AirportLabs is 8 today and I thought it’s a good time to look at where we’ve been and think of where we’re heading.
First some general facts:
• We managed to build and implement 9 products¹ (and I really mean products with everything a product entails) - each one more complex than the previous, but all of them with a focus to make aviation more efficient and accessible to a larger population. • There wouldn’t be an AirportLabs if it weren’t for the people who make it up. There’s almost 70 of us now. Each team member is a well rounded individual who believes in achievement, in hard work and who has a winning attitude. This is what makes the services we offer great. • We’re improving aviation on 3 continents now.
We’re no strangers to “firsts” either:
• First multi-airport staff mobile app (and arguably still the only one). Possibly also the first single airport product to be connecting over 200.000 professionals on a single platform (although I didn’t check this) • The world’s first cloud FIDS solution deployed in large airports • The first operational ACDM platform in the middle east • Probably the first true multi-airport cloud AODB² • And a few others and more to come
Some “bets” we’ve made:
• There is no doubt that we bet big on the cloud. When we started in 2015, having a critical airport system in the cloud was considered madness - but we observed that it became “tolerated”, then it became an “acceptable option ” and now we see more and more that it is the “required” solution. We certainly spearheaded this trend with our customers - the daring ones.
• Being the new ones in a rather traditional industry. We’re all well aware of the old saying that nobody gets fired for buying X³ - but that does not improve aviation either. It takes a particular type of organization with a particular type of leadership to see, understand and adopt innovative solutions that really improve the status quo. We are super thankful for the daring organisations, our clients and partners, who believed in us right from the start.
• Another bet we made was to grow sustainably without investor money. It remains our belief from day one that a company in our position needs to remain independent and should not chase short term profits in order to be able to effectively serve the interest of the industry long term. This allowed us to focus on building a complex product portfolio and strong partnerships with our customers and also remained unaffected by every financial turmoil - it even allowed us to invest in our customers during the COVID crisis. We also continuously invest in the team with learning, performance based bonuses and the profit share scheme we implemented two years back.
Looking towards the future, here are a few things to expect from us now:
(more in the comment)