Enhancing Airport Operations with an Open Data Lakehouse

Halifax International Airport Authority (HIAA) is a locally controlled airport in Nova Scotia and the eighth busiest airport in Canada by passenger traffic. The airport handles more than 3.5 million annual passengers, with its extensive air service network spanning domestic and international services. HIAA is considered a key community and economic asset, with all profits reinvested back into the airport and the local region.

Unifying airport data to create a single source of truth

Data is essential for the smooth operation of airports, including handling passengers, managing flight schedules, and coordinating with airline carriers. Following the COVID pandemic, Halifax International Airport realized it had to dramatically improve how it utilized data, and tracking the airport’s recovery from travel lockdowns became a priority. HIAA needed to unlock insights into the number of people traveling, ensure airport safety and efficiency, and enhance passenger experiences. 

HIAA had no shortage of data, with a mix of external sources, including the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA) and internal operations records. However, data was not set up for discovery, as there was no single source that HIAA’s business teams could access to provide passenger numbers or revenue insights. 

To streamline its operations and support advanced analytics, the airport needed to centralize and integrate all its data into a single location. Robust governance was also a prerequisite to adhere to aviation regulations and data protection laws. With a data team of just two people, HIAA also sought an ecosystem in which data was easy to manage and integrate with existing tools. HIAA selected Cloudera on Azure to build a modern, open, cloud-first data architecture that would provide the backbone for tracking the airport’s post-pandemic recovery.

“Before Cloudera, HIAA was flying in the dark. Now we have total clarity on every aspect of our operational data to enable better passenger experiences and collaboration with airline carriers,” Ryan Garnett, Senior Manager of Business Solutions at Halifax International Airport Authority said.

Improving data access and governance with Apache Iceberg 

Using Cloudera, HIAA has created a centralized open data lakehouse that integrates data from multiple sources in real time. Cloudera also offers HIAA flexibility to move data on-premises should the airport require it and to avoid vendor lock-in with its current cloud-first strategy.

Cloudera’s open standards further increase flexibility, giving HIAA the freedom to choose the tools it integrates with. Additionally, this has given HIAA confidence that any issues will be patched quickly, thanks to the huge open-source community that provides additional support for HIAA’s data team. This ethos has also allowed HIAA to assist other smaller airports in the region by making its open-source solution capabilities available to them.

Through Cloudera’s integration with Apache Iceberg, HIAA has built a single source of truth for all data customers. Iceberg’s open table format enables the airport to easily share and manage data while ensuring reliability and governance. Using Iceberg’s time-travel functionality, HIAA can also see how and when data has changed. This approach has eliminated silos and multiple copies of data while unifying structured and unstructured data to generate richer insights. 

“Cloudera’s out-of-the-box integration and automation capabilities allowed us to transform our data ecosystem and unlock value rapidly. We achieved our one-year goal in just six months,” adds Garnett. 

A small team delivering enterprise-level data insights

With Cloudera, HIAA has now automated 85 data pipelines, including the management of flight schedules, which was previously a manual and time-consuming task since every carrier shares the data in a different format and schema. Standardizing schedules used to take up to five days, by which time new flight schedules needed to be added. HIAA has now automated this process using Cloudera, building a data pipeline that integrates publicly available information in real-time so the airport never misses important flight or passenger number updates.  

By centralizing external and internal data, HIAA has made critical information available to business teams across all airport operations – from customer service to security and air traffic control. All datasets are fully governed and validated, so teams have confidence in the insights they unlock. With the strong data backbone provided by Cloudera, HIAA can now conduct predictive analytics with 94% accuracy. This has enabled the airport to better allocate resources and track its recovery post-COVID.

Want to hear more about this transformation directly from Halifax International Airport Authority? Watch our exclusive interview at EVOLVE24 with the Ryan Garnett, Senior Manager Business Solutions, who discussed the airport’s challenges in data-driven insights here