We all love a holiday and sometimes that involves taking a flight somewhere but if you are a passenger who needs assistance, a journey through an airport and getting on and off a plane can bring unnecessary stress, worry and discomfort. But thanks to a forward-thinking business who has made Crawley Innovation Centre their home, they are revolutionising air travel for these passengers and those who have to fly for work.
Ostrum was founded by Abhi Chacko, who has worked in the aviation and tech industry for over 25 years. It was while working at Gatwick Airport that Abhi identified a problem and an opportunity to significantly improve passenger assistance with a unique approach. With an innovation mindset and consent from Gatwick Airport, Abhi used his personal funds and time to develop a modern digital platform using his downtime during the Covid-19 furlough period. The result became a global multi-airport, multi-airline platform that could not only support passengers and assistance teams but also engage check-in staff, airside operations teams and cabin crew.
While most businesses were shut during Covid-19, the Ostrum team was busy with the design and development of the platform, working remotely at home in the UK and in India with a small, dedicated team. The initial version of the platform was developed over 18 months, and the team grew to 25 people, with its own management team and support structures. The system went live for the assistance team at London Luton Airport during March 2022 and Ostrum raised capital from angel investors during mid-2022 and secured three additional airports by mid-2025.
Ostrum’s General Manager, Rakesh Shahu, was keen to transition from working from home to a place that reflected the spirit of the Ostrum team, where he could invite customers for workshops. He explored various places near Heathrow and Gatwick and finally decided to move to the Crawley Innovation Centre. We sat down with Rakesh to ask a few questions about how they are finding life at Crawley Innovation Centre and what their plans are for the future.
Q. Why was it important to you to create the Ostrum platform and Purple Door app and support passengers who need assistance?
I’ve worked in the aviation industry for many years and often thought about how difficult it must be for those passengers who need a little extra help getting from A to B while using air travel. In fact, 5.5 million such passengers travelled through UK airports last year, and no one should have to feel stressed or alone while travelling for business or leisure. I also have family members who have taken the airport assistance service in the UK who were affected by gaps in the service. It was something that I was passionate about, and I was involved in shaping the idea from the beginning. I’m glad that we could create a unique platform which is unlike anything else out there.
Q. You have been based at Crawley Innovation Centre for a few months now, how are you finding it?
We were one of the first few tenants at Crawley Innovation Centre. It is spacious, modern, innovative and easy to access. There is also a lot of local support available for branding, furniture, catering and audio-visual equipment. The different layouts in different areas of the Centre really keeps the thinking fresh and helps you interact with people in different ways. The recent product demo event we hosted was hugely successful, where we could demonstrate the end-to-end functionality in the spacious ground floor area to 35 attendees, followed by drinks and dinner.
Q. What are your future hopes for Ostrum and Purple Door?
We are the only assistance provider based in the UK and have been supported by the Department for Transport, NCAT and Catapult with their innovation grants. In order to improve the passenger experience and digital adoption, we are also offering Purple Door Lite as a free service to all UK airports. We would love for Ostrum and Purple Door to be rolled out to every UK airport and leading airports in the world, and we already have Santiago Airport in Chile set up and hope for many more international airports to follow suit. We have the best digital platform in the world for airport assistance service, and we are constantly investing and evolving the platform to make it even better.
If you would like to join Ostrum and run your business from Crawley Innovation Centre, then why not book a tour by emailing info@crawley-ic.co.uk.