{"id":140909,"date":"2025-03-18T04:13:08","date_gmt":"2025-03-18T04:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/aerospace\/i-call-airhart-an-airport-operations-orchestration-platform\/"},"modified":"2025-03-18T04:13:08","modified_gmt":"2025-03-18T04:13:08","slug":"i-call-airhart-an-airport-operations-orchestration-platform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=140909","title":{"rendered":"I call AIRHART an airport operations orchestration platform"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Copenhagen is famous for brands that aim to be the best, and AIRHART is no different. Credit: foto_and_video\/Shutterstock <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Martin Bowman, Chief Strategy Officer at Smarter Airports, spoke to Airport Technology to give an update on its proprietary AIRHART system a year after we visited its first application in Copenhagen<\/a>, Denmark. Netcompany developed the multifactor tool to manage airport operations with its local partner, Copenhagen Airport in 2023<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The appointment of a new strategy leader seems an opportune moment to catch up with the tech firm giving airports a chance to see another way of operating, as Bowman describes it. <\/p>\n

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Credit: Netcompany<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Patrick Rhys Atack<\/strong>: Martin you\u2019ve been brought in as Chief Strategy Officer for Smarter Airports and its AIRHART airport management product \u2013 tell us how you explain and sell the tech tool? <\/p>\n

Martin Bowman<\/strong>: I like to think of it as a next generation in airport orchestration and airport operations. It has its origins in the traditional tools used to operate an airport. But what it doesn\u2019t have is any of the restrictions and the limitations and any of the boundaries of those traditional systems.<\/p>\n

So, whilst from a from a business capability point of view, it does the stuff that traditional systems would do, it doesn\u2019t do [it] with any of the same barriers or \u2018start, middle, ends\u2019, it\u2019s much more extendable. It\u2019s much more holistic, a much more strategic approach to delivering operational technology at an airport. And that\u2019s part of the challenge. The challenge that we have is essentially with a new category. We\u2019re a new way of working, a new way of doing things. And I think that\u2019s what has happened in the last 12 months\u2026 we have moved. Obviously, our origins are in what we\u2019ve been doing with Copenhagen.<\/p>\n

But we\u2019ve broadened beyond Copenhagen. We obviously continue to work extensively with Copenhagen, but we\u2019ve broadened, and we have got the first mixed major airport has embraced this kind of new way of working and has embraced it as a platform.<\/a><\/p>\n

PRA<\/strong>: Tell us about that growth in Munich, are they using the tech in the same way as Copenhagen?<\/p>\n

MB:<\/strong> They haven\u2019t gone down the route of labelling the platform and putting it into a specific capability or a specific category. They\u2019ve said, \u2018No, this is operational transformation. This is digital transformation of the operation. We\u2019re not going to put the boundaries on this. We\u2019re going to have things that we\u2019re hoping to do. We\u2019re going to have plans that we\u2019re hoping to execute against.\u2019<\/p>\n

But this is basically something that is limited [only] by our imagination. You know, we can extend this and take this much, much further. So that\u2019s massively encouraging. And I think it\u2019s given us confidence to be brave and basically say that this isn\u2019t your traditional system. This isn\u2019t your traditional way of doing this. This is a new generation, but this is a new way of doing it. This is a new capability, a new category in technology. And I think that\u2019s what you\u2019ll see going forward with us.<\/p>\n

PRA<\/strong>: I hear there are more contracts in the works \u2013 can you confirm that?<\/p>\n

MB<\/strong>: Hopefully we\u2019ll, you know\u2026 I don\u2019t want to kind of hex us or anything. But there\u2019s a couple of others that are moving towards that conclusion. And again, the type of organizations that they are, it gives us confidence that this is starting to become something that\u2019s recognized by major airports, that actually the status quo and the continuation of that way of doing things just doesn\u2019t give them what they\u2019re looking for. And they\u2019re wanting something more. They\u2019re wanting more flexibility that a platform-based approach gives them.<\/p>\n

PRA<\/strong>: Is it simply European partners you\u2019re currently looking for, or is your forward-looking strategy also international, multi-continent?<\/p>\n

MB<\/strong>: If you look at where we are seeing momentum, I wouldn\u2019t say it\u2019s coincidental, the momentum within the European market and Netcompany being a major European technology company\u2026 \u00a0the synergies are there. But what would also see is that there is also a recognition that the European airports in particular are feeling the capacity crunch, probably more than most others.<\/p>\n

You know, the latest forecast figures from the Eurocontrol up to 2050 [show] the number of capacity-constrained airports is expected to increase quite significantly. So airports are actually looking to not just build infrastructure out of some of their operational challenges, [they are] looking at kind of Smarter infrastructure asset optimization, intelligent decision making. It doesn\u2019t surprise me that the European market is picking up on this first. It does also help being a European organization, that is, there\u2019s probably a recency and a kind of relevance to what we\u2019re what we\u2019re doing, that helps with that.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve seen this in aviation, and over the last kind of 15, 20 years, there\u2019s been a lot of initiatives that were born out of Europe\u2026 people have realized it\u2019s a good concept and therefore, it doesn\u2019t have boundaries. ACDM is a great example of that. ACDM was all born out of the European SESAR research. But how many ACDM airports are there in the world now? They\u2019re not European, it\u2019s all across the world.<\/p>\n

So I would hope over time we will be expanding.<\/p>\n

PRA<\/strong>: So is that your aim for the next year, to grow further afield?<\/p>\n

MB<\/strong>: The main strategic thrust over the next 12 months will be embedding the concept of an \u2018operations orchestration platform\u2019 into the general vernacular of the industry. That will be what we are focusing on, getting the industry to recognize there is an alternative to the traditional systems in the traditional way.<\/p>\n

One of the things I talk about, I call AIRHART, we\u2019re working on this as a brand, an \u2018airport operations orchestration platform\u2019, so it\u2019s an AOOP, right? So the way I talk about that, it\u2019s like the AODB as we know it is dead, right? It\u2019s like, that\u2019s the old way of doing it. That is the old kind of historical way we do it. This way it is now the AOOP. So the strategy is to educate the market that there is a new alternative to that traditional systems approach that they had.<\/p>\n

PRA<\/strong>: So that\u2019s the forward direction \u2013 but tell us about the company you\u2019ve joined, how does the last 12 months look from where you are now?<\/p>\n

MB<\/strong>: I think the thing that that we first and foremost, really strongly believe in, and we think it\u2019s strongly reflected in the platform, is the airports are an ecosystem. Both in terms of the people, the kind of functional people that operate at the airport, but also in terms of the technologies which support the operation of the airport.<\/p>\n

And so one of the things that we\u2019ve been doing the last 12 months at Copenhagen has been working with one of the vendors that is applying AI to a particular problem in a particular area, there\u2019s two use cases as one. There\u2019s one around operational efficiency and turnaround efficiency, and then there\u2019s another one around kind of sustainability and emission reductions and so on. And so that partner system, that expert system, is off doing its bit, and it\u2019s off gathering its insights. But what is then happening is Airhart is then, you know what, as the data and as the insights are becoming available, Airhart is then triggering the wider management system, shall we say, triggering the wider organization and using its orchestration ability to then trigger changes and process and make sure that the insights are being actioned.<\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s been a major step forward in the last 12 months, because, again, I\u2019m firmly of the belief that there isn\u2019t a \u2018silver bullet\u2019 solution. This isn\u2019t singular technology that delivers the positive change. It requires the ecosystem to work in collaboration. It requires the vendors to work in collaboration. And we very much embrace that. And I would expect to see us again, continuing that going forward, so that that\u2019s definitely something that has been looked on in the last 12 months, and there\u2019s been strong progress.<\/p>\n

PRA<\/strong>: And what about you, what attracted you to Netcompany and joining the Smarter Airports division?<\/p>\n

MB<\/strong>: I was already aware of Smarter Airports, because I\u2019m an industry guy, so I obviously track the industry and know what\u2019s going on. But I properly encountered it, and it was like direct, first-hand encountering, just on some work I was doing for a couple of major airports. I was doing some stuff for them, and the more I learned about it, the more I went, \u2018Oh, I quite like the sound of this\u2019. And, actually, I was a bit of a cynic at first.<\/p>\n

I actually had a colleague who had joined Deloitte from Netcompany, who had worked on it. \u00a0And he was talking to me about it. I was in cynic mode, and I\u2019m going, \u2018well, it\u2019s an AODB, right? It\u2019s an AODB. How could, like, you know, how can it be that revolutionary? It manages flight data, manages the aircraft data. It does Master Data Management. It does notifications, so just an AODB, right?<\/p>\n

And [he] kept saying to me: \u2018I don\u2019t know how to describe it, but it\u2019s different\u2019. And so when I was doing this work for this other airport, I got quite close to it, and I was getting quite granular around some of the stuff I was asking, because I\u2019ve got background in the industry. I kind of know a bit about the industry. So I was getting quite specific around things.<\/p>\n

And every answer that I got, I was like, \u2018I like that. it was clear that it was flexible, and it was clear that there was way more power under the hood than I\u2019d ever assumed. And then long story short, I was at a wee bit of a crossroads myself. I had some options to go down different routes, including with Deloitte, and I decided that I probably wanted to get back closer to the industry.<\/p>\n

Because when you do strategy work, it\u2019s very, very satisfying. You\u2019re at the heart of the idea process. And really doing all the thinking. But the problem when you do strategy work is you don\u2019t stick around to see the change, you don\u2019t stick around to see what happens.<\/p>\n

And, off the back of that, I wanted to do the \u2018do\u2019, it was not just enough to do the \u2018think\u2019. So at that point, there was obviously a couple of conversations and Smarter Airports being one of them.<\/p>\n

So to be honest with you, what flipped the switch for me, what got it was that that motivation to change the industry approach, and the ability to basically get the industry to recognize that there is an alternative to the way you\u2019ve done things historically.<\/p>\n

PRA<\/strong>: You seem genuinely passionate about it, which is fantastic, but as we all know that\u2019s not enough for C-Suite success. What will you class as success going forward in this role?<\/p>\n

MB<\/strong>: So I think on the macro level, success is the industry recognizing and adopting the new approach to operational technology and operational orchestration, and whether it be us or others that might subsequently follow, \u00a0anything that unlocks the legacy is just such a positive step forward. \u00a0<\/p>\n

At the micro level, I really do think we are primed for really digitally enabling larger, more complex airports. There\u2019s a couple of organizations in particular I think we are just ideally suited for. So if we could progress against those, that would be great.<\/p>\n

Total Airport Management (TAM) has bounced around for years, and it\u2019s never really gathered momentum and it\u2019s not that the concept itself is flawed.<\/p>\n

What it is, this technology to actually enable it hasn\u2019t been available for such a long time, because you can\u2019t enable TAM \u00a0if all your estate is covered in legacy [technology]. I would love to see if we could see TAM having a new breath of life, right? And TAM coming alive again. And people actually go, \u2018We can actually do this now. This isn\u2019t some sort of academic concept over there. We can actually do this now.\u2019 And if AIRHART and Smarter Airports can be at the heart of TAM coming back into fashion and genuinely delivering value, I would be delighted with that. I would be so proud of that.<\/p>\n

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