Apple Watches Join Airport Workforce, Enhance Day-to-Day Operations With SITA in Québec

Wearable tech might be the ultimate modern fad, but one airport is applying that trend to enhance the overall passenger experience.

As employees at Québec City Jean Lesage International Airport (YQB) have demonstrated, wearable tech isn’t just trendy, it’s also an important front-line tool in enhancing the passenger experience. Last month, YQB became the first airport in the world to use the Apple Watch to enhance its day-to-day operations.

Airport employees now use Apple Watches to connect with YQB’s existing SITA airport management system, escalating alerts and issues on to their duty managers as necessary. To ensure the integration between the Apple Watch and SITA system, the team at SITA first had to build an application that would link the two technologies.

SITA’s solution allows YQB to control all of its operations from a central point. The company believes that this link delivers not just a new level of business intelligence, but the ability for staff to manage resources and make decisions in real time.

Jim Peters, SITA’s chief technology officer, described the integration in a press release as “another example of how SITA is leading the way in exploring new technology for the air transport community.”

Marc-André Bédard, vice president of information technology at Aéroport de Québec, which manages YQB, explained that with the Apple Watch and SITA solution, “duty managers will receive important notifications at just the right time to take action as needed. For example, they may get an alert to say that two planes are arriving simultaneously and have been assigned to the same gate or that there is a delay at a certain gate.”

Previously, he noted, duty managers would have checked their tablets for regular updates, but now, vital information can be received with just a glance at their wrist.

Innovations like these, Bédard added, are welcomed at YQB. “We are always looking for new technology to help enhance our operations, and ultimately better serve our passengers,” he said.

[Photos: SITA]