Airport Information Systems—Airside Management Information Systems

Research on the intersection of the areas of aviation and management of information systems is scarce. Airports, more than ever before need to align their information systems to gain a competitive advantage and become more efficient in their operations. A proper classification is a prerequisite to systems alignment. The purpose of this paper is to provide descriptions of some of the airport management information systems, connections to or interoperability with other systems, and the key uses and users of each system. There are many types of management information systems and they can be organized or classified in a number of different ways. Furthermore, each system may or may not be necessary for a particular airport depending on the business goals and objectives and the certificate which the airport is operating under. Consequently, the system classification schema presented in this paper is neither all-inclusive nor exclusive; however, a number of leading aviation practitioners, business professionals, and educators in the industry were instrumental in both proposing and validating the schema. The study used interviews, documentation, and observation as the primary sources of data.