information in a real-time environment, on a platform connected to their database management system and can hopefully operate the airport more efficiently.
Post prepared by: Nikos Papagiannopoulos (AIA)
