ABSTRACT Effective spatial data maintenance during the operation and maintenance phase of airports is imperative for the infrastructure safety, operational effectiveness, and compliance with regulations. However, airports encounter serious challenges such as lack of management support, insufficient funding, and poor‐quality data sources. Despite the recognised potential of emerging technologies such as digital twins, digital threads, ontologies, scalable data architectures, and governance frameworks, their integrated application for airport spatial data management remains unexplored. The existing literature focuses on analysing these technologies individually, leaving a large gap for their combined application for end‐to‐end comprehensive spatial data maintenance. To bridge this gap, this research proposes a comprehensive, literature‐based framework using qualitative research as the underlying approach with the inclusion of a comprehensive literature review, and semi‐structured interviews with experts for practical significance and theoretical richness. By employing inductive thematic analysis, we identified critical drivers and challenges in the practice of spatial data maintenance. The proposed framework brings together digital twins for realistic infrastructure simulation, digital threads for end‐to‐end data traceability, ontologies for semantic interoperability, data lakehouses for cost‐optimisation, and a governance layer for compliance and data integrity. The integrated ecosystem addresses the identified challenges by leveraging the identified drivers and technological synergies, enhancing data‐driven decision‐making capabilities across diversified airport settings. Although the proposed framework is theoretically validated, it must be tested on real airports, representing a critical limitation. Additionally, the scope of the research is constrained by stakeholder insights primarily from medium‐sized U.S. airports, which may limit applicability for large airports or other regulatory frameworks. Future research will involve piloting the framework for empirical testing of performance and adaptability, enhancing stakeholder engagement across the world, examining the strategies for mainstreaming with existing airport systems, and addressing ethical and cybersecurity issues.
Khoshkenar et al. (Thu,) studied this question.