Heathrow Airport is expecting to manage an additional 80,000 passengers over the next fortnight as the London 2012 Olympic Games kick off this evening.
That means a mind-boggling amount of information will be passed electronically between airlines, airports and Governments on passengers, crew, flights, cargo, baggage and special services.
According to airline IT specialist SITA, the electronic data underpins every aspect of operations with almost 100 million messages exchanged daily and more than 2,400 industry players rely on the information every day.
In preparation for the increase over the Olympics as well as in response to demand from customers, SITA has doubled the speed at which the electronic data is transferred.
This should help airlines and airports, particularly Heathrow, which is expecting to welcome 80% of Olympic all traffic, over the next two weeks.
Departures are likely to be more logistically challenging with the majority compressed into three days and August 13 expected to be the busiest day in the airport's history with 45% more departures than on a normal day.
NB: Data image via Shutterstock