IATA’s IDX Program Wins Prestigious Grand Prix 2025 Award
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) Incident Data Exchange Program (IDX) has been awarded the prestigious Grand Prix award 2025 at the Data IQ Awards in North America.
The Grand Prix is presented to the submission that scored highest across all the judges, which this year has been won by IATA for its submission to the Data and AI for Good Hero Organization Award category.
The Incident Data Exchange (IDX), part of IATA’s Global Aviation Data Management (GADM) platform, is a textbook example of how data and AI can serve a higher purpose. It is a technological ambition safeguarding lives, enhancing trust, and enabling informed decisions across one of the most safety-critical industries in the world: aviation.
The scale and ambition of IDX are extraordinary. It is the world’s most comprehensive aviation incident database, with over 1.5 million reports and 40,000 new records added monthly. Offered free of charge to participants, the platform now supports over 292 organizations globally, a 15% increase in just one year. Each report is de-identified, enriched, and structured using advanced AI, including machine learning, natural language processing, and generative AI capabilities. This is data collected and transformed into actionable safety intelligence.
AI plays a critical role in the data lifecycle. IDX applies automated taxonomy tagging using the IATA Safety Incident Taxonomy (ISIT), enriching incident data with contextual understanding in over 18 languages. AI-powered summarization, classification, de-identification, and pattern detection ensure that the platform delivers high-quality, privacy-compliant insights at scale. IDX learns from recorded events, helping prevent future accidents through proactive analysis and risk detection.
Importantly, the platform serves more than only airlines by democratizing access to safety insights for ground handlers, regulators, and other stakeholders, with bespoke dashboards tailored to their operations. This inclusive design reflects the program’s deep understanding of aviation as a connected system where weak links can compromise safety everywhere.
Transformation elevated IDX from a benchmarking resource to a global safety insights engine. The improved dashboards boast an 85% contributor engagement rate, while the new AI-powered tools have allowed IATA to issue timely reports on emerging threats; from GNSS interference and lithium battery fires to runway incursions and human fatigue.
IDX is an exercise in data trust-building. Through stringent anonymization protocols and the rule-of-three data masking standard, IATA has created a safe space for honest reporting. This trust is essential in an industry where reputational risk can deter transparency. By addressing that challenge head-on, IATA has increased data sharing and strengthened the collective safety net.
IATA’s IDX represents data for good at scale. It equips stakeholders with the intelligence to make better decisions, not only preventing incidents but also shaping policy, training, and industry standards. It supports the foundational goals of aviation: to move people and goods safely, securely, and efficiently around the world.
IATA’s IDX initiative demonstrates how AI, when grounded in purpose and guided by global collaboration, can serve as a force multiplier for safety and societal benefit.
