Montreal, Canada – September 21, 2025 – VariFlight, a leading Chinese provider of smart airport solutions, participated in The 42nd International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Assembly and The ICAO Innovation Fair 2025 in Montreal. Representing China’s advancements in airport digitalization and intelligent operations, the company demonstrated its latest achievements and shared its vision for the future of global airport management.
From September 21 to 23, the ICAO Innovation Fair gathered global aviation stakeholders to explore the future of aviation technologies, followed by the ICAO Assembly, which convened for 11 days. During the events, Mr. Joseph Xia, General Manager of VariFlight Singapore, was invited twice to deliver keynote addresses at the SKYTALKS sessions. He presented Total Airport Management (TAM), highlighting China’s innovative practices and their global applicability.
A New Paradigm: AI-Powered Total Airport Management
VariFlight’s TAM solution follows the technology pathway of “Digitalization + SWIM/DataSpace + AI Agents”. By combining artificial intelligence with multi-agent collaboration—including Resource Management Agent (RM Agent), Surface Management Agent (SURF Agent), and Video Analytics Agent (VA Agent)—TAM enables integrated coordination across airside and landside operations.
The solution provides full-domain situational awareness, intelligent decision-making, and predictive early warning, helping airports enhance operational safety, improve on-time performance, and reduce ground operation energy consumption. TAM is already being piloted at a major hub airport in China, where it has delivered promising operational results.
From A-CDM to TAM: Driving ICAO’s ASBU Evolution
The concept of TAM has its roots in ICAO’s Aviation System Block Upgrades (ASBU) framework. Initially, Airport Collaborative Decision Making (A-CDM) was introduced to improve operational efficiency. However, with the evolution of aviation technologies, ICAO first introduced TAM in the AN-Conf/13-WP/302 document (2018) and formally incorporated it into ASBU 2.0 (2019).
TAM is recognized as the advanced stage of A-CDM, with the goal of enabling Trajectory-Based Operations (TBO)—a paradigm requiring precise end-to-end management from flight planning to landing, to maximize the efficiency of global airspace utilization.
By demonstrating the tangible benefits of TAM in real-world operations, VariFlight aims to deliver “Chinese innovation” to the global aviation industry, accelerating the industry’s transition from A-CDM to TAM. Looking ahead, VariFlight will continue to expand international cooperation, contribute to the development of global standards, and support the civil aviation sector in achieving greater efficiency, intelligence, and collaboration.