Blockchain and airlines: how transformational is the technology?

There’s an interesting conundrum present in the airline industry called a “flight data problem.” Put simply, there’s no one true source of flight data, and the data that exists isn’t available to all parties. Blockchain technology, which is touted as a “transformational” technology in the travel tech world, is posing as the potential solution to this ongoing flight data problem.

And these are the claims made by SITA Lab, the research team of the air transport industry’s IT provider SITA, in a new whitepaper released yesterday. Dubbing the project “FlightChain,” SITA Lab collected data from the likes of British Airways, Heathrow, Geneva Airport and Miami International Airport.

SITA Lab revealed that, in the airline industry, the sharing of controlled data is the biggest concern. While blockchain technology promises to provide a potential solution to this ongoing problem, it wouldn’t be prudent – at this juncture – to deploy blockchain as a catch-all “magic bullet” without doing proper research and due diligence so the industry can take the right approach, to ensure governance, standards, compliance and security.

“Our FlightChain project has demonstrated that blockchain is a viable technology to provide a single source of truth for data for airlines and airports, specifically for real-time flight information,” says Jim Peters, CTO of SITA. “While there are other technologies available for sharing data, the use of blockchain, and smart contracts provides ‘shared control’ and improves the trustworthiness of the data. This research with our partners shows the potential of blockchain for sharing data across the air transport industry.”

And even though flight data is often shared by airlines with other airlines – and airports with other airports – the information, for the most part, remains within a vacuum. In other words, when there’s a flight delay, there’s a discrepancy in data between passenger apps, airport FIDS and airline agents. FlightChain, in response, ensures all stakeholders have the same information.

FlightChain, though, isn’t the solution to all data-sharing problems. “In a real-world network, it will be important to manage the changes to the smart contract as it affects all participants,” says Stuart Harwood of Heathrow Automation and Innovation. “We are still early in the blockchain technology cycle, and more research is required, but FlightChain has shown the opportunities for shared control of data with our industry partners.”