siliconindia | | October 201819that inevitably arises when establishing trust between parties. As a ledger of digital events that can be repli-cated, shared and trusted without the need for central authority; Blockchain offers resiliency, disintermedia-tion, proof against tampering and traceability.This is a new world ­ a world in which busi-nesses can quickly contract, exchange services, re-cord transactions, manage payment and disengage in near-absolute security.Disruptive CombinationsCombined with automation, the Internet of Things, ar-tificial intelligence and robotics, Blockchain's power to disrupt will be immense, promising a world where business can quickly contract, exchange services, re-cord transactions, manage payment and disengage.But, as we've heard before, `Blockchain is not the thing. It's simply the thing which enables the thing'. The general perception is that it's three to five years from maturity. Yet blockchain is already being heralded as a way to reduce operational, governance and regu-latory overheads for existing business practices, and to create new business models where the complexity of sharing data in a trusted environment is prohibitive.Air Transport PotentialWhile our industry is already identifying use cases for airlines and airports, what's really needed is research. We need to establish the suitability and practicalities of using blockchain to establish a `single source of truth' for various data sets in use across our community. There's also a real need for the industry to take the right approach to ensure governance, standards, compliance, security and more.Currently dominating this space are a number of startups providing blockchain services. As part of our groundbreaking work, we've engaged with several of them conducting trials.British Airways and Heathrow: 'Smart Contract' TrialAs per research carried out with British Airways and Heathrow Airport, with support from Geneva and Mi-ami International Airports. Called FlightChain, the project investigated the provision of a single version of the truth for flight status data using a smart contract. This is a private permissioned blockchain ­ implement-ed on both Ethereum and Hyperledger-Fabric ­ that stores flight information on the blockchain, using a smart contract to arbitrate potentially conflicting data.The report sets out a number of key lessons for the air transport community, covering governance, the technology's level of maturity, the use of smart con-tracts, system security and the issue of private versus public ­ as well as system performance, scalability and resilience.In the meantime, SITA has been trialing the id man-agement capabilities of Smart Path in major airports. With Smart Path, a mix of blockchain, mobile technol-ogies and biometrics means that travelers need only be identified once ­ at the start of the journey ­ be it at an airport kiosk or the bag-drop. This could eliminate the need for multiple travel documents without passengers having to share their personal data. Blockchain is a new way for business to trade in products, services and information ­ but without the friction that inevitably arises when establishing trust between partiesKevin O'Sullivan
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