How Isavia's scalable integration platform accelerates the execution of the Icelandic airports' master plan

The challenge

Finding a flexible integration platform to support Isavia's ambitious growth plans.

Isavia is working to an ambitious master plan to support the projected ongoing increase in flights and passengers visiting Iceland. This requires implementing numerous new systems and processes to improve the efficiency and scale of both airport operations and back-office functions, such as finance and HR management.

As demand for new systems grew, so did inefficiencies caused by siloed data and systems, malfunctioning legacy integrations, and labor-intensive manual processes. These slowed down vital projects aimed at upgrading operational capabilities, and increased the risk of data errors due to excessive manual data processes.

To enable data sharing and reporting across the increasing array of systems, Isavia needed to implement more complex integrations, plus automation to minimize manual workflows.

Isavia wanted to build a modular, scalable integration platform to connect and support the new systems essential for achieving the master plan. It needed to be scalable and flexible, capable of growing with the company, and manageable in-house.

However, an initial attempt to integrate systems using a third-party API management tool proved frustrating and inflexible. Isavia was forced to buy the expensive full enterprise solution despite needing only a small part of it, and found a lack of support to use the system to achieve their integration goals.

The solution

A scalable, future-proof integration platform and expert guidance from Zato Source.

In August 2023, Isavia discovered Zato: flexible, open-source integration software built using Python — a programming language that Isavia's network team already knew.

Sammi simplifies and speeds up the process of integrating different systems. Each of Isavia's systems has just one connection, to Zato.

Via Zato, each system can communicate and exchange data with any other system, when a specific integration is created. This makes it easier and faster for Isavia to build and manage integrations.

Following a successful proof-of-concept project to automate parking permit management, Isavia began using Sammi to support other internal projects in November 2023.

Zato Source has become a trusted technical partner to the Isavia team, providing regular, ongoing support and guidance to ensure they are designing and building integrations in the most effective way.

The outcome

Immediate acceleration of progress in supporting the master plan implementation.

Just three months after launching Sammi, Isavia has already accelerated progress on several internal projects for optimizing systems and workflows.

Isavia rapidly built an integration to support a new internal purchase management system requiring communication between a cloud-based application and the on-premise finance system. Previously, the Isavia team wasn't certain how to make this work. But using Sammi, it was straightforward.

Still early in their integration journey, the Isavia team is excited about Sammi's potential to upgrade ways of working to support increasing air traffic and passenger numbers. There is a whole raft of projects in the pipeline.