Axians Spain is a longstanding partner of Aena Aeropuertos, helping to provide reliable, secure communications at many Spanish airports.
For almost 25 years, Axians Spain has been supporting Aena Aeropuertos, one of the world’s largest airport operators, which manages 46 airports and two heliports in Spain, and is directly or indirectly involved in managing another 23 airports worldwide.
Axians, the VINCI Energies ICT brand, works with all the operator’s airports in Spain to fulfil their communications network needs. Axians Spain is currently involved in various projects at a dozen different airports, and also working on Aena’s central services.
“A key role in installing networks to facilitate secure data communication”
“We play a key role in installing Wi-Fi and corporate networks, as well as SDN [software-defined networking] networks, to facilitate secure data communication throughout the airport,” says José Sarabia Arconada, Project Manager at Axians Spain. “This involves a diverse range of users, from operational teams and firefighters to government forces and security services, not to mention the passengers who use the Wi-Fi and the various airport services: check-in, boarding passes, public information systems, and so on.”
Technical and organisational challenges
Aena has clear expectations: a reliable, robust, scalable and easily manageable network, with project implementations that interfere as little as possible with day-to-day airport operations.
This provides Axians with plenty of challenges. “Working in airports can be very complicated,” says José Sarabia Arconada. “Every airport is unique, and we have to abide by the rules in place at each one, as well as coordinating with numerous services (communications, IT systems, security, operations, etc.) and adapting to operational timetables relating to aircraft movements and passenger flows.”
Added to this, airports are extremely demanding in terms of risk-prevention measures (when working at height, in aircraft transit zones, service galleries, tunnels, etc.).
As part of its close collaboration with Aena, Axians is also currently working on the definition of new data centre architecture compliant with the recommendations of Agencia Estatal de Seguridado Aérea, the Spanish national air safety agency.
04/17/2025
