Case Study: São Paulo’s Guarulhos achieves rapid IT transformation and World Cup readiness with SITA

Reinventing a Busy Airport For the World Cup

São Paulo’s Guarulhos, the busiest airport in Latin America, faced an urgent infrastructure and IT overhaul after its 2012 transfer to private management and with the 2014 FIFA World Cup looming. Congestion, outdated systems and passenger growth beyond design capacity required rapid modernization; SITA, which already provided telecommunications, network connectivity and common-use passenger processing solutions at GRU, was chosen to lead the technology and systems transformation.

SITA designed and implemented a scalable IT roadmap, led the design and integration of systems for the new Terminal 3 and expanded common-use infrastructure, deploying Airport MSI, AirportConnect (CUTE/CUPPS and CUSS), BagManager and AMS components. Delivered in just over a year amid active construction, the SITA program helped GRU handle 39.5 million passengers in 2014, automate 95% of 830 daily aircraft movements and reduce check-in allocation time from one hour to five minutes.

São Paulo’s Guarulhos

Luiz Eduardo Ritzmann

Chief Information Officer