AI Agent PoC Reveals How 11 Airports Could Transform Onboarding and Support  

Background

Aviation runs on precision. Every procedure must balance safety, speed, and cost, but airport personnel still rely on bulky manuals to guide daily operations. They have to search through hundreds of pages during critical moments, which wastes valuable time and exposes operations to unnecessary risk. 

The client, a provider of security check software for airports, manages IT systems for 11 airports and several other aviation customers across Europe. The client recognized that onboarding new airport personnel and supporting existing employees had become major bottlenecks. At the same time, they saw a broader opportunity: if AI could simplify these workflows, it could also become a powerful selling point for conservative airports still hesitant to modernize. 

To spark interest and prove feasibility, the client needed a proof-of-concept AI assistant to show immediate results and lay the foundation for long-term transformation. They partnered with Symphony Solutions to bring this vision to life. 

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Challenge

For current customers, onboarding was slow and support demands were heavy. New airport personnel spent weeks learning from manuals, while experienced airport personnel often turned to customer support during high-pressure tasks. These gaps delayed operations, raised costs, and reduced confidence in the system. 

Winning new airports posed an even greater challenge. Aviation sales cycles stretch one to three years and can stall with leadership changes. To reach new airports faster, the client explored referral partnerships. But referrals alone weren’t enough. Both existing and potential customers needed the same thing: proof. A proof-of-concept AI assistant was the clearest way to cut training time, reduce support needs, and demonstrate immediate value to stakeholders. 

Solution

Symphony Solutions brought together its AI services and application development expertise to create a proof-of-concept assistant built for the realities of airport operations. The objective went beyond digitizing manuals: it was about getting critical knowledge into the hands of operational teams instantly, standardizing compliance, and showing how AI can scale in a highly regulated industry. 

Airports rely on bulky manuals and long training cycles. In practice, this slows down security checks, boarding, and turnaround times, and increases reliance on support desks. The AI assistant removed these bottlenecks, allowing aviation professionals to ask plain-language questions and get precise, regulation-aligned answers in seconds. The result: faster onboarding, lower support load, and a scalable model that can be replicated across airports. 

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Key Areas of Improvement 

• System setup and integration – An AI agent was deployed in Microsoft Copilot Studio with a secure, cloud-native architecture, ensuring speed, resilience, and scalability. 

• Manual ingestion and parsing – Hundreds of pages of operational manuals were digitized, indexed, and transformed into a living knowledge base, searchable and updateable as regulations and procedures evolved. 

• Natural language queries – Staff could use everyday language to retrieve procedures in seconds, reducing dependence on support desks and enabling faster, more confident decision-making in time-critical moments. 

• Custom workflow interface – A Microsoft Bot Framework interface was branded and optimized for airport routines, making adoption natural for operational teams and reducing training overhead. 

• Process automation – Power Platform and Power Automate eliminated repetitive manual steps, reduced error rates, and ensured consistent data flows across airport systems. 

• Data preparation – Manuals were structured into high-quality datasets using Jupyter Notebook and Python, strengthening accuracy and reliability of AI responses. 

• Multimodal pilot – Visual instructions for body-checks were tested alongside text responses, reflecting the reality that many security procedures rely on both written and visual cues. This opens the door for future multimodal AI support, including video or AR-based guidance. 

Together, these improvements showed how AI can speed up onboarding, reduce risk in daily operations, and expand capacity without adding new headcount. More importantly, they gave aviation leaders a clear view of how AI can fit into airport systems today — and where it can take them tomorrow. 

Results 

The proof-of-concept AI assistant delivered tangible improvements for airport personnel while giving leadership clear evidence of AI’s potential in aviation. 

• Staff retrieved instructions in seconds, reducing delays during critical tasks. 
• Onboarding and support demands eased, showing immediate efficiency gains. 
• AI’s value in aviation was proven, convincing stakeholders in a conservative industry. 
• A scalable foundation was created for multilingual queries and multimodal features. 
• Growth opportunities opened, supporting referral partnerships and expansion across European airports.