Airports Innovate 2025: setting the pace for aviation’s next era
Airports Innovate 2025, the premier global innovation conference for airports, kicked off earlier this week in Busan, Republic of Korea.
Against a backdrop of accelerating airport transformation, growing capacity pressures, and security challenges, global airport innovation leaders gathered to cultivate cutting‑edge airport technologies and forward‑thinking operational strategies. Hosted by Korea Airports Corporation and jointly organised by ACI Asia‑Pacific & Middle East, ACI EUROPE and ACI World, the event gathered hundreds of airport innovators, start-ups, visionary thinkers, researchers and top tech minds to showcase the remarkable innovations redefining the future of air travel.
Airports as masters of their own performance
At Airports Innovate, ACI EUROPE has renewed its call for a shift in mindset on capacity and performance management at Europe’s airports. To support this vision, ACI EUROPE released two strategic publications:
The Airport Operations Plan (AOP) Guidebook, a practical framework for delivering operational excellence through collaboration and real-time data sharing.
The Airport Performance Position Paper, outlining how airports can lead the move from reactive to predictive performance management, and
Together, both publications make clear that achieving operational excellence requires coordinated action across the entire aviation ecosystem. Airports must take the lead – not by assuming the roles of others, but by bringing all actors to the table.
European excellence: Pablo Lopez Loeches wins Best Airport Innovation Leader
At the ACI World-Amadeus Technology Innovation Awards, Pablo Lopez Loeches – Head of Ideation & Entrepreneurship at Aena – took home the Best Airport Innovation Leader Award.
The Immediate Past Chair of ACI EUROPE’s Innovation Forum, Pablo has led several cutting-edge projects that have set a new standard for airport innovation across Europe and the world. In our recent document, Regional Airports and Innovation, we break down several operation-enhancing projects he has spearheaded across Aena’s network of 46 airports in Spain. Read more here – from smart queueing systems to 5G-enabled drone projects for AI-based object detection.
We offer our heartfelt congratulations to Pablo for his well-deserved win.
Airports Innovate 2026: Super Early Bird discount available now!
Ready to join us in 2026? The 2026 edition of Airports Innovate will be held in Barcelona, hosted by Aena.
A city known since antiquity as the crossroads between technology, creativity, and forward-thinking urban design, Barcelona is the natural home for Airports Innovate! There is no better place to connect the future of aviation with a city that lives and breathes innovation every day.
The global airport operator Aena is next year’s host, giving delegates direct insight from one of the world’s most ambitious and forward-looking airport operators. Their expertise – with their Spanish airports handling over 590 million passengers in the last three years – will set the pace for this edition’s knowledge and insight.
For early disruptors and the most cutting-edge movers and shakers in the industry, we offer a Super Early Bird discount: use code SUPERBIRD15 until 31 January 2026 to secure an additional 15% off already discounted delegate passes.
Register here.
Interested in sponsorship or exhibition opportunities? Please contact Tanya.Laurijssen@aci-europe.org.
