IDC Interview with Alexandros Ziomas, Director, IT&T Business Unit at Athens International Airport

IDC EUROPEAN FUTURE OF OPERATIONS DIGITAL SUMMIT 2021

We had the great pleasure to exchange views on the topic with Advisory Board Members of the IDC European Future of Operations Digital Summit 2021.

The following interview was conducted between IDC and Alexandros Ziomas, Director, IT&T Business Unit at Athens International Airport.

IDC: What is the role of the director of the Information Technology & Telecommunications Business Unit in the Airport’s organization and business operations?

Alexandros Ziomas: The IT&T BU of Athens International Airport S.A. (AIA) is the infrastructure & technology “owner” and provides reliable, and cost-effective services of advanced technology to its internal and external users/customers Since airport opening, IT&T BU has been successfully engaged in numerous consulting and ICT projects in Greece and around the globe utilizing its experts’ extensive knowledge and experience in Aviation Industry.

Admittedly, “Airport operations” is an area of technological intensity at the forefront of innovation requiring continuous focusing on digitized solutions, scalable applications, agile innovative ideas and cost effective implementation. Therefore IT&T Director’s role is by default a very challenging task with its key objectives being:

1. Ensure the availability and high performance of the airport’s systems and applications. This in turn involves provision of services to approx. 300 different entities with multiple users at the airport and remotely, (approx. 13000 single users). Our 24x7x365 offering ranges from aviation and non-aviation related services and systems, to research and laboratory testing of innovative solutions.
2. Provide assurance to management for the strategic alignment of IT&T objectives, with corporate Strategy on innovation and digital transformation. In this regard, IT&T BU dedicates time and effort experimenting with new technologies, POCs (Proof of Concept) and support to various technology suppliers, and startups. Moreover, the proper operation and continuous improvement of AIA’s Data Center Services, along with Business Analytics & Project management Services, are part of our standing agenda towards establishing and maintaining an up-to date robust though effective IT&T business model.

To achieve these strategic key objectives, technology by itself is not enough. In my view, collaborative initiatives with IT&T clients (users, vendors and integrators), sharing of knowledge and experience must be a priority. These are very challenging objectives, thus, requiring continuous cultivation of a synergetic environment, underlining the advantages that can be gained through team efforts (adopt faster, safer, more innovative, more adaptable, common good, common vision).

In this regard it is my belief, thus translated to daily practice, that IT&T BU should keep this collaborative direction to successfully sustain its so far key role as the backbone of the airport business. 

IDC: How would you describe ‘operations’ in your company?

Alexandros Ziomas: The creation of sustainable value to all stakeholders by offering safe and value-for money services is amongst the key objectives of AIA. This in turn defines AIA’s operational and Supporting Units’ strategy, in all areas of involvement of either aeronautical or commercial business.

Operational excellence was always and remains a key principle for AIA’s operations, widely recognized by its airport users, collaborators, and peers through repetitive service excellence awards. To articulate our key message in a few words, I’d say that our airport’s operations can perfectly be described as: Safe, efficient though effective, at high standard of quality, with value for money and at high degree of business risk sharing with airport users. Furthermore, sustainability aspects (environment, social responsibility, resource allocation, etc) are key to our planning and service execution in all operational areas of AIA.

IDC: How do IT&T Business Unit help your company deliver product and service innovations?

Alexandros Ziomas: Airports are key National Importance infrastructure investments to facilitate safe fast and efficient travelling of people and carriage of goods. To serve this role effectively, airports are becoming hubs for innovative solutions utilizing technology edge solutions. This in turn, transforms aerodromes into "digital cities", with the aim to best serve, stakeholders, passengers, visitors; and employees’ needs (airlines, restaurants, retail stores, public authorities, etc.).

The main mission of the Information Technology & Telecommunication Business Unit is to be a complete, trust-worthy & innovative systems and digital solutions provider, capable to design & deliver effective and state of the art services, towards achievement of AIA’s corporate goals. The "Digital & Innovation Services” department of the IT&T BU has been established with the main objective to support AIA in the continuous improvement of its operation and services through digitization, innovation, and new technologies adoption to its regular functioning! In this context, we work with companies, organizations, and agencies, which promote research, and value adding innovative solutions. We have been repeatedly involved in pilot programs (PoCs), to assess and validate new technologies (e.g. AI and Robotics) and methodologies, as well as for examining their adequacy or adoption for the aerodrome environment. Moreover, AIA’s we are actively involved in several EU funded innovative projects with partners from technology and aviation industries, for the development, testing and implementation of innovative solutions. Currently we are members of the project team in European programs (e.g. Chariot & Icarus) while we focus on Internet of Things (IoT), 5G, Big Data Analytics technologies, as well as on "Research-Innovate" programs with local partner technology integrators.

In the last few years, we have strengthened our cooperation with the National Center for Scientific Research "Demokritos", which resulted in the development of an interactive system in the Greek language for the well-known airport robot, Pepper, utilizing artificial intelligence technology (AI).

IDC: What are your top priorities in 2021 (and beyond) to significantly improve the performance of operations?

Alexandros Ziomas: The evolving Pandemic has been a critical factor in setting our organizations’ business and operations priorities. Therefore, our current priorities for 2021 include:

• Contactless technology: Research and identification of contactless solutions to reduce risk for spread of viruses during interaction between passengers and employees, at check-in, security control, payment for ancillary services and pre-boarding profiling checks through the use of biometric technology.
• Operations control and service Efficiency: Airport Operations Management System (AOMS) is a key aerodrome operation platform which is currently subject to a total reengineering. We aim to rebuild operational processes and procedures to enhance collaborative decision making, accelerate data and information exchange, integrate decentralized control of activities and data mining, and maximize Digital Transformation to simplify regular operations, avoid complexity in the flow of airport activities, and save resources where feasible. We have initiated Proof of Concepts of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and automation of rules-based business processes and activities, to enhance quality, and safeguard compliance at well controlled cost.
• E-commerce: The buying behavior of passengers has fundamentally changed. With consumers and businesses becoming more technology oriented than ever before, the growth of online shopping and e-commerce has been significant since the beginning of the pandemic. Airlines and travel retailers are now looking at new digital opportunities to generate additional commercial revenues. IT&T is looking into this new potential challenge, in cooperation with key airport stakeholders aiming into development of a digital airport commerce ecosystem.
• Cloud Services: Approximately 20% of our systems are currently hosted on the cloud, we are planning to further expand these services by an additional 10-15%.
• Artificial Intelligence: AI looks most promising among the several new-age technologies that have potential to significantly transform the passenger experience and airport operations. We are in the process of designing and implementing Chatbot with the support of AI technology, to provide our passengers with appropriate assistance on operational queries through interactive equipment and social communication channels.
• 5G: In cooperation with telecommunications providers we have initiated small-scale pilot projects (use case scenarios) before proceeding with an extensive implementation of 5G for the support of AIA and its stakeholders' several functions. The use of 5G technology is evaluated in data transfer related to the operational readiness and crisis management of the organization, especially when multi-stakeholder cooperation is required, testing of autonomous driving solutions with IoT sensor connectivity and in functional broadband interface in areas of particular business interest and limited access, such as aircraft parking spaces and runway systems. In parallel we are already designing - and evaluating - solutions related to the field of physical security, with the use of 4K video, as well as solutions related to advanced video cameras that will provide real-time data analysis for services based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology. In addition, the possibility of converging the airport Wi-Fi wireless network with those of the mobile services telecommunications’ providers will be studied, thus aiming at optimizing the travel experience of the passengers.

IDC: How is AIA leveraging - or planning to leverage - emerging technologies to improve the environmental sustainability of your operations?

Alexandros Ziomas: AIA is amongst the pioneering European airports utilizing available energy and technology solutions for mitigating environmental footprint and the continuous advancing of aerodrome “green operations”, as a corporate contribution to a sustainable Aviation industry future. In nowadays new scientific sources and solutions are becoming key enablers of these efforts, such as the Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Internet of Things, Big Data mining and analytics, the edge computing, the robotic process automation, and several other innovative solutions. Our attention has been continuous to all these new “tools” before concluding the reengineering of our so far thorough and successful corporate strategy on Sustainability. Electrification, energy Self-efficiency through deployment of green energy production solutions and utilization of energy friendly technology are some of the solutions already selected in conjunction with artificial intelligence. Proof of Concepts for this direction is in our plans and we already work on similar programs such as autonomous bus in parking or the use of robotics by passengers. Innovation resilience, operational efficiency and security are all essential for sustainable growth and our main priorities for improving passengers experience in this critical times and in the post-COVID-19 era.

IDC: Thank you very much for the interview, Alexandros.

If you would like to learn more about the IDC European Future of Operations Digital Summit 2021, taking place March 23rd please click here.