Data, digital transformation to drive future customer experience: IATA

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) on Tuesday urged aviation stakeholders to embrace data and digital transformation to help deliver a frictionless customer experience while enhancing safety and efficiency.

"We must transform paper-based and legacy processes into digital ones and use data to drive decision-making in all facets of our business," said IATA's Director General and CEO Alexandre de Juniac.

"Organisational silos will need to be shed to ensure a holistic focus on the entire customer experience. And we will need to do all this while continuing to ensure the highest levels of safety, security and environmental sustainability," he said while addressing the IATA Aviation Data Symposium here.

de Juniac asked industry leaders to develop core data science capabilities and use data to drive safety and operational improvement.

"Statistics tell us that despite yearly fluctuations, the long-term trend is toward improving safety. Nevertheless, we must intensify our efforts to ensure the accident rate remains disconnected from the expected doubling in air traffic demand over the next 20 years. Greater use of data will be critical to these efforts."He asked airlines to use modern data standards and technology to deliver a superior customer experience.

On airport processes, de Juniac highlighted the One ID initiative to re-invent the passenger journey with a document-free process based on identity management and biometric recognition. "This will boost efficiency from check-in to boarding --to the benefit of passengers, airports and the control authorities," he said.