Azerbaijan’s Largest Airport Pioneers Cloud Computing

The Heydar Aliyev International Airport in Baku is trying something new. All of the airport’s databases, digital resources and systems for displaying flight information are being stored using cloud technologies.

Amadeus IT Group, a Spanish company that provides IT services to the global travel and tourism industry, is responsible for the move.

“The Heydar Aliyev International Airport became the first airport in the world, completely switching to cloud technologies,” said Bruno Spada, the head of Airport IT at Amadeus, at the launch of the new technologies at Heydar Aliyev International Airport on Thursday, according to the website of Azerbaijan Airlines (AZAL).

“We believe that forward-thinking airports such as Heydar Aliyev International demonstrate the significant integration, collaboration, and mobility benefits the cloud can deliver.”

Cloud computing is an internet-based form of computing, where data is stored on a network of remote servers located outside of an organization, to store, manage and process data.

As part of the upgrade of the database and resource management of AZAL, Amadeus is using the cloud-based Amadeus Altéa Passenger Service System (PSS) software that is also being applied across regular services at the airport. The PSS provides full reservation, inventory and departure control capabilities. 

Heydar Aliyev International Airport has 96 airport aprons for airplane parking, and the potential of servicing 9 million passengers per year, or roughly 10,000 passenger arrivals each hour.

In April, the world’s most prestigious airport ranking organization, Skytrax, ranked the airport number one in the category for airports with passenger traffic under 10 million. In March, the airfield was ranked the best in Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) region by Skytrax. The overall level of comfort and service – including staff and seat comforts – were the main criteria for ranking.

“One of our priority goals is to increase the passenger traffic in the country and modern technologies help us do this,” AZAL’s president Jahangir Askerov said at the launch ceremony held at Heydar Aliyev International Airport on Thursday. “Partnership with Amadeus will allow us to improve the efficiency of work, and, most importantly, to improve the quality of services provided to AZAL passengers.”

From January to June, 1.85 million passengers used Heydar Aliyev Airport for their flights, which is 10,000 passengers more than in the same period last year.