Hayden Davies, GM of product at Veovo, argues that it’s time airports took a fresh look at how they manage and use their data
I’ve spent much of my career in mission-critical systems, and few environments are as demanding or interconnected as an airport. What strikes me most, though, isn’t the complexity of the operation; it’s the gap between how airports operate today and the systems that are supposed to support them.
That gap is widening. And it matters. Most of the tech running airports today was designed for a simpler operating environment, where growth was steady, updates happened once a year and data flowed slowly in silos.
Schedules have always shifted and passenger behavior has never been perfectly predictable. But airports are now operating at a capacity where there is very little room to absorb disruption. When things change – and they always do – the knock-on effects amplify quickly across the whole operation. Yet many systems still treat those changes as isolated updates rather than connected events. You see the impact everywhere. Plans drift, workarounds appear and calls to the ops center are frequent and disruptive.
Redefining the AODB
At the center of all this is the airport operational database. The AODB has long been the heart of airport IT, and that hasn’t changed. But it was never designed to serve the whole airport – every team, every function and every decision – in real time.
The answer isn’t to get rid of the AODB – it’s to rethink and rebuild it to create something open, modular and predictive, where every update becomes a live signal that the rest of the operation can react to immediately. Accessible to thousands of users across every function, the modern AODB is the data bedrock and central nervous system that everything else is built on; the foundation for intelligence and operational performance.
When you speak with airport CIOs and CTOs, the frustration is consistent. They want to modernize, but the cost and risk of replacing old systems feels too high. The appeal of starting fresh with a generic data platform built to spec is understandable. In practice, though, it means enormous configuration effort, long timelines and years
of hard-won operational learning being slowly, expensively rediscovered.
A platform with that same operational knowledge already embedded is a very different proposition. It’s a proven foundation that can be configured and extended, adopted piece by piece, on the airport’s own terms; updated and improved continuously, with no downtime.
Airports such as Sydney, Edinburgh and Brisbane have already taken that step. Fewer surprises, faster decisions and operations that move as one.
Solving the architecture is only part of the story. The deeper shift is what a modern platform is able to orchestrate.
Most systems handle flight data well enough. Fewer connect it meaningfully to passenger flow and baggage. That gap is where disruptions quietly compound, a delay ripples into a missed connection, a baggage lateral backs up, a gate change hits the right team too late to act.
True airport management starts when flights, people and bags move together in a single operational picture. When any one of those threads changes, the system sees it across every dimension at once, instantly. Not a replay; the match unfolding in real time, play by play.
Looking ahead: Total Airport Management
The destination, however, is Total Airport Management (TAM), where every decision is made with the whole airport in mind, where the resulting effects across terminals, stands, bags and passengers are understood before a single change is made.
At Veovo, this is what drives us. We’re already integrating AI models that can predict taxiway congestion, optimize check-in resource allocation and suggest dynamic staffing plans. We’re continuing to invest in machine learning and decisioning tools that get smarter with every disruption handled, helping airports avoid the next upset rather than just recover from it.
I believe deeply that technology should serve the people running these complex environments, not the other way around. Our goal was never to build another airport system. It was to give operations teams the tools they need to adapt, respond and lead with confidence.
When it’s working as it should, the platform recedes. And airport teams get to do what they do best: keep the world moving.
About the author
Hayden Davies is general manager of product at Veovo, leading the teams that develop Veovo’s solutions. With over 20 years in airport technology, and experience working with more than 150 sites, he understands the realities and complexity of operations at scale
This article was first published in the April 2026 issue of PT World magazine – subscribe here.
