SITA has acquired Big Blue Analytics, bringing the OCCam airline disruption management platform into its business.
OCCam is an AI-enabled optimisation system for airline operations control. It is designed to generate recovery plans when disruption affects aircraft, crew, passengers or maintenance. In live operations, airlines using the system have reduced disruption costs by up to 30%, according to SITA.
The acquisition strengthens SITA's position in airline operations software, an area where carriers are under pressure to limit the cost of delays and irregular operations. In aviation, disruption can include anything outside normal schedules, from weather events and mechanical faults to crew shortages and passenger issues.
For airlines, those disruptions can quickly become expensive because operational decisions are closely linked. Reassigning an aircraft can affect crew legality, maintenance requirements and passenger connections, often forcing operations teams to revisit earlier decisions.
OCCam addresses that by evaluating multiple constraints at once rather than in sequence. The system ranks recovery options and gives operations teams visibility into cost, on-time performance, passenger impact and compliance.
SITA is positioning the deal as part of a wider push into what it calls an Intelligent Operations Control Centre, combining planning, monitoring and recovery in one system. Big Blue Analytics' optimisation engine is expected to form the foundation for broader tools that can identify disruption earlier and automate more of the recovery process.
SITA says the financial case for airlines is substantial. For a mid-size carrier with just over 100 aircraft, disruption costs can reach USD $70 million to USD $80 million, with a 25% to 30% reduction translating into savings of USD $20 million to USD $30 million.
SITA already supplies operational products to more than 100 operations control centres worldwide, including its Mission Watch platform. That installed base, along with its global footprint, is expected to help the newly acquired product reach airlines at broader scale.
David Lavorel, Chief Executive Officer of SITA, said airlines have often viewed disruption as unavoidable despite the financial impact.
"Airlines have traditionally treated disruption as a fixed cost of doing business, but there is a clear opportunity to approach it differently. In an increasingly volatile and fast-moving environment, the ability to recover with the same agility becomes critical. The airlines that act on this first will recover faster, fly more, and protect more revenue than those that wait, and AI-enabled tools like OCCam are making that possible," Lavorel said.
Wider strategy
The deal also fits SITA's recent expansion through acquisitions and product development across aviation technology. The company serves airports, airlines and governments, and says its systems support more than 1,000 airports and more than 19,600 aircraft worldwide.
Its role in airline operations has grown alongside wider use of data analysis and automation in control centres, where teams must respond quickly to disruptions while managing commercial and regulatory constraints. Operations control remains one of the more complex parts of airline technology because each decision can affect several parts of a carrier's network at once.
SITA has also been developing systems for airline operations using large language models and agent-based technology. With the addition of Big Blue Analytics, it plans to combine those efforts with OCCam's optimisation model.
Yann Cabaret, Chief Executive Officer of SITA for Aircraft, outlined how SITA sees the platform fitting into that broader architecture.
"This is the first step towards a much bigger Intelligent Operations Control Centre vision, one where planning, monitoring, and recovery come together in a single system. AI allows us to handle multiple constraints at once and tailor decisions to each airline in a way that was not possible before," Cabaret said.
Big Blue Analytics' founder said the transaction would give the product wider commercial reach through SITA's customer base and international presence.
"With SITA, we can take what we have built further, reaching more airlines faster and turning advanced optimization into practical tools that help operations teams work smarter every day," Pau Collellmir said.