Travel Tech Podcast
Informal hallway track conversations with industry pioneers exploring the intersection of AI, aviation, and travel technology.
Latest Episode
Why AI Is Slowing Down Experts Before It Speeds Up Work
AI adoption inside teams is not following the narrative most people expect — in some cases, experienced engineers actually become slower when adopting AI tools.
Subscribe & Listen
All Episodes
10 episodes
How a Simple Barcode Saved Airlines $1.5 Billion and Replaced Paper Tickets
Eric Leopold
How the aviation industry coordinated a global shift from magnetic stripe to barcode technology on boarding passes — a transition that delivered over $1.5 billion in annual savings.
Why Your Istanbul Airport Sandwich Costs €22: The Economics Behind Drop-Off Fees and Retail
Professor Achim Czerny
Airport economics through the lens of revenue generation — why airports don't profit directly from flight slots, how non-aeronautical revenue outperforms landing charges, and how regulatory price caps reshape pricing incentives.
Airports Still Run on 1980s Software: Why the Industry Is Moving Beyond AODB-Centric Operations
Martin Bowman
How airport operations still rely on decades-old systems — and why Heathrow's adoption of the AIRHART platform signals a shift from traditional Airport Operations Databases toward configurable platform architectures.
The Telecom-to-Aviation Playbook for Scaling Airspace Systems
Amit Ganjoo
Aviation's infrastructure challenges through the lens of telecommunications history — why interoperability and regulatory alignment from telecom's transition apply to modern drone systems, UTM, and advanced air mobility.
Is AI in a Bubble? What Happens When Hype Meets Regulation
Ian Painter, Oli Deakin, Adrian McKenzie
AI "bubble" talk usually collapses into a lazy binary: everything is hype, or everything is inevitable. In this episode, we break it apart properly — drawing on years of building and operating aviation data platforms where reliability and cost structures matter more than narratives.
Dude, Where's My Car? The Hidden Cost of Broken Indoor Navigation
Dustin Gimbel
Indoor navigation solutions in aviation environments — how RouteMe's video-based approach is transforming wayfinding across airports, airlines, and healthcare.
This Ex-Pilot Is Building AI for the Cockpit
Leo Kotil
How AI systems can support frontline aviation teams by improving access to critical information during operations — from NOTAMs to EFB fragmentation.
Beyond Line of Sight: The Infrastructure Drones Need to Fly
James Dunthorne
Why beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) drone operations are constrained by surveillance infrastructure and detection physics — not aircraft capability.
Jevons Paradox for Knowledge Work
Ian Painter, Oliver Deakin, Adrian McKenzie
How AI efficiency gains may actually increase demand for human expertise. A panel discussion about AI transforming developer and PM roles, commoditization risks, and Jevons Paradox applied to knowledge work.
About the Podcast
The Travel Tech Podcast brings you informal "hallway track" conversations with innovators, technologists, and industry leaders who are transforming how we travel. Think of it as the conversations you'd have at an industry conference — candid, insightful, and unrehearsed.
Hosted by Alex Brooker, Founder & CEO of Airside Labs.
About Airside Labs
Airside Labs is a highly innovative startup bringing over 25 years of experience solving complex aviation data challenges. We specialize in building production-ready AI systems, intelligent agents, and adversarial synthetic data for the aviation and travel industry. Our team of aviation and AI veterans delivers exceptional quality, deep domain expertise, and powerful development capabilities in this highly dynamic market.