Western Airport Group: Consolidate the Digital Intelligence Foundation and Explore the Road of Intelligent Transformation in the Civil Aviation Industry

In order to make transportation more convenient and efficient, humanity has never stopped exploring. From relying on measuring land with both feet to building a three-dimensional transportation network by sea, land, and air, the development of technology has continuously improved the transportation network in the real world, brought space closer, and promoted the gears of efficient operation of human society.

As an important component of transportation, China's civil aviation is developing rapidly and expanding in scale. In recent years, the application of digitization and intelligence has gradually become the key to improving service quality and efficiency for aviation groups, driving the industry to develop in depth. The Western Airport Group is also riding the east wind of digital intelligence and heading towards an intelligent future.

Intelligent transformation is the only way to achieve the group's vision

Western Airport Group was registered and established in 2008, and is the second largest cross provincial/regional airport management group in China. It is representative of the entire civil aviation industry and currently governs 18 airports in Shaanxi, Ningxia, and Qinghai provinces/regions, forming an airport cluster with Xi'an Airport as the core, Yinchuan and Xining Airport as the wings, 12 branch lines, and 3 general airports as the support, The number of airports and aviation business volume both account for over 70% of the total amount of civil aviation in the northwest region. The passenger throughput of Xi'an Airport is expected to reach 83 million by 2030, and is expected to reach 112 million in the future.

Western Airport Group will build a "first-class airport management group with international influence and a domestic leading airport cluster" as its strategic vision, and focus on building an air transport service cluster with network accessibility, complementary functions, high-quality services, distinctive characteristics, important influence along the "the Belt and Road" and core competitiveness in the country.

With the continuous enrichment of airport types, extension of industrial chains, and expansion of scale among the group members, higher requirements have been put forward for the existing organizational structure, operational models, and management methods of the group. In addition, the traditional information weak current construction model cannot well match the goal of intelligence, which has become the main challenge faced by the Western Airport Group's intelligent construction. The key two points are: first, how to achieve a high degree of integration from business to system, and then to data, without duplication, omission, or deviation; The second is how to achieve comprehensive management and intensive construction in airport construction, which involves multiple systems, products, users, and construction units.

"At present, large airports often face problems such as insufficient security resources, increased operational difficulties, and rapid personnel growth. It is difficult to achieve improvement solely by improving infrastructure, so there is an urgent need to introduce intelligent solutions." said Wang Qiyu, General Manager of the Information Management Department of Western Airport Group.

In today's world where the production capacity and efficiency of Qianhang Baiye are undergoing a qualitative leap, intelligent transformation has become the only way for Western Airport Group to achieve its strategic vision.

Deepen business scenarios to achieve intelligent business transformation

Taking the construction of Xi'an Airport Phase III as an opportunity, Western Airport Group has teamed up with Huawei to continuously explore the optimal path of intelligence. In the expansion project, Western Airport Group introduced the 4A architecture concept (i.e. Business Architecture (BA), Data Architecture (DA), Application Architecture (AA), and Technical Architecture (TA)) for the first time in the industry, comprehensively and deeply sorted out the airport's production business, and established an Architecture and Standards Management Committee to carry out architecture supervision, ensuring the standardization and consistency of information technology project construction.

● Building a Digital Intelligence Base: In order to support intelligent construction, the group has built a reliable, secure, and intelligent digital intelligence base based on the Huawei cloud platform. In terms of reliability, Western Airport Group has adopted the dual active architecture of cloud services for the first time in the industry, achieving uninterrupted operation of cloud based business systems; In terms of security, integrated cloud network security has been achieved; In terms of intelligence, high-performance computing power and efficient artificial intelligence platforms have been introduced to provide strong support for the intelligence of business.

Based on the digital base, Western Airport Group has achieved comprehensive cloud deployment and deep cloud usage of its core system. In the Phase III project of Xi'an Airport, more than 50 systems will undergo cloud transformation to improve their reliability and reduce the difficulty of operation and maintenance. At the same time, over 100P of computing power has been deployed to support the operation of airport AI intelligent applications, laying a solid foundation for the path of intelligence. In the future, the cloud architecture and construction experience of Xi'an Airport will be replicated to member airports such as Yinchuan and Xining, achieving a unified architecture and operation of one cloud and multiple pools, forming a unified cloud platform for Western Airport Group.

● Comprehensive data governance: The prerequisite for intelligence is to have high-quality data. From establishing a comprehensive data management system to conducting comprehensive data governance, Western Airport Group has created a vibrant big data platform to provide high-quality data for the group's intelligent construction, ensuring the smooth flow of clean data among more than 70 systems within the Xi'an Airport area. Western Airport Group will also fully tap into the value of data, plan to build over 1000 indicators and more than 20 algorithm models, provide data support for 37 applications, effectively help improve the operational efficiency and service quality of the group, and provide passengers with a better travel experience.

Creating intelligent ground handling solutions: Ground handling services are one of the core businesses of airports. The process of flight support has the characteristics of long chain, multiple collaborative departments, and multiple participants. The traditional operation scheduling mode can no longer meet the rapidly growing business support needs. Therefore, Western Airport Group has developed a digital intelligent ground handling solution, innovatively establishing a flat operation control mode and intelligent operation management scheme of "one machine, one group, one management". Among them, intelligent and efficient digital ground handling algorithms are key.

In the process of cooperation with Huawei, Western Airport Group has explored and formed four core capabilities: deep understanding of business, precise mathematical modeling, high-quality big data platform, high-performance computing power base, realizing real-time prediction and warning of flights, passengers, and resource status, and providing intelligent dispatch and scheduling for resource security. After the system was launched, the overall efficiency of flight control jumped, with a 20% increase in human-machine support ratio and a 17% reduction in flight ground support duration. At present, the plan has been promoted from Xi'an Airport to other member airports, forming a preliminary map of flight support for the entire group.

Lin Bin, Deputy General Manager of Western Airport Group, said, "Based on the digital intelligence base, Huawei's high-performance computing power, open intelligent platform, and advanced algorithms in the industry, Western Airport Group has incubated 35 intelligent solutions in safety, operation, service and other scenarios."

Creating a Better Future of Digital Intelligence

Through the third phase renovation and expansion project of Xi'an Airport, Western Airport Group has successfully created a series of scenario based smart applications, setting a benchmark example for digital technology empowering airports and exploring a path for intelligent transformation and upgrading in the civil aviation industry.

Looking towards the future, Western Airport Group will take the intelligent construction of Xi'an Airport as the starting point, based on the digital intelligence base, and with intelligent upgrading as the focus, focusing on the incubation of hub airport AI big model scenarios, airport cluster intelligent scenario incubation, and group global intelligent management. Together with Huawei, we will carry out all-round cooperation, aggregate more industry application ecosystems, and help the intelligent transformation and upgrading of the civil aviation industry, Jointly create a beautiful future of digital intelligence.