Despite a record 50.8 billion dollars in investment, aviation is still being held back by the same problem: data that does not travel fast enough
The aviation industry entered 2026 with a paradox that is defining its development ever more clearly. On the one hand, airlines and airports are investing more than ever in technology, artificial intelligence, security, digital passenger identities, and sustainability. On the other hand, precisely at the moment when the sector needs to be more resilient, faster, and more precise in decision-making, it is becoming clear that the biggest obstacle is no longer a lack of ambition or a lack of money, but the fact that key operational data still remain scattered across separate systems. The new industry insight published by SITA therefore describes a problem that goes beyond a classic IT topic: it is a limitation that directly affects how well the aviation sector will be able to respond to disruptions, protect revenues, and take advantage of the technological wave it financed itself.
According to SITA's Air Transport IT Insights 2025 report, total technology investments in air transport reached 50.8 billion US dollars. Of that, airlines invested 36 billion dollars, equivalent to 3.6 percent of their revenues, while airports raised investments to 14.8 billion dollars, or 7.3 percent of revenues. These figures in themselves speak of an industry that is aware that future competitiveness is no longer built only on fleet, route network, and fuel price, but also on the quality of digital infrastructure. Yet the same document also shows why record investments do not automatically guarantee record results: when data on crews, aircraft, passengers, slots, apron traffic, maintenance, and schedule changes cannot be reliably exchanged in real time, the largest share of the potential benefit remains unused.
Traffic growth increases pressure on the system
This problem becomes especially important because the industry is not in a period of stagnation, but in a period of strong volume growth. At the beginning of 2026, Airports Council International World published a forecast according to which global passenger traffic should already reach 10.2 billion passengers this year, with annual growth of 3.9 percent. At the same time, ACI warns that demand is no longer growing evenly and is increasingly accompanied by a series of constraints: the capacities of individual airports, delays in aircraft deliveries, increasingly complex operating conditions, geopolitical tensions, and sustainability pressure. In other words, traffic is growing, but the system is not expanding quickly enough and in a coordinated enough way for such growth to pass without major consequences.
In such an environment, every disruption, every deviation from the flight schedule, and every stoppage at one point in the network can spill over into a series of other processes. That is precisely why the issue of data is no longer a technical debate reserved for IT departments, but an operational and business issue of the first order. When information on flights, crew availability, boarding status, gates, maintenance, or baggage is split between multiple platforms and partners, operations centers react later than they should. In an industry where minutes often decide the fate of thousands of passengers and millions of dollars, that delay turns into cost, reputational risk, and loss of trust.
Data coordination is becoming aviation's new infrastructure
SITA explicitly states that data coordination is the common denominator of almost all major technology topics in the sector. This is already visible at the level of priorities. As many as 83 percent of airlines and 89 percent of airports cite data-driven decision-making as a strategic priority. However, when this priority needs to be translated into practice, the system gets stuck on old boundaries between databases, applications, and organizations. Almost half of airlines, 49 percent of them, identify data integration and consistency as the main obstacle to achieving better operational results.
This is an important point because it shows that the industry is no longer talking about digital transformation in abstract terms. The problem is very concrete: operators can buy a new platform, introduce advanced analytics, or develop AI models, but if key data remain in separate silos, the system still will not see the full picture. In such an environment, technology does not act as a single ecosystem, but as a set of partial solutions that work well within their own boundaries, but not across them. For an industry that by nature depends on the coordination of multiple actors, from carriers and airports to ground services, regulators, and air navigation service providers, this is a limitation of crucial importance.
Delays are no longer just an operational problem, but also a direct financial blow
The pressure becomes even more visible when compared with the sector's profitability. For 2025, IATA estimated that the revenues of global airlines would exceed one trillion dollars for the first time, with an expected net profit of 36.6 billion dollars. At first glance, this is a strong recovery and an impressive industrial scale. But behind the large revenue lies a far less lavish margin. For 2025, IATA projected a net margin of 3.6 percent, and for 2026 it expects 3.9 percent, with average earnings of 7.90 dollars per passenger. This means that it is an industry operating with very limited room for error. When operations fall into disruption, the financial effect very quickly becomes measurable.
In its report, SITA refers to IATA's estimate according to which flight delays alone account for 30 billion dollars of total industry revenues. Such a figure does not merely mean that delays are an inconvenience for passengers, but that they have become one of the central economic issues of air transport. The denser traffic becomes, the older the fleets are, the slower the supply chains are, and the more sensitive route networks are to geopolitical changes, the greater the need for an early, coordinated, and precise response becomes. Without quality data exchange, that early response is absent, and a small disruption grows into a network problem.
The Middle East shows why fragmented systems are becoming too expensive
SITA's document was published on April 15, 2026, at a time when the company openly states that the conflict in the Middle East continues to disrupt the sector globally. That context is not secondary. Aviation is particularly sensitive to changes in airspace, route diversions, unplanned extensions of flight time, changes in crew availability, and uncertainty around schedules. When international corridors are disrupted, the consequences do not stop in the conflict region, but affect slots, connections, fleet scheduling, fuel costs, and network punctuality in Europe, Asia, and beyond.
It is precisely in such conditions that it becomes clear why data coordination is more important than the amount of money invested alone. Operational teams must in a short time align information on changed routes, aircraft availability, crew status, transfer passengers, terminal capacities, and expected delays. If that information is not connected and consistent, decisions are made on the basis of an incomplete picture. This increases the chance that one change will trigger a chain reaction, from missed connection waves to ground stoppages. SITA therefore warns that the cost of the gap in data coordination has never been higher than at a moment of global instability.
Artificial intelligence promises a lot, but without a quality data foundation it cannot deliver its full effect
A large part of industry optimism today is tied to artificial intelligence. But here too the report points to a more sober conclusion: AI cannot be a magical layer placed above poorly organized data. SITA states that 63 percent of airlines already use artificial intelligence in operational control centers to simultaneously manage disruptions, aircraft assignment, and crew availability. At the same time, 79 percent of airlines see generative artificial intelligence and large language models as the main investment priority in the next 12 months.
Such data show that the industry wants to strongly accelerate the application of AI. However, SITA's own conclusion is that the main obstacle to making maximum use of that investment is precisely the lack of data integration across the entire operation. That is logical: an artificial intelligence system can propose alternative scenarios, but only if it has reliable and up-to-date data from multiple sources. If one part of the picture is delayed, if another is not standardized, and a third is not available to partners, AI will not make better decisions than humans simply because it will not have a better foundation.
For airports and carriers, this means that a digital strategy can no longer be reduced to buying new applications and pilot projects. The real task becomes building a data architecture that allows information to be comparable, shared, and operationally useful. Only then can artificial intelligence move from the demonstration phase to the phase of real efficiency gains.
Security, passenger identity, and sustainability depend on the same thing
It is especially interesting that the same weakness appears in other areas that are often viewed separately. When it comes to cybersecurity, SITA states that 71 percent of airports today place security first among IT priorities, and 68 percent of them state that it is the main driver of infrastructure upgrades. This shows that it is no longer just about protecting individual applications, but about defending shared operational data without which a modern airport or airline cannot work efficiently. The more connected the system is, the wider the consequences of an incident are.
A similar pattern can be seen with digital identities. SITA states that 57 percent of airlines consider cooperation with airports the main prerequisite for expanding digital passenger identities, which is a noticeable increase compared with the previous year. The reason is simple: a digital identity does not have much value if only one part of the passenger chain recognizes it consistently. The passenger passes through a series of points, from check-in and baggage drop to security screening, boarding, and transfer. If these steps are not connected by the same reliable record, the technology exists, but the benefit remains limited.
Sustainability is no exception either. According to SITA, progress is greatest where one operator controls the data and the decision, for example in fleet renewal or energy management in terminals. But when it is necessary to track total emissions or apron emissions, which requires coordinated data sharing among carriers, ground services, and infrastructure, the implementation of such systems still remains below 20 percent. And that is an important message: even when there is regulatory and market pressure toward greener aviation, without coordinated data it is difficult to prove the effect, manage it, and direct investments where they deliver the greatest result.
The industry can no longer separate technology from operational resilience
In a broader sense, this report says that the aviation sector has entered a new phase of digital transformation. The earlier phase was focused on the digitalization of individual processes, from self-service passenger check-in to better maintenance tools or analytics in traffic centers. The new phase is less glamorous, but probably more important: connecting what has already been introduced so that the whole system functions as a network, rather than as a collection of separate islands of data.
This also aligns with the warnings of other industry actors. At the beginning of the year, ACI World said that long-term growth would not be sustainable without coordinated action and new investment in infrastructure, airspace, and operational resilience. IATA, on the other hand, warns that airlines still operate on thin margins, under pressure from supply-chain bottlenecks, geopolitical conflicts, rising costs, and regulatory burdens. When these two views are combined, the result is clear: the industry is growing, but at the same time it is becoming more sensitive. That is precisely why quality data exchange is no longer an additional convenience, but a prerequisite for the system to remain manageable.
Passengers may not see this debate directly, but its consequences are felt very concretely. They are visible in whether information about a delay will arrive on time, whether a connection can be saved, whether airport resources will be redirected in time, and whether digital services will truly shorten waiting times or only create a new layer of complexity. For companies and airports, however, the message is even more direct: it is not enough to spend more on technology, but it must be ensured that technology sees the same operational reality.
Record investments without coordination do not mean record efficiency either
That is why the most important conclusion of SITA's new report is at the same time the most uncomfortable for an industry that in recent years has liked to talk about accelerated modernization. A record 50.8 billion dollars in investment shows that there is both will and capital. But the real test will not be the amount on the IT bill, but the ability to turn data between airlines, airports, and partners into a shared operational picture. Without that, even the best AI tools, the most expensive security upgrades, and the most ambitious digital identity or sustainability projects will remain below their potential.
At a time when global traffic is growing, while geopolitical risks, pressure on capacities, and the cost of every delay are also rising, aviation is facing a simple but difficult message: the future of the sector will not depend only on how much it invests in technology, but on how capable it is of connecting the data that already exist. Only when that coordination becomes as important as a runway, terminal, or fleet could record investments turn into what the industry expects from them — greater resilience, better punctuality, and a more stable business result.
Sources:- SITA – official press release on the Air Transport IT Insights 2025 report, record investments of 50.8 billion dollars, and the problem of data coordination- ACI World – forecast of global passenger traffic for 2026 and warning about capacity constraints, geopolitical uncertainty, and operational complexity- IATA – overview of expected airline revenues and profits in 2025, with data on thin margins and structural pressures on the sector- IATA – updated view of sector profitability in 2026, revenue growth above one trillion dollars, and persistent risks related to supply chains and geopolitical tensions
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