Indian airlines' IT spend to be much higher than global average: SITA Asia

Between 2014 and 2023, the number of airports in India have increased from 74 to 148, as per the Union civil aviation ministry. This number is expected to go up to 220 by 2025

Expenditure on information technology (IT) by Indian airlines and airports is much higher than the global average and is expected to remain at that level in the future owing to the expansion being planned, Sumesh Patel, president (Asia Pacific), SITA, told Business Standard in an interview.

IndiGo last month placed the world’s biggest single-tranche aircraft order with Airbus — for 500 A320 family planes.

This was preceded in February by Air India’s second-biggest single-tranche order, for 470 planes — 250 with Airbus and 220 with Boeing.
 

Between 2014 and 2023, the number of airports in India increased from 74 to 148, according to the Union civil aviation ministry.

This is expected to go up to 220 by 2025.
 

SITA, an IT service provider in the global aviation sector, works with almost all airlines and airports in the country. “India is injecting additional aircraft the way the country is building additional airports, enhancing the service. The country needs investment in technology to make it more efficient,” he said.
 

SITA last week won a landmark deal with the Airports Authority of India to provide technology to improve the check-in and baggage-handling systems at its 43 airports.
 

It had last week announced Noida international airport — which is being constructed in Jewar, Uttar Pradesh — would have its airport-management system.
 

“We have put in place the airport-management system for all Adani-run airports. Plus, you cannot discount Digi Yatra. There are investments happening in technology across airlines and airports in India,” Patel noted.
 

Patel talked about OptiClimb and eWAS — two products of SITA in which Indian carriers had shown an interest. SITA is in advanced discussions with Indian carriers on them, he added.
 

“Indian airlines are advanced in looking at the technologies on the aircraft side,” he noted. Opticlimb helps airlines to save fuel while taking off.
 

“When the plane is taking off, it tells at what speed and angle it should do so to save fuel. In the pilot project we did, planes consumed 5 per cent less fuel during take-off. And that is huge in terms of savings — costs and carbon emissions,” Patel said.

eWAS is a weather application that intuitively gives the airline everything that is needed to plan and amend flights effectively.

“Our technology analyses the data of each aircraft in the airline’s fleet and then optimises the flight plan for each plane,” he said.

A number of airlines in India are using SITA’s Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS), which deals with communication between the cockpit (pilot) and the ground (command centre of the airline).
 

“We are changing and upgrading the ACARS. As technology is evolving, the Indian carriers are moving on to ACARS’s upgraded version as part of their digitisation strategy,” he noted.