From back-office systems to schedules to IATA’s latest proof of concept of a fully integrated digital identity travel experience, the ability to capture and securely transfer data is the pillar on which all advanced technologies rely.
Aviation’s good fortune is the amount of data it has, which translates into enormous potential to transform operations and customer service. Its challenge is properly utilizing this data, capturing, structuring, and analyzing it to make it useful.
“Aviation gets vast quantities of data from across its operational and value streams,” says Kim Macaulay, IATA’s Chief Information and Data Officer. “But data’s power is in its accessibility, and this is where the industry needs to improve. We cannot continue to work on data in silos.”
Unified IT infrastructure
IATA has revamped its services to help airlines manage and exploit their data for their own benefit and for the good of the industry. A data team has been established consisting of data management experts, data scientists, and engineers that ensures IATA masters fundamental data functions. Supporting technologies, such as machine learning will also be put in place in a unified IT infrastructure that promotes cross-sector data availability.
Airline IT personnel will therefore more easily find a counterpart in IATA and be able to discuss nuanced, technical issues, making it easier to arrive at solutions. The set-up also provides huge scope for collaboration on building use cases and furthering the industry’s digital transformation.
“Data was not a separate function before,” explains Macaulay. “It was tied up in the various programs and only discussed in the context of that program. But now we can more generally talk about data quality and analytics and have far more constructive conversations about the best way forward. There are new tools, new people, and an improved structure. IATA is investing in its capabilities to create more opportunities for the…