IT budgets of global airlines are seen increasing by about a tenth this year, as passenger carriers step up investments in business intelligence (BI) and mobile applications that will help them know their customers better and offer personalised services.

The IT spends of airlines for 2013 are expected to grow to $10.8 billion in 2013, up from $9.9 billion spent in 2012, according the Annual IT Trends Survey of SITA, a technology solutions provider for the aviation industry.

This increased spending could augur well for the Indian IT companies such as TCS, Infosys, NIIT and MindTree that develop and help airlines deploy various technology solutions.

All airlines surveyed by SITA this year plan to invest in BI solutions, which is expected to help them have better information for decision making in their operations. This is a huge jump from last year, when one in five airlines, had no plans at all, the survey said.

The Airline IT Trends Survey is an independent poll of senior IT executives working with top 200 passenger carriers, and airlines representing half the global traffic participated in the poll.

“We see a strong desire among airlines to increase revenues using techniques borrowed from the retail industry, including personalisation. Nearly three quarters of airlines rate BI for sales and marketing as a high priority. The airlines’ investment plans show the future of the industry is smarter, more mobile and more personal,” said Francesco Violante, SITA CEO, launching the report at Air Transport IT Summit 2013 in Brussels.

The need for investment in business intelligence is evident as the survey showed that only 9 per cent of airlines currently rate data quality as meeting all their requirements, while just 7 per cent have achieved the necessary integration of different data sources from across their company.

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