Athens International Airport

Busy Airport Becomes an Agile, Secure, Unified Enterprise with Sun Portal and Communication Products

In just four years of operation, Athens International Airport has established a reputation as one of the most efficiently run airports in the world. Handling around 1.2 million passengers a month, the airport depends on state-of-the-art technology to ensure safe, efficient operations. Athens International Airport and its airlines together employ more than 1,000 people.

Customer Challenges

Improve airport communication and information access
Cut data center costs and time to deploy applications
Provide user authentication and single sign-on for increased data protection

Solution

Portal-based access to financial applications, flight information and other business-critical applications as well as e-mail, calendaring and instant messaging with single sign-on and user authentication

Business Results

100% return on investment within three years
30% reduction in TCO
99.999% system availability
50% projected increase in productivity
Improved cashflow due to streamlined collection of landing fees
Acceleration of future application deployment time
Improved customer service due to decrease in paperwork

Products and Services

Story Details

When the 2004 Olympic Games came to Athens, Greece, they affected all aspects of the city’s infrastructure, including transportation. The huge influx of people meant that airport and airline employees needed reliable access to a range of applications used to manage and coordinate airport activities. Athens International Airport needed a level of communication and performance that demanded a set of powerful new tools.

With pressure building to modernize its internal operations for the 2004 Olympic Games, the airport identified the need for an advanced communication portal. To provide a reliable, secure platform for the portal, the airport consolidated its entire infrastructure onto Sun Enterprise and Sun Fire servers running the highly secure Solaris 9 Operating System. After a thorough survey of the available software solutions, Athens International Airport selected the Sun Java Enterprise System to enable its portal solution and provide enhanced communication services.

" With Sun technology at the heart of our infrastructure, we created an integrated IT environment to streamline our systems and improve secure access to critical airport information. Ultimately we are improving operational efficiencies and enhancing customer service. "

— Fotis Karonis, Director of IT and Telecommunications, Athens International Airport

Using the Sun Java System Portal Server, Athens International Airport created an enterprise-wide portal that provides single-point access to a range of functions that airport employees need to perform their jobs. For example, they use the portal to access the electronic Airport Development Fund (e-ADF), which electronically processes airline landing fees, traffic statistics and payments due to the airport. Other portal-based applications display flight information, enable crew planning and management, and provide accurate, up-to-date weather information. In addition, the portal speeds and simplifies communication with a suite of Sun-powered tools for e-mail, calendar management and instant messaging based on the Sun Java Communications Suite. The entire airport community, including operations, airlines, service companies, shops and public sector organizations, has secure, scalable access to portal applications, helping the airport offer a high level of customer service.

The Sun portal solution is highly secure, thanks to the inherent security of the Solaris Operating System. The airport has also consolidated its authentication and authorization into a single sign-on system, greatly improving security while simplifying user access. With a workforce that is always on the move and dispersed over a large area, the ability to offer secure, remote access to the portal is a big plus for Athens International Airport.

The Sun-based portal has had a tangible impact on the bottom line. By moving from paper-based accounting and invoicing to the e-ADF application, Athens International Airport has accelerated payments of landing fees from the airlines, which improves cash flow. And the reduction in time filling out paperwork has freed the airport staff to provide a higher level of customer service that has gained Athens International Airport a reputation as one of the world’s best-run airports.

Athens International Airport has achieved its objectives of improving operations and internal communication while positioning itself to scale as the airport grows. System availability is now 99.999 percent and productivity is projected to increase by 50 percent. The Sun solution has slashed data center costs, reducing TCO by 30 percent, and dramatically reduced the time to deployment for new and modified applications. The solution is expected to generate a 100 percent return on investment within three years.

The Sun portal solution has been so successful at Athens International Airport that it has lead to an agreement between Sun and Athens International Airport to provide joint technical solutions to airports across the globe to help modernize business processes and infrastructure. Moreover, in addition to serving as a showcase and operational model for the international airport community, the Sun portal solution has enabled Athens International Airport to transform itself into an agile, secure, unified enterprise.

Visit website: www.aia.gr.