Business and operations management for airports.
Ironwood Aero is the integrated, real-time business and operations management platform for airports. Every movement, service and system on one live spine, and into a data warehouse for insight, machine learning and AI.
The problem
Enterprise vendors serve a few hundred mega-hubs. Everyone else runs on paper, spreadsheets and disconnected legacy tools — operational data trapped in silos, no single real-time picture, and no foundation to plan, automate or learn from. Revenue leaks too; that's just the most visible symptom of a deeper gap.
airfields worldwide with no modern system — 91% of all active airports
of even medium commercial airports still run operations on paper and Excel
of airports the enterprise vendors actually serve — the top hubs only
The platform
Air traffic, apron, parking, fuel, ground power, billing, cameras — every thread of the airport on a single live spine, posted straight into your accounting system, and captured into a data warehouse for insight, ML and AI. The right data reaches the person or system that needs it, exactly when they need it.
Billing is one thread. An important one — but one.
How it works
Every movement, service and system integrated live — no silos, no double-entry. Data flows to the people and systems that need it, and straight into your ERP with a full audit trail.
Cameras, ADS-B and native rules do the work that used to be manual — identifying aircraft, capturing services, raising the right charge. Automation built in from the ground up, not bolted on.
Everything lands in a data warehouse: operational and strategic intelligence today, predictive maintenance, machine learning and AI tomorrow. Data as strategy, not decoration.
Proof — not a pitch
One thread, running live: an edge camera reads the tail, the platform identifies the aircraft against the registry, logs the movement — and yes, bills it. Proof the integrated platform is real, not slideware.
The majors are still specifying their computer-vision programmes. A South African platform is running one.
What we stand for
“I've been saying this since 2019. Now I've built it.”
— Hein Pretorius, Founder
Since 2019 we've argued that digital transformation is reinvention, not software; that automation belongs native and from the ground up; that data is strategy. Ironwood Aero is that conviction, built for airports — with the people who run them. We're a partner in reinvention, not a software vendor: we partner with our clients and the industry, and we don't sell a box and walk away.
We build alongside our clients and the industry — shaping the platform around how airports actually work, not selling and moving on.
Strategy and business purpose come first; technology serves them. It's the discipline behind everything we ship.
Automation and data are built in from the foundation — not bolted onto legacy tools years later.
One dataset, three audiences
Every airfield is a tenant; tenants roll into groups. The same real-time data — aggregated with minimal disclosure — serves the ramp, the portfolio and the state.
Run the field: movements, services, billing, cameras, apron, parking and capacity — on site or remotely.
Portfolio view across many fields — comparative performance and group reporting, without touching each field's private data.
Real-time aviation data at scale for transport, economic development and the national register.
Live where it matters
Insights
Where the industry actually leaks money, misses movements and flies blind — and what to do about it.
In 2019 I wrote down the seven things data science would do for an airport. I hadn't built any of it. This year I finished — here's where each one stands.
The most expensive software decisions are made before a vendor is ever called. Ask these first.
Most of the world's airfields will never justify a control tower. They still need to be run. Here's how.
Bolt-on automation inherits every flaw of the system beneath it. Built-in is a different animal.
Book a walkthrough, or explore a live demo now running in three countries.
