Airside Labs 🛫

Accelerating safe AI adoption in aviation through rigorous evaluation and benchmarking

About Us

Airside Labs is a specialised AI research and development company focused on aviation sector innovation. We help businesses validate AI performance and achieve product-market fit faster through comprehensive testing frameworks and domain-specific benchmarks.

Our Mission

To bridge the gap between cutting-edge AI capabilities and safe, reliable deployment for passenger travel and aviation use cases. We believe that proper evaluation is essential before AI systems can be trusted in business environments.

Key Projects

🧪 Pre-flight Benchmark

Our flagship aviation AI evaluation framework, accepted into the UK AI Security Institute's collection of evaluations. Pre-flight tests Large Language Models' understanding of aviation operations, safety protocols, and real-world constraints.

• Open Source: Available for the entire aviation community
• Comprehensive: Covers ICAO standards, airport operations, safety procedures
• Validated: Developed with industry experts and regulatory input
• Evolving: Continuously updated as AI models advance

🎯 Domain-Specific Evaluations

We create custom benchmarks that go beyond standard metrics to test:

• Real-world operational understanding
• Safety-related understanding and reasoning (not for safety critical deployment)
• Regulatory compliance
• Edge case handling

Why Aviation-Specific AI Evaluation Matters

Aviation AI systems must understand:

• Physical constraints (aircraft can't occupy the same gate)
• Regulatory requirements (ICAO, FAA, EASA standards)
• Safety protocols and emergency procedures
• International operational complexity

Generic benchmarks like MMLU miss these critical domain requirements.

Resources

• Website: airsidelabs.com
• Benchmark Details: Pre-flight Aviation Benchmark
• Working Group: Join our AI Aviation Evaluation Community

Get Involved

We're building a community of aviation professionals and AI researchers. Whether you're:

• Developing AI for aviation applications
• Working in airport/airline operations
• Researching AI safety and evaluation
• Building regulatory frameworks

We'd love to collaborate!

Contact

Alex Brooker - Founder
Previously VP of R&D at Cirium (RELX), with 15+ years building data and systems for aviation.

Connect with us to discuss AI evaluation, benchmarking needs, or collaborative research opportunities.

"Better to be on the ground wishing you were in the air than in the air wishing you were on the ground" - This aviation principle guides our approach to AI safety.