Agility, the key to navigating the path to recovery

SITA has made several changes to its executive management team responsible for SITA’s product portfolios. These appointments come at a crucial juncture as the air transport industry begins the difficult task of restarting operations after a lengthy shutdown due to the COVID-19 crisis.

David Lavorel, previously CEO of SITA FOR AIRCRAFT, has been appointed to head SITA AT AIRPORTS AND BORDERS, SITA’s airport and border solution portfolio. A key focus in 2020 will be to support SITA’s airline and airport customers to implement smart solutions to accommodate new passenger processes required to ensure the health and safety of travelers and employees. SITA is well placed to support the re-engineering of the passenger journey and to manage rapidly changing requirements at the border with the delivery of new solutions such as SITA’s cloud-based, open API platform, SITA Flex.

David will replace Matthys Serfontein, who will be retiring from SITA after 13 years.

Sébastien Fabre, previously VP Airline & Airports Portfolio, will replace David to head SITA FOR AIRCRAFT. As airlines globally begin to resume flights, they will increasingly turn to SITA FOR AIRCRAFT to deliver new operational efficiencies such as faster turnarounds while extracting the full benefit of modern connected aircraft. 

Barbara Dalibard, CEO, SITA, said: “Ensuring strong leadership of our key business areas is especially important as we look to support the industry as it begins to return to the skies. After more than a decade proving themselves highly capable of driving innovation while ensuring continued customer satisfaction, Sébastien and David are perfectly placed to steer the business through the new challenges and deliver solutions that help support the industry’s recovery.”

Our global air transport industry is grappling with one of the single biggest challenges it has ever faced: how to recover from an historic decline in air travel, caused by COVID-19.

While we’re seeing travel restrictions starting to ease, and the ATI beginning to remobilize, no-one knows exactly what the next few months will bring.

What is clear, however, is that the industry will need to be able to adapt to a new – and changeable – operating environment; one that requires operators to keep passengers feeling safe and reassured, keep flights to time, and meet sustainability targets – all on a tightened budget.

Digitalization is vital here. Airlines and other businesses are going to need the flexibility, adaptability and automation offered by digital transformation to ride out the pandemic’s fall-out, adjust their business models and succeed into the future. To help them do it, they’ll need the right mix of solutions and expertise on their side.

Digitalizing to adapt to the needs of the future

Many airlines are facing restart with a scaled back and more scattered workforce. They are also weighing up a lot of big unknowns: which routes should be reopened and when, depending on country restrictions? How many passengers will return, and how quickly? Which aircraft should fly or be grounded? And what size flight and cabin crew will they need to serve them?

Airlines are facing all these questions, while knowing the rules could change from one day to the next.

Digitalizing technologies and innovations enable enhanced air/ground connectivity, communications and operational efficacy, and pool the latest real-time information, to support informed and timely decision-making. These prime resources help airlines flex and adapt to changing needs. While ideally being fast and simple to deploy, and intuitive to use, digital tools can also streamline routine tasks through automation to minimize workload.

Such solutions are very much the remit of SITA FOR AIRCRAFT, SITA’s connected aircraft domain of expertise.

Digitalizing to work smarter and leaner

We have developed a suite of connected applications and services, and technological capabilities that help airlines work in this more flexible, adaptive, automated and collaborative way.

They help bring enhanced operational- and cost-effectiveness, while giving greater visibility over the ‘live’ nose-to-tail operation – whether that’s around situational weather events or restrictions, identifying the least cost-routing channels available for ACARS messaging, the status of passenger, cargo and aircraft health, or fueling requirements.

With our crew applications, airlines can ensure passenger safety and satisfaction onboard, while alleviating paper-based processes to make flights more sustainable.

Our cabin connectivity solutions, meanwhile, give passengers the low-touch autonomy they desire, enabling them to use their own devices to surf, stream, and pay and verify, contact-free.

And, for all our solutions and services, we strive to work closely with customers to develop flexible business models that can readily adapt to reflect needs as they change.

We’re here to help you through

In my new role heading SITA FOR AIRCRAFT, I am proud to play a part in advancing the flexible, agile solutions that can support our customers through this challenging time. We’re 100% dedicated to this industry and its success – and are here to help it navigate the right path to recovery.