One of the major aviation industry events, the Global Airport and Passenger Symposium (GAPS), took place in Athenaeum Intercontinental Athens, in Greece, on October 2nd – 4th, 2018 and was organized by IATA (International Air Transport Association), the trade association for the world’s airlines, representing some 290 airlines or 82% of total air traffic. In the frame of GAPS, apart from the plenary session held during the first day of the program, the activities of the second day split into four (4) discrete pathways, namely, a) The Aircraft Experience, b) The Transforming Airport, c) The Seamless Journey, and d) The World of Interactive Data. The large amounts of data produced and stored by the aviation ecosystem was mentioned as a reality, leading to the need for processing and analysis towards prediction, forecasting and optimization of the processes among its stakeholders.
ICARUS project participants attended GAPS so as to further elaborate on the business requirements of the aviation industry. During the session of “The World of Interactive Data”, the major outcome of the session was the motto “It is all about Data!”. Airlines and airports agreed upon the high value of data, their collection and their analysis towards decision making and action planning. A special mention has been made about the data sharing and its necessity, deriving from the various aviation stakeholders and the data they are able to collect and share, leading to collective data analytics and business intelligence, that would provide high business added value to all. Thus, ICARUS already targets the main objectives of the aviation industry as these were presented by the respective stakeholders, and will be in high priority the years to follow.
