05.10.26, GLASGOW, Connected Places Catapult, the UK’s innovation accelerator for transport, construction and infrastructure, has today announced the three companies selected to trial their solutions as part of the Connected Airport Living Lab at Glasgow Airport.

The Innovate UK funded programme, now in its fourth year, provides small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with the opportunity to develop, test and demonstrate their late-stage innovative technologies in a live airport environment. By providing a structured, repeatable approach aligned to airport procurement and operational realities, the programme aims to accelerate innovation adoption and scaling across UK airports.

The programme is run in partnership with Glasgow Airport, part of AGS Airports, who helped identify three core challenges for the innovators to pose solutions for:

• Managing large airport asset performance (such as escalators, lifts, scanners and car park barriers)
• Understanding passenger sentiment to improve the airport experience
• Combining passenger sentiment and feedback data from a variety of sources (such as  social media, intelligent voice recognition and formal complaints)

Alongside funding of up to £30k and bespoke commercial support from experts at the Catapult, selected applicants will benefit from connections with industry stakeholders and, crucially, access to airport facilities to trial their solutions.

Meet the selected organisations:

Beam Connectivity

Beam Connectivity transforms airport maintenance through intelligent, data-driven solutions that improve the reliability and performance of airside and passenger-facing assets. Their Connectivity as a Service (CaaS) platform, which they will trial as part of Connected Airport Living Lab, provides real-time visibility into asset health and performance, helping engineering teams reduce disruption, increase operational efficiency and deliver more reliable passenger journeys.

Createc

Createc is a UK technology company specialising in robotics, artificial intelligence and advanced sensing for complex environments. They are trialling Situate, which  combines anonymous LiDAR movement data with live passenger feedback to understand how crowding, queues, waiting and movement affect the airport experience. It will provide a live experience score, trends and early warnings, helping airport teams identify pressure, intervene sooner and assess recovery.

Wordnerds

Wordnerds is a customer feedback analysis solution that uses the latest Natural Language Processing (NLP) and machine learning technology to help organisations turn disparate customer feedback into insight that teams can act on. Through this trial, Wordnerds will work with Glasgow Airport to build bespoke models trained on real passenger feedback and operational data to understand what's driving satisfaction. The trial will test AI and agentic reporting capabilities to push actionable insight across the business, allowing teams to act with confidence.

“Glasgow Airport has become a proving ground for innovative technologies that can solve real operational challenges while improving the passenger experience.
 
“The success of previous cohorts has demonstrated the value of giving SMEs access to a live airport environment, allowing them to test and refine their solutions in real-world conditions.
 
“We’re looking forward to working with this next generation of innovators whose wide and varied skillsets will help us better understand passenger needs, improve the performance of critical assets, and support the delivery of a smoother, more efficient airport experience.”

Gavin Birch-Williams, Managing Director of Glasgow Airport

“Operational excellence is an ever-evolving challenge for airports and innovation is crucial to meeting customer standards and needs.

“We are pleased to partner with Glasgow Airport once again for this programme and welcome three fantastic companies from across the UK to trial their exciting solutions to improve asset performance and enhance passenger experience in a live airport environment.”

Sameer Savani, Transport Managing Director at Connected Places Catapult