Airports are investing in private wireless networks to improve operations and travelers’ experience

• Airports are looking to private wireless networks to improve operations, execs said at MWC Las Vegas.
• Passengers could see benefits like smoother baggage claim and check-ins, the panelists said.
• This article is part of “5G and Connectivity Playbook,” a series exploring one of our time’s most important tech innovations.

Private wireless networks are key to ushering in a better airport experience for both the travel hubs’ operations and the billions of passengers who pass through them.

That’s according to airport executives who spoke on a panel about connected aviation Tuesday at the trade show Mobile World Congress Las Vegas.

Private networks generally offer greater security and reliability, lower latency, and higher bandwidth compared with public networks. For these reasons, they can help airports with operations and communications, plane and baggage tracking, and security.

California’s Ontario International Airport, for example, is using a private wireless network to run its perimeter-intrusion detection system, Charles Miwa, the airport’s chief information officer, said.

“As I think about a future with a lot of growth, private wireless is foundational. It’s going to enable us to accommodate these ad hoc moves,” he said, emphasizing the need for flexibility given how often many airports do some form of construction to update their infrastructure.

“We’re trying to run more efficient airports, more customer-friendly airports,” said Michael Youngs, the vice president of information technology at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, which last year announced a $10 million deal with AT&T for a private 5G network.

“We’re not going to do it with people. We’re not going to do it with brick and mortar. We’re going to do it with technology, with IoT, but we need that base foundational level of connectivity, private wireless, that’s going to enable it,” he added, referring to the Internet of Things.

Private wireless networks can also help enterprises with cost and mobility by reducing the expense of installing cables and by providing connectivity to areas that might be harder to reach with wires.

“We traditionally at the airport, especially, do not put anything very secure across wireless. We just don’t do it,” said Kyle Mobley, the director of information technology at the Port of Oakland, which operates the San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport. “And it’s not because we have any proof it’s going to be less secure in the way we do it. It’s the what you don’t know.”

Mobley added: “Having this infrastructure wirelessly is huge.” Mobley spoke of using private wireless for passenger traffic sensors, for example.

“It’s tough to keep sending people out in the field to investigate things at 2 o’clock in the morning,” he said. “And we cover such a wide area that getting these sensors — lidar, cameras, whatever it ends up being — in every corner of our property is huge to give that person working that desk the ability to know what’s going on. Do I have a squirrel running up the fence, or is it somebody? The squirrel will sometimes send 10 cars out there, and that’s not very efficient.”

Roughly 58% of airports worldwide that participated in the survey are investing in major development programs for a 5G communications network, and another 29% have research-and-development programs for the tech by 2026, said the 2023 Air Transport IT Insights report from SITA, an IT and telecommunications service provider for the aviation industry, and Airports Council International.

As for passengers, they might see benefits like quicker baggage claim or smoother check-ins.

“I’m not really looking to be in the private-wireless business — I feel like I have to be in the private-wireless business,” Youngs said. “I need to harness data to take our airport forward. That’s really the end game.”