Link December 2018 dec 2018 final2 | Page 31

AVIATION AVIATION Why it is a Goldilocks situation for Airline Technology Providers? Source: Prakash Babu Devara Hi there! I had never imagined that one day I would be writing about Aviation industry. Till the end of 2017, I associated mostly with Retail industry. Year 2018 brought me a new year gift in terms of shifting my career towards Aviation. Working on building the niche products that help solve complex problems using data has been as exciting as flying! In this article, I try to analyse industry through my learning and why, I feel, this is a goldilocks moment for technology providers especially those work with Aviation data. Let us look at the industry as whole. It facilitates more than 4 billion people worldwide to travel by air to visit friends and family, explore new cultures, and negotiate business deals. By 2036, this number is expected to reach 7.8 billion passengers as per IATA. Nearly 63 million jobs are supported by the industry globally. That is nearly the population of United Kingdom! At the back of this voluminous figures, hundreds of carriers are flying the skies everyday across the globe. As per IATA website, its member airlines (284 in total) alone carries 83% of global air traffic. In addition to the existing jet fleet that are flying skies now, Boeing estimates, there will be overall demand for a whopping 41030 new airplane deliveries by 2036. Industry has become so competitive and complex, especially, in the last two decades such that the traditional models and processes are fading away and new models are emerging. For example, dynamic inventory model used by Airlines to December 2018 | 31