SITA, the air transport industry communications provider, today announced that 300 airports in more than 100 countries across the world, are now equipped with SITA AirportHub™. This unique shared infrastructure allows airlines to connect all their applications and IT systems at an airport quickly and easily. It removes the complexity of dealing with local telecom providers and adds flexibility and agility to route management.
Airports are the center of the industry’s communications and are becoming ever more connected. By 2030, 18,000 airline communication connections will be needed at the world’s airports. The number and size of airports is also rising; 500 new airports – a 30% increase over today – and a 40% capacity growth in existing airports. The challenge the industry faces with this expansion is have reliable, secure, high performance communications – consistently across the world’s airports – for airlines, ground handlers, maintenance companies, other airport tenants and the airports themselves.
SITA AirportHub is an airport-wide shared connectivity platform that ensures airports can provide their airlines, ground handlers and other tenants with secure and reliable bandwidth, including wireless connectivity to access off-airport applications. Today, it is at 300 airports and provides 3,000 connections across the world.
Matthew Billings, Chair of Membership Committee, SITA and VP Technology Services at Virgin Atlantic, speaking at the Air Transport IT Summit being held in Barcelona, said: “SITA’s investment in the AirportHub infrastructure over the last number of years is of huge benefit to the entire air transport community. Now airlines can use AirportHub at 300 airports across the world – from Beijing to here in Barcelona.
“SITA AirportHub makes opening new routes much quicker and easier. When airlines are connecting their systems at an airport they can now do so within a matter of weeks not months. This streamlined approach is efficient and cost-effective. Many airlines are keen to work with their airport partners who don’t already have SITA AirportHub in place to consider its adoption.”
Dan Ebbinghaus, Senior Vice President, Communications and Infrastructure Solutions, SITA, said: “All airlines need high levels of connectivity on demand. Wherever they fly, and whether they are low cost, hybrid or flag carriers, the need is the same. As our airline members have experienced, SITA AirportHub provides this securely and efficiently.
“The rollout of AirportHub across the world’s airports is multi-year investment by SITA on behalf of the airline and airport community. Our plan over the next three years is to have AirportHub at 700 sites reaching 80% of airlines’ international destination airports. This will dramatically expand our coverage transforming the communications infrastructure at the world’s airports.”
SITA AirportHub helps to reduce the total cost of ownership through secure shared infrastructure and global community solutions. It makes connections between all stakeholders at the airport – airlines, governments, ground handlers, commercial operators and other partners – efficient and cost-effective. In addition to cost savings through shared, short lead time to connect and common-use infrastructure, there are vast savings in the time and effort of sourcing from local telecom companies, managing multiple suppliers and having to cope with long lead times.
The 300 airports already taking advantage of SITA AirportHub are located in more than 100 countries. These range from remote and regional destinations serving less than a million passengers to the largest international hubs of the world which together manage hundreds of millions passengers every year.
