Most AI knows a little about everything. What if your AI knew everything about airports?
Ask any generic AI how to improve your Fast Track flow or forecast non-aeronautical revenue during a strike-disrupted summer, and you’ll get a surface-level answer…if any at all. That’s the problem. Airports aren’t like every other business, and your average AI tool doesn’t understand the rhythm or regulation of airport life. It certainly doesn’t speak the language of peak-time passenger flow, security bottlenecks, or revenue forecasting across multiple non-aero streams.
At Rezcomm, we’re solving that with something smarter: airport-specific, self-hosted AI trained exclusively on your proprietary data. No open web fluff or generic models. Just deep, relevant insight pulled from your actual operations: parking, retail, lounge, Fast Track, and more — all in one seamlessly connected, intelligent system.
Here, we’ll explore where off-the-shelf AI tools fall short in an aviation context, what it takes to build a custom AI brain for your airport, and how this technology is already being used to drive consistency, support teams, and make faster, smarter decisions in real-time.
This isn’t a case of riding the AI hype wave. This is AI that knows your airport.
Complexity at scale
Airports are complex, and so is Rezcomm,
Our airport marketplace isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. It’s a modular ecosystem built to meet the evolving needs of airports, whether large, small or scaling fast. As it stands today, Rezcomm Marketplace spans 8 categories containing over 50 modules. Inside those modules, around 200 tools. And within those tools? Thousands of powerful features designed to optimise every corner of your airport’s commercial and operational strategies.
That kind of scope is thrilling. But it also comes with challenges. How do you make something so powerful and so versatile, intuitive to use? How do you bring teams (both our staff and our airport clients) up to speed quickly, confidently, and with enough knowledge to get real value from day one?
Each airport we work with typically has between 10 and 50 active users, all with different roles, goals, and levels of tech ability. And while the platform is intuitive and plug-and-play, the sheer volume of information we’re working with can be overwhelming without dedicated support.
In these scenarios, AI can prove extremely valuable. And let’s be honest – everyone is starting to reap the benefits of AI support. But in our expert opinion and based on real-world experience… generic simply doesn’t fly.
Why generic AI falls short
When Large Language Models (LLMs) first hit the scene, it felt like a breakthrough. With dozens of evolving products, new team members to onboard, and an ever-growing knowledge base to manage, AI felt like the easiest and fastest way to get everyone up to speed.
Naturally, ChatGPT was the go-to solution. However, when it came to scaling, things got tricky.
You see, off-the-shelf AI struggles with the depth and complexity of airport tech. Imagine, each person managing their own prompts, their own understanding, and their own version of “truth”. Training an LLM on a handful of features is one thing. Expecting it to navigate thousands, spanning bookings, operations, retail, parking, marketing, loyalty, and more, is another. It simply wasn’t built for that level of interdependency.
The result? Fragmented knowledge, inconsistent answers, and no unified way to connect the dots across modules, teams, or customer journeys. And when accuracy and consistency matters, like it does for airports, that’s not a risk anyone should be taking.
That’s why we took a different flight path.
Building a custom brain
Faced with the limitations of generic AI tools and the growing complexity of our platform, we knew we had to think outside of the box. Could we personalise AI support for airports without relying on closed-source tools like OpenAI? Could we protect sensitive data while still delivering the powerful, intuitive experience our clients expect from us?
There’s no denying that airports operate in one of the most security-conscious industries in the world. At Rezcomm we have stringent GDPR requirements. We are a PCI DSS 4.0 compliant and a Cyber Essentials Plus certified organisation. We take these standards very seriously, and so do our clients. Sending proprietary or customer data to a third-party cloud-based model wasn’t ever going to sit comfortably with us.
So, we took a bold step. We built our own custom AI – a self-hosted, open source LLM, trained to speak airport. It knows our platform inside out, from the high-level modules to the smallest tools nestled within them.
And the best part? It’s not just safer, it’s smarter. By keeping the model in-house, we’ve unlocked more accurate responses, better contextual awareness, and a level of hyper-personalisation that generic tools can’t compete with. We’ve also made it scalable, serving a growing team of 60+ staff, and significantly more cost-effective over time.
What started as an experiment has become a real game-changer.
Airport AI in action
There’s something so powerful about seeing it live – your airport data, your systems, your own assistant.
What began as an internal tool to support our own onboarding and client training has turned into something much bigger. During in-person demos at Rezcomm, we invite airport teams to interact directly with our AI assistant, using their data. Eyes light up instantly. Questions are answered on the spot. And for clients, the value instantly becomes tangible.
Instead of a hypothetical AI use case, we’re showing real conversations happening in real time, with a self-hosted, open-source model trained entirely on the data we manage for our clients. And when airports see the AI assistant in action, the conversation quickly shifts from curiosity to capability. “Can we have this in our office?” “Could this support our commercial team?” “What about operations and training?”
When one airport asks, it’s interesting. When a second and third do the same? You start to realise you’re onto something transformative.
What began as a support tool has opened a whole new chapter in our product journey, one where airports aren’t just adopting AI, they’re owning it.
Training and consistency
When you’re operating at scale, consistency isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s critical.
That’s why we use our custom-built Rezcomm University to support internal training. It’s how new team members learn not just what our platform does but how to talk about Rezcomm Marketplace in a way that’s clear, aligned and client focused. And what’s more, we’re using it to train our AI in the same way.
By layering custom-trained language models onto our data and documentation, we’re creating a constant and consistent support tool that speaks the same language, whether it’s answering a support ticket, helping a colleague get up to speed, or guiding a client through a new feature.
This way, everyone is on the same page. Staff benefit from consistent onboarding. Clients get accurate, fast answers. And the AI doesn’t just echo back generic responses – it communicates with the tone, depth and industry knowledge of a true Rezcomm expert.
This isn’t just about efficiency. It’s about building trust at every touchpoint, and ensuring that as we scale, the quality of support and communication scales with us.
Rethinking what’s possible
AI that speaks airport fluently isn’t some distant concept – it’s already here, reshaping how we onboard staff, manage operations and make decisions.
By moving beyond generic AI tools and investing in self-hosted, airport-specific intelligence, we’re enabling faster, smarter decision-making across the entire ecosystem – safely and securely. From real-time answers at the gate to consistent training support behind the scenes, our custom AI is transforming how airports operate, communicate, and scale. It’s not just more efficient. It’s cost-effective, future-ready, and built to meet the highest standards of security and trust. And ultimately, it’s changing the way the airport industry thinks about intelligence, efficiency, and experience.
Rethinking what’s possible at your airport? Come and talk to us. We’ll show you exactly how a custom AI, trained on your data, can deliver clarity, speed, and tangible value. No jargon or guesswork. Just smart tech built for your airport.
Spearheading technological advancement, Alwyn Joy holds the role of Chief Technical Officer at Rezcomm. An expert in areas like Legacy to Cloud Migrations, Serverless Microservices, and Real-Time BI, he excels in managing distributed teams and implementing event-driven serverless applications.
