Passengers and staff win with IBM and Ascent at Dublin Airport

Fully integrated airport operational management system helps Dublin Airport support predicted growth to 20 million passengers by 2005

May 2, 2001 - Timely, accurate data from a new IBM Airport Operational Management System (AOMIS) will help fast-growing Dublin Airport give its passengers a smoother journey, while improving services for airlines and other airport service providers. AOMIS alleviates air traffic and passenger bottlenecks and thus reduces operational costs by collecting and validating data from a variety of sources, including flight schedules, communications networks and air traffic control into one central operational database. Up to date information is distributed to passengers through flight information display screens, and to staff involved in managing the airport through a customised intranet.

“Our prime reason for installing the IBM AOMIS system at Dublin airport is to allow airlines, handling agents, caterers and other suppliers access to a central information system which will enable them to provide a seamless and efficient service to their customers,” says Margaret Sweeney, Deputy Chief Executive of Irish state owned airport authority. Passenger traffic at Dublin grew by 60% over the last five years, according to IATA.

“IBM's airport operational solution allows airport employees and airport service partners to plan efficiently and to systematically tackle last minute changes such as flight delays, through better information and advanced planning tools,” says Mike Hulley, Vice President, IBM Global Travel and Transportation Industry.

The IBM solution incorporates IBM's central operational database (AOMIS) and the SmartAirport Operations Center suite of resource planning and management solutions provided by business partner Ascent Technology, which includes modules for:


  • Gate/Stand management - allocates gates, stands, and remote parking positions to incoming aircraft on the day of operation. The result is less waiting time and fuel consumption, reduced delays, and more efficient use of existing facilities
  • Check-In desk and baggage reclaim allocation - simplifies check-in counter and baggage make-up and reclaim belt scheduling and allocation, assuring that resources are available when passengers need them.
  • Personnel allocation ­ produces long-term staff plans, shift assignments, and optimised rosters based on needs desired from seasonal flight schedules to ensure the availability of the right number and kinds of people to handle planned operations at the desired service levels. During real-time allocation activities, allocates specific tasks to specific employees, working individually or in teams, and reallocates those tasks and employees in response to unexpected day-of-operations situations, such as flight schedule changes, equipment changes, and absent employees.
  • Landing-slot allocation ­ verifies that ground resources, such as runways, gates, stands, remote parking positions, check-in counters, and baggage belts are available before granting a specific slot request for a future flight
  • Schedule planning - produces gate, stand, and remote parking position plans based on future flight schedules, taking into account aircraft and airport constraints, passenger demand, and marketing considerations.

“We are confident that the solutions we are installing with our partner IBM will help the airport to provide better services to the airlines, handling agents, caterers, and passengers. We look forward to continuing our work with IBM and Dublin Airport in improving services at the Cork and Shannon airports as well,” says Karen A. Prendergast, President, Ascent Technology Inc.

The Irish airport system is the first to deploy IBM's MQSeries middleware alongside AOMIS. MQ Series provides a solid platform for integrating many airline and airport systems which are found in today's airports.

Dublin airport will be the first Irish airport to come on board, and Cork and Shannon airports are expected to implement the IBM AOMIS system later in 2001.

Notes to editors:

The AOMIS central database collects data from various sources, including flight schedules, SITA messages, air traffic control, and manual input from authorised users. AOMIS uses a highly efficient broadcast architecture to distribute data.

People working at the airport can only see the data they need and are authorised to see, via either an AOMIS client or an intranet. For passengers, the integrated flight information display system builds its own customised display, depending on its location and purpose. After a few days, data is transferred to a historical database for billing and analysis purposes.

AOMIS is scalable and secure, can be customised easily to specific airport requirements, and is able to support multiple airports from a single data centre.

At Dublin Airport, AOMIS runs on IBM RS/6000 servers, and uses MQSeries and MQSeries Integrator middleware.

Ascent's SmartAirport WorkZone workforce manager blends IBMıs OSL (Optimisation Subroutine Library), a linear programming and mixed-integer programming solver, with Ascent's genetic algorithms to guarantee any-time performance and ensure optimal results.