SITA’S INNOVATION AND PORTFOLIO EVOLUTION ARE DRIVEN BY THE DETERMINATION TO ADDRESS INDUSTRY PAIN-POINTS AND SHAPE THE FUTURE OF TRAVEL.
Key areas of collaborative innovation for SITA: supporting industry transformation for 2021-2022 and the years ahead
Enabling safer, easier, and more sustainable travel, including helping to reduce costs, overcome operational hurdles, and improve the passenger experience.
Solving today’s travel challenges, through operational efficiencies and sustainability. Ensuring safe and smooth journeys, to meet passenger expectations.
Shaping tomorrow’s travel, with emerging technologies to overcome future challenges and create more sustainable and intermodal passenger journeys.
Community-owned for over 70 years, SITA’s enduring remit is to innovate collaboratively with the industry, including airlines, airports, governments, industry bodies, proven innovative companies, early-stage ventures, and universities.
SITA portfolio teams address industry problems with today’s deployable technology, while the SITA Lab engages with industry players to investigate the potential of emerging technology in a three-to-five-year timeframe.
Proofs-of-Concept (PoCs), trials, pilot and other research projects underway in 2021 and into 2022 involve new and emerging technologies across the passenger journey, supply chains and operations, including touchless ‘walk-though’ travel, aircraft turnaround, baggage tracking, digital identity, digital health credentials, and many more.
A YEAR AT-A-GLANCE:
CO-INNOVATING WITH THE WORLD’S AIR
TRAVEL INDUSTRY
of revenues invested in R&D, product development, and delivery (2020-2021)*.
patents granted to SITA by the end of 2021. SITA continues to safeguard its investments in key technologies for the recovery with 218 more patent applications in the pipeline.
new SITA product introductions and 20+ start-up incubations resulting from the R&D carried out by the SITA Lab since 2008, with more in the pipeline for 2022.
co-innovation projects by the SITA Lab since inception in 2008. They include trials and Proofs-of-Concept (PoCs) for use cases addressing industry challenges, complementing innovation in SITA’s portfolio teams.
A YEAR AT-A-GLANCE:
KEY ACHIEVEMENTS IN THE YEAR
focus intensifies as Star Alliance becomes a customer of the SITA-NEC biometrics partnership, combining SITA Smart Path’s ground-breaking passenger processing with NEC’s cutting-edge identification technologies. See ‘At airports’.
turnaround
optimizer
launched as a collaborative innovation with European and Middle Eastern airports to build predictive turnaround optimization tools.
Credentials
and Trust Frameworks remain a major focus. SITA continues as a Premium Donor of the Sovrin Foundation to advance blockchain self-sovereign digital identity (SSI) giving individuals sole ownership and control of their identity.
innovation continues under the umbrella of the SITA Global Blockchain Alliance, including a new Maintenance, Repair and Operations (MRO) blockchain services white paper and MRO Blockchain Alliance research to digitally track aircraft parts.
continues to be a focus in 2022 and beyond, to improve the transactions and data sharing around aircraft lifecycle using blockchain.
ecosystem
first deployed by SITA in April 2021 with the Aruba Government, creating a secure health travel credential accepted by airlines, hotels, and hospitality partners without sharing private health information.
tracking accuracy achieved in a PoC with a North American airline and airport. Having moved into phase 2 in 2021, it explores how to reduce baggage mishandling by applying AI and Computer Vision technology. Leading to zero-touch, end-to-end baggage tracking.
create a virtual replica of the airport to model vast amounts of data to rapidly analyze, predict and control airport operations. Successful trials at La Guardia and other airports. New trials with Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen International Airport, and Boston Logan Airport.
A YEAR AT-A-GLANCE:
Innovation milestones in the year
for travel as SITA quickly delivers a Digital Travel Declaration (DTD) capability, to help restart travel and safely open borders. Free of charge, it allows passengers to share travel and health credentials with governments ahead of travel. See ‘At borders’.
milestone achieved with the acquisition of Safety Line, helping airlines drive more efficiencies and fuel savings around the aircraft while taking immediate and sustainable steps to reduce their carbon footprint.
airports
through net-zero technology is the objective of a SITA partnership with Envision Digital. Announced in 2021, it deploys AI and Internet of Things technologies to create the world’s first integrated net-zero carbon airport offering. See ‘At airports’.
SITA Lab PoC with ICAO in 2021, delivering a proven blockchain-based solution enabling offline verification in a privacy-preserving way. Now adopted by the aviation industry, it solves a key roadblock as an industry-wide digital standard for the use of EPLs on international flights.
Identity
is seeing greater focus following the success of the SITA Lab’s E-Pilot License PoC, with the scope broadened to include research into a pilot app to facilitate the flight hour log process for pilots, and provide reliable flight and training stats.
is now clearly on SITA’s innovation radar. As a growing mode of short-distance transport, the first new commercial route is already planned for 2024. SITA’s research covers reliable and secure communication, flight preparation and training, flight tracking and fleet management, health monitoring, and data management.
will represent the future of air mobility. SITA’s investigations during 2021 led to a 2022 agreement to provide passenger processing technologies for Skyports, the advanced air mobility company developing and operating Vertiport landing infrastructure for the electric air taxi revolution, as well as operating cargo drone deliveries.
*including the acquisition of assets
