What Happens When The Flight Plan Is With I.T.?

From the tail-end of automated irrigation, IoT-enabled supply-chain monitoring to the frontrows of virtual desks, contactless processing, biometric boarding and self-service bag drops, the Kempegowda International Airport, Bengaluru (KIAB) is already past the layover from pre-pandemic to post-pandemic travel. Let’s sit at the window seat and get a better view from Satyaki Raghunath (Chief Strategy & Development Officer), BIAL.

- Pratima Harigunani

SATYAKI RAGHUNATH Chief Strategy & Development Officer, BIAL

Satyaki Raghunath seems like an excited pilot sitting in the cockpit, all set for a long-haul flight to the future. After an extensive two decades of experience in transportation and airport system planning across major cities – London, Chicago, Dubai, Houston and New Delhi, today Satyaki is responsible for Strategy and Development at BIAL. His dashboard is full of a lot of buttons–from frontend corporate strategy, traffic forecasting & market analyses, route development, cargo and aviation concessionaires, to master planning, the BIAL Centre of Excellence (CoE) comprising Innovation Lab, Business Intelligence and Capacity and Operational Planning–Raghunath is steering the airport amidst a lot of new realities.

Having been at the helm of GMR Airports Ltd, the London Stansted Airport, Dubai Airports, and LeighFisher, a specialist global airport advisory firm–he has his hands in full control of the Turn Indicator at BIAL as the organisation turns a new curve towards technology. We find out more about this ascent—with the current altimeter-reading around smart airport technology, IoT, privacy-balance, cybersecurity-turbulence etc.

What are the highlights of the technology footprint at the airport? Any recent additions that are bold and exciting?