Creating Smarter Airports And Airlines

A whopping $33 billion will be invested by airports and airlines for IT in 2017, according to SITA’s latest Air Transport IT Trends Insights. Although a major share will go to boost cyber security, ways to provide extra self-service options to passengers will also be a part of the investments.

Airlines and airports are estimated to spend nearly $33 billion on IT this year and they are focusing their technology investments on similar priorities, according to the recent SITA 2017 Air Transport IT Trends Insights release. Top of the agenda for CIOs at both airlines and airports, are investments in cyber security and cloud services. In addition, they are prioritising investments in passenger self-service

SITA’s research of the world’s airlines and airports shows that IT spends remain strong. Airlines spend as a percentage of revenue will rise to an estimated 3.30 per cent or $24.3 billion in 2017. For airports, the rise is to an expected 5.05 per cent per cent for this year or $8.43 billion. Looking ahead to 2018, over 70 per cent of airlines and 88 per cent of airports are expecting IT spend to increase or remain at the same levels as today.

As IT spends increase, both airlines and airports agree that the number one priority for their investments is cyber security. Nearly all of them – 95 per cent of airlines and 96 per cent of airports – plan to invest in major programmes or R&D on cyber security initiatives over the next three years. This shows alignment across the industry on the importance of investing in this area.