Preserving a strong experienced team, delivering a rich variety of kerbside to runway projects, innovating airport modelling, and advancing sustainable aviation have been AiQ proudest moments of 2021. As the year comes to an end, we take a moment to reflect on these key achievements and look forward to our exciting plans for 2022.
The people behind the iQ in AiQ
We are global operational and analytical airport experts. The iQ behind airports, creating capacity and operational efficiency, solving problems and aiding decision making. Our intelligent team and breadth of experience make us who we are. Preserving a strong experienced team through another unsettling year for the industry is our most proudest achievement.
This autumn we welcomed Lucia Rodriguez, who joined us as Airport Analyst. Bringing her airport experience, deep data science knowledge and curiosity to solve big data problems, she has hit the ground running and is proving to be a great asset to our wonderful team.
Rich variety of complex projects
From kerbside to runway, we are grateful to our trusted clients and contacts for the rich variety of complex projects this year. We thrive on complexity!
The resilience airports have shown during this pandemic is admirable with a continued approach of ‘keep calm and carry on’ and we are pleased to have contributed to this.
Here is a flavour of some projects we undertook this year.
- Terminal Level of Service & Demand Assessment: Far East International Airport
- Passenger Automation, Baggage Analytics, CP Optimisation, Cargo Modelling and CUSS replacement analysis: London Heathrow Airport
- Landside Bus Analysis & Immigration Demand Assessment: Regional UK Airports
- Terminal Capacity Feasibility Study: Budapest Airport
- Demand Forecast: Private Airport
- Urban Turbine: Cranfield University
Read more about the projects here
Innovating airport modelling
In response to changing markets and clients’ requirements, our technical director, Ian Mackinnon, and his team expanded our in-house modelling software. TransvisionAiR® now includes a family of modelling tools to support differing daily operational and strategic planning needs across the airport.
Airport Recovery Tool, ARTΔ
Our focus this year was launching just one of those tools called Airport Recovery Tool, ARTΔ. ARTΔ supports managers to make rapid operational decisions in response to recovering demand. The tool determines and optimises resource and equipment needs across 18 key processes …within 5 minutes! This ground-breaking modelling tool has impressed airport managers with the speed at which it produces resource graphs giving a holistic operational vision quickly. Discover more here
Watch out next year for further modelling tools to be revealed!
Advancing sustainable aviation
Joined NASA Vertical Flight roadmap
Committed to the sustainable future of aviation, AiQ joined the NASA Transformative Vertical Fight Roadmap working group earlier this year. Co-led by Darrell Swanson, the group explores the potential of Vertical flights as a new form of air transportation. AiQ role is to share operational experience and analytical skills to develop a national capability for short-range urban air-taxis, local package delivery and aircrane lift systems. Read more here
eVTOL Research Intern
Keen to progress the operational concept of eVTOL further, we welcomed a Cranfield University Msc Management student as a dedicated eVTOL Research Intern. Over 3 months, Anirudh Kampli, undertook an academic study into operations of Urban Air Mobility Vehicles (UAM), Transformative VertiFlights and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV). Read more here.
Keep your eyes peeled for conclusions of this fascinating study in 2022!
What’s next for AiQ in 2022?
Helping Airports Recovery
Assisting airports worldwide through recovery remains our priority. Operations need to be ready to react quickly to all scenarios next year. Our team are dedicated to analysing, modelling, and optimising every process of an airport. From kerbside to runway, we will solve the most complex challenges affecting resources, passenger, baggage cargo, aircraft, transfer systems and GSE.
Realising Capacity
Our CEO, Adrian Todd believes the top operational challenge for airports next year is successfully scaling up capacity to match peak demand in the summer. As capacity planning experts, our team are planning for the predicted peak demand with airport managers already. Read more here
Future-Proofing
Dusting off masterplans, airports are looking to the future once again. AiQ will be providing innovative modelling and analysis services to support airports to future proof.
Partnerships to support aviation sustainability
Sharing our deep operational airport knowledge and analytical capabilities are proving to be of great value for eVTOL. Urban Air Mobility, electric aviation, and Urban Turbine projects. We are excited to deepen current research further with our trusted partners and seek new collaborations across multiple sustainable initiatives.
New Year, New Office
We’re relocating! Our final announcement of the year is we’re relocating our head office to Cranfield University Campus in the New Year!
Cranfield is the globally leading research and teaching centre for aviation – the ideal new home for AiQ! Our base at Heathrow World Business Centre 3 will remain, situating us perfectly to support London, UK regional and worldwide airports whilst also within the hub of aviation intelligence at Cranfield.
We look forward to connecting with other aviation experts on the campus and welcoming many of you to our new home once we’ve settled in early next year!
Thank you!
Last but not least, thank you to our trusted team, partners, clients and stakeholders for making 2021 such a memorable one for the AiQ team. Here’s to a progressive recovery in 2022!
If you would like to talk to our team to see how we can work with your airport in 2022, contact us today We can explore how our groundbreaking models can assist your decision making processes, how we can implement small changes that make a big difference in your capacity or progress your airport towards a more sustainable future.