When I first started at AeroCloud, I knew they were bold.
From my first meeting with George, his enthusiasm and ideas for the future of AeroCloud were, and continue to be, infectious. Ian’s role is clear – a senior counsel with bucket loads of experience. As a COO, I also bring a few qualities to the boardroom. Most notably, my experience in ensuring teams and processes can scale effectively and deliver operational excellence. You can read more about my thoughts on the role of a COO here.
I joined the AeroCloud team in March 2022, and during that time, the company has matured whilst not losing that innovative spark. And perhaps that is the differentiator of the disruptor.
One case study that has flourished is our work with Sarasota Bradenton International Airport (SRQ). Using AeroCloud’s platform, SRQ grew passenger traffic from 3% to 183%. They could save on cost, carbon and time—an outstanding result but certainly not unheard of here at AeroCloud.
This is fantastic growth for the company, but airports need the right solutions to deal with the increased footfall. In 2018, before having AeroCloud’s solution in place, SRQ saw traffic jump by 15% to 680,000 passengers, but the old solution provider could not manage the increased passenger volume. The legacy provider required a lot of manual input, and the alternative big enterprise solutions did not address SRQ’s needs either. Here’s where AeroCloud stepped in to provide the needed solution.
In 2018 SRQ chose our platform to automate their operations and manage increased passenger traffic. AeroCloud quickly understood the airport’s processes and offered an easy-to-use platform even for those that do not often use it, such as airport tenants.
Our Gate Management System (GMS) automates gate allocation and synchronises gate updates with those on the flight displays. Additionally, it provides passenger prediction analytics that helped SRQ to plan its terminal capacity well in advance.
This proved to be extremely useful in adverse weather conditions. During the last storm in April 2022, the AeroCloud platform allocated 26 aircraft to 13 gates and saved 30 minutes of ground time, allowing airlines to avoid breaching tarmac delay rules.
One of the joys of AeroCloud is that we can implement our solutions within a matter of days, and we were able to efficiently address the issues which SRQ was experiencing with the old provider.
Once implemented, SRQ could plan its capacity 90 days in advance, allowing the airport’s staff, carriers and tenants to prepare better to accommodate spikes in passenger traffic.
Being able to prepare their operations, such as queue planning and team allocation, meant they could keep airlines, customers and staff happy; happy stakeholders are just one outcome of using AeroCloud products—an excellent result thanks to our dynamic product that uses data to support airports’ operations.
Overall, SRQ has seen…
- 183% increase in passenger traffic (2020/2021)
- Three times minimum savings in costs
- 1005 gates allocated dynamically
- 96% predicted passengers matching actual passengers boarded
- 30 minutes minimum saving in aircraft ground time
I stand by my initial thoughts of AeroCloud. We are bold. We are the future of airport operations.
Damian Fairbrother-Jones, COO
