Why best-of-breed wins the future of airport operations

Airports are moving from monolithic suites to connected, best-of-breed platforms. Here’s how to unlock capacity, resilience and control.

We’re proud to be featured in the latest issue of Airport World, where we share our perspective on how a new operating landscape is bringing “best-of-breed” systems together into one coherent, data-driven operation. 

In the article, we argue that airports no longer have to choose between a single, monolithic platform or a patchwork of disconnected tools. Instead, they can design an operating stack where the strongest specialist systems for AODB, RMS, billing, passenger flow, content management and more are integrated through modern APIs into one digital core.

👉 You can read the full Airport World feature here - the article is featured on page 45.

In this blog post, we’ll recap the key ideas from the feature – and explain why, anno 2026, Copenhagen Optimization is the supplier of the market-leading Resource Management System (RMS) for airports that want to fully embrace this best-of-breed approach.

Why best-of-breed is becoming the default.

Across the world, airports face the same paradox:

• Grow throughput,
• Improve passenger experience,
• Reduce operational risk,
• …without simply building more infrastructure.

You can’t build your way out of every constraint, but you can unlock capacity through smarter planning and allocation: freeing gates, right-sizing check-in, smoothing peaks in security, and aligning staff deployment to demand.

That requires systems that are:

• Excellent in their domain (e.g. stand and gate allocation, turnaround management, staff and desk planning), and
• Open by design, so data and decisions flow freely across the airport.

Best-of-breed architectures deliver exactly that. Each component is created by a team that lives and breathes that specific problem space. Systems evolve at the speed of operations, not at the pace of massive, multi-year suite upgrades.
Just as importantly, the airport regains leverage: if a module underperforms, it can be replaced without “open-heart surgery” on the entire IT estate.

What "best-of-breed RMS" means in practice 

Within this architecture, the resource management system becomes one of the most critical pieces. It is where planning turns into concrete allocations: stands, gates, check-in, baggage, and more.

A best-of-breed RMS anno 2026 must therefore do more than schedule resources. It should:

1. Be cloud-native and API-first
   Integration cannot be an afterthought. A modern RMS exposes clean, well-documented interfaces to the AODB, billing systems, passenger flow tools, flight information, workforce management and data platforms.
2. Model the full operational reality
   From turnaround constraints and airline agreements to noise restrictions and pier/stand preferences – the RMS must reflect how the airport actually works, not just how a legacy system once modeled it.
3. Optimize continuously – not just at planning time
   Disruptions, late changes and new opportunities appear all day. A best-of-breed RMS recalculates and re-optimizes in near real time, underpinned by robust optimization and simulation engines.
4. Support both planners and controllers
   Long-term scenario planning, seasonal schedule design, and strategic capacity decisions must live side-by-side with day-of-operations control. The same system should support both.
5. Be replaceable – by design
   Ironically, the best RMS is built as if it might one day be replaced: clear inputs and outputs, transparent SLAs and measurable business outcomes. That’s how airports avoid lock-in and keep vendors focused on delivering value.

This is the philosophy behind Better Airport and our RMS capabilities. We don’t try to be everything. We focus on being the best at what matters most for airport operations specialists who live and breathe resource allocation and operational performance.

How Copenhagen Optimization fits into your digital core 

When we work with airports, we typically see four patterns where a best-of-breed technology approach and the RMS becomes the growth engine for the operation:

1. Targeting the biggest operational pain first
   For some airports it’s stands and gates; for others, it’s check-in or baggage . We start where the upside is largest, integrate tightly with the existing AODB or message bus, and prove value quickly. That lets you build confidence and momentum for broader modernization.
2. Creating a shared, data-driven view of capacity
   Our RMS modules use the same underlying demand and capacity models as our forecasting and planning tools. That means capacity decisions remain consistent across planning horizons – from next season’s schedule to today’s live operation.
3. Building trust with planners, dispatchers and controllers
   Best-of-breed only works when real users pull the system into their workflows. We design and iterate with analysts and ops teams, so the RMS reflects real decision logic, not generic abstractions.
4. Unlocking incremental capacity instead of incremental concrete
   Many of our customers have found millions in avoided or deferred capex simply by improving allocation quality: better stand utilization, smarter use of contact vs. remote stands, or more efficient check-in and security layouts.

Why we say: we build the leading airport RMS for 2026 and beyond 

At Copenhagen Optimization, our ambition is clear:

To deliver the best-in-class airport RMS – tightly integrated, cloud-native and outcome-driven – as part of a best-of-breed ecosystem.

That means:

• Continuous investment in our optimization engines and data models
• Relentless focus on real-world operational impact
• Deep collaboration with airports and technology partners
• Radical openness in how our systems connect to the wider stack

For airports, this isn’t just an IT strategy. It’s an operational strategy: a way to unlock capacity, protect margins and deliver a better, more predictable passenger experience – all without being constrained by a single monolithic platform.

If you’re exploring how a best-of-breed architecture – and a next-generation RMS – could support your airport’s strategy, we’d be happy to discuss concrete options and scenarios.