Airports invest in tech to push sustainability
Technology plays a key role in helping airports respond to the demands for a greener industry. Airports are prioritising technology investments to help them operate in an environmentally responsible way.
This is one of the take-aways of the Air Transport IT Insights, SITA’s global benchmarking survey of IT trends in air transport. SITA is a multinational IT company that provides services to the air transport industry. Airport World reports that many airports adopt digitization technologies for paperless workflows, more efficient operations and faster, automated journeys.
Energy efficiency is a key area being addressed by airports today because they consume significant amounts of energy to operate their buildings and services. It includes energy consumption in the heating, lighting, and cooling of a terminal and for powering IT systems that support the day-to-day operations of an airport, including passenger services, ground vehicles, and airside services.
Energy efficiency
This focus on energy efficiency is consistent with SITA’s report findings that 73% of airports will have policies or physical systems that promote energy savings in place by 2024.
The report confirms that many airports have already implemented greener building infrastructure that covers areas like natural lighting, green spaces, the use of renewable energy, as well as smarter building controls.
As part of this trend for energy-efficient infrastructure, there is a continued focus by airports on their physical data centres. Around 63% of airports will have shifted their physical data centres to energy-efficient cloud-based facilities by the end of 2024, according to SITA’s 2021 Air Transport Insights.
Another example of how IT is helping airports to drive greater efficiencies in energy use is at the airside. ACI’s Aircraft Ground Energy System Simulator (AGES-S) is a simulation tool that helps airports calculate the reduction of fuel consumption by replacing the use of aircraft Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) with more efficient aircraft ground energy systems (AGES).
