38 OPERATIONS May | June 2026 AirportImprovement.com SFO At least one liaison from each major group at the airport—airlines, the custodial team, facilities management, asset coordination, impact coordination, logistics, customer care, etc.—gather inside the AIOC. When a call is routed in, everyone helps decide how to deal with it. Often, the call is something as simple as a restroom needing attention, and customer care can connect to the custodial coordinator for a quick fix. “We recently added happy/sad face buttons at security checkpoints and restrooms,” Byun Riedel says. “As visitors provide feedback, the data feeds into the AIOC so the custodial team or TSA can see very quickly if a problem is developing and dispatch assistance right away.” In the event of a bigger issue, such as passengers delayed on the tarmac, asset coordinators and facilities maintenance can coordinate to arrange for a team to redirect. Before the AIOC, this sequence would have required a series of phone calls. Challenges to Resolve Designing and implementing the improved operations center came with a unique set of challenges, primarily due to the scale and complexity of SFO, which has more than 50 airlines and 121 gates for its high-volume domestic and international operations. Tunneling down further, the AIOC had to meet a variety of needs while bringing multiple departments and functions together. “Every group in an operations center works differently,” Gardini says. “There are groups that are highly collaborative and thrive on that day-to-day interaction with each other. And there are other groups that need to be solitary for either security concerns or for audio and visual privacy, or they might be taking calls with the public and can’t have a noisy background. Others need to be heads down, focusing on a long-term task.” A critical step in overcoming these challenges was performing in-depth audits of existing systems, including their operational sequences, applications and interdependencies. From there, NetXperts mapped how the systems functioned individually and identified gaps in data visibility and integration. Through collaborative input from various teams, Rajegowda and his team were able to pinpoint missing data elements and design an architecture that consolidated disparate systems into a cohesive, integrated operational framework. “There are various factors which make the project so unique—all the way from the physical design of the space to the PHOTO: HOK AND BRUCE DAMONTE Airport Director Mike Nakornkhet unveiled the new nerve center at a grand opening earlier this year.
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