news
year 2023
At the end or the beginning of the year we see many companies, consultancies and magazines making a Top 5 list of what they see as the big challenges or trends for specific industries and the world of aviation is no different. With what has happened over the last two to three years, it has been hard to predict trends but some have been around for some years and have only become more important. Let’s have a closer look at what these key trends are, according to the many specialized publications.
Cybersecurity becomes ever more important.
Cybersecurity has not been off the radar for the last 5 years. It has become ever more important and the global (political) power struggle has made infrastructure and thus also airports vulnerable. Airports are a complex organization with multiple users mostly belonging to different companies with all their own tools and priorities. As one of the biggest cybersecurity experts stated, hackers work in different phases to test the waters before they strike. With the arrival of many new technologies; airports have to deal with a much a more complex and difficult to manage security environment. Having a good defense plan and the appropriate weapons to isolate attacks are critical to not be heavily impacted by any attack. For that you need to understand what solutions or applications to use within the airport set up and how each is built to fence off any attacks.
Airports are embracing digitalization
Airports have been long time laggards when it comes to digitalization but the last years the catch up with other industries has been taking place. Digitalization on multiple levels that is, from improving the passenger flow through the use of Biometrics or the measurements of physical appearance that can be used to identify individuals. Video analytics. Measuring is knowing and many airports are integrating solutions like video analytics to understand what is happening at the gate not only for charging airlines but also to see how time can be saved by analyzing the turn around process and understand the end to end process. The data collected can also be used to streamline the process from deboarding to baggage collection. Finally but not least, intelligent airside maintenance is one of the heaviest processes an airport is faced with. Solutions like intelligent assets can reduce this and can create important savings, airport maintenance staff needs to understand whether maintenance on airfield ground lighting or any other assets is really needed. For this the assets can generate data which can be shared with airport operations or maintenance upon demand. This allows for maintenance when really needed thus savings hours of unnecessary closure of run-or taxiways due to unnecessary maintenance.
Sustainability is here to stay.
With the return of travel, the topic of sustainability is again clearly on the table and airports are forced to rethink how they operate in a carbon neutral way, from electrification to adopting recycling strategies, from adding better railway connectivity to embracing the circular economy by re-using materials to abandoning short haul flights. Airports become more and more creative in reducing their footprint but still more is needed and more can be done.
Agility is the new normal.
If covid has proven one thing, then it’s that high fixed costs and variable revenues are not an ideal combination as they have seriously impacted an airport’s business plan and left many with a huge financial deficit. The future is all about agility, scalability and operational efficiency which means that airports need to rethink their organisational set up, understand how to increase productivity with the same means and people and outsource more to existing suppliers to have that much needed flexibility.
Contactless technologies
Airports will become smarter and so will the entire travel experience and this through the use of contactless technologies that not only make interactions easier but also avoid any physical interactions. Such technologies will especially be used during check-in and security processes. But it goes beyond that. Contactless technology has the potential to penetrate almost all aspects of flying, including how we pay for items, how we board a plane, and how we interact with in-flight entertainment systems.
Continuously looking at the key trends with customers and the industry.
At OCEM Airfield we continuously look into how we can improve the airside, decrease interventions, and increase the overall positive impact of our solutions on an airport’s sustainability safety or efficiency approach.
We do this through the OCEM Innovation Lab where we meet with our developers, colleagues, university professors and users to discuss the future of the airside.
To understand how OCEM Airfield can help airport operations, contact marketing@ocem.com