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Q&A with Principal Consultant Alan Pritchard, sharing his thoughts on the forthcoming Airport Security & IT Conference 2019

FarrPoint are proud sponsors of Airport Security & IT Conference 2019

Alan Pritchard, one of our Principal Consultants, is taking part in a panel discussion at this year’s Conference and has over 25 years’ experience in the information and computer technology industry, primarily in the UK but also New Zealand and Australia. His expertise covers a range of technologies including Data Centres, Wide Area, Local Area and Security.

Can you tell us a bit about the panel discussion you are participating in this year?

It’s the automation panel, where I, alongside other IT leaders within Aviation will be debating and discussing “How far can automation go in airports, the good and perhaps not so good.”

With automation being used to improve the passenger experience, cut costs, increase agility and provide more flexibility, substantial benefits are being gained from transforming airports but there are genuine concerns about the unknowns e.g. autonomous vehicles, the impact of technology failures and the removal of people altogether from the customer experience.

The panel discussion will cover:

What sessions are you looking forward to hearing and why, at this year’s event?

Case studies to watch out for this year

It will be good to discuss how airports both UK and International are embracing the challenges of automation/streamlining and enhancing the experience of using airports to improve flow and optimise revenue. I’m keen to hear experiences of the real benefits and perhaps counter benefits to be gained, or perhaps even unintended consequences which many tech led projects often stumble over.

What are the biggest challenges currently facing the industry?

Sustainable growth in passengers and revenue utilising digital transformation (automation and AI) is a big challenge facing the industry. These have to be balanced against the risks that come with more technology, for example: ever shifting cyber threat(s) associated with always on connectivity and no technology solution is infallible; so what happens when things go wrong or there are unintended consequences, can passengers and airports accommodate these? And if so, how to do so if people have been removed from the process?

How can you see the industry changing over the next 12 months?

I think we will see increasing usage of software defined techniques / programmatics and AI to enhance operational processes. IT Systems are now so diverse, complex and connected, and airports depend on them, which is why it’s so critical to continuously review IT strategy for new ways to maintain operational stability and be more proactive, and be able to catch issues before they become major incidents causing significant disruption

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