When the IT systems fail at an airport, it’s an instant and large-scale catastrophe. The airline industry is almost entirely dependent on IT, using technology to feed information to the pilots, to make sure no planes collide, to run instant international security checks on the passengers, and to get us and our luggage – hopefully – to wherever in the world we’re heading.

Yet the innovations in airport IT only got formal recognition three years ago, when Airports Council International (ACI) World and travel technology company Amadeus launched the Technology Innovation Awards.