SKAI LABS
SKAI LABS is a Croatian University of Zagreb spin-off applying AI to air traffic management. Its Complexity Dashboard scores airspace complexity in real time and proposes route and sectorisation measures for controllers and air navigation service providers.
What is SKAI LABS?
SKAI LABS is a Croatian technology company that applies artificial intelligence to air traffic and airspace optimisation. It is the first spin-off of the Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences at the University of Zagreb, created out of the faculty's Department of Aeronautics after it obtained its first patent. That patent, approved under number P20210018, covers the air traffic complexity model on which everything else rests.
The company's answer to a familiar problem is unusual. Airspace congestion is normally measured by counting flights, yet what actually saturates a control sector is the work the controller has to do. SKAI LABS has been studying air traffic complexity continuously since 2013 and concluded that complexity is best objectified through air traffic controller tasks. The model turns that idea into a number a sector can be judged on.
Four lines are presented. The Air Traffic Complexity Dashboard is the core: real-time analytics and visualisations giving a holistic view of the traffic picture. Airspace and Traffic Optimization is an add-on to that dashboard, applying Short-Term ATFCM Measures validated by working controllers, together with a complexity cherry-picking technique that targets the specific aircraft driving the load rather than regulating everyone. The Traffic Randomizer works backwards from complexity, generating realistic traffic scenarios at whatever difficulty level the user asks for, which makes it a training exercise generator. Research Support sells the team's academic depth: patents, Horizon research projects, SESAR calls and a long list of published papers.
The working software lives on the sibling domain skailabs.hr as a browser application titled Complexity Dashboard by SKAI LABS, and named SKAI COMPASS inside its own code. It implements the real positions of a control room, executive and planner controller, shift supervisor and flow management position, plus five training roles including instructor and pseudo-pilot, alongside an exercise builder and session replay.
A thirty-month national recovery plan project, reference NPOO.C3.2.R2-I1.04.0014, cut model computation time from 48 minutes to 20 and reduced complexity by up to 30 percent on optimised routes. The solution was demonstrated at Maastricht Upper Area Control Centre and Bratislava ACC, reaching technology readiness level 7.
What it does
- Calculate air traffic complexity objectively, from air traffic controller tasks rather than raw traffic counts
- Pinpoint the individual aircraft contributing most to controller workload in a given sector
- Propose route and airspace configuration measures that lower that complexity
- Compare a traffic situation before and after the proposed measures
- Generate realistic synthetic traffic scenarios calibrated to a chosen complexity level
- Visualise traffic, sector boundaries and complexity together in a single map-based interface
- Support research work on ATM complexity, backed by the university department behind the patent
When to use SKAI LABS / When not to
A quick filter to help you decide if SKAI LABS is the right fit.
When to use SKAI LABS
- Air navigation service providers and en-route control centres looking to raise sector capacity without adding staff
- Flow management positions and shift supervisors who need an objective read on how demanding an upcoming traffic picture will be
- Air traffic control training organisations, which can generate exercises calibrated to a chosen complexity level
- ATM research and development teams wanting access to a patented complexity model and to university-backed research support
- Airspace managers and civil aviation regulators assessing sectorisation options and capacity declarations
When not to use SKAI LABS
- Buyers who expect to sign up online: there is no price list, no self-service registration and no autonomous trial
- Organisations with strict procurement requirements, since the vendor publishes no terms of service, no privacy policy and no data processing agreement
- Teams needing an API, a mobile app or a browser extension, none of which exist
- Anyone working outside aviation, as the scope is strictly air traffic and airspace
- Buyers who need a finished, generally available product today, the deployed application being an explicitly time-limited demonstration build
How to use SKAI LABS
A typical end-to-end flow, from setup to results.
- Start from the Products page, which describes the complexity dashboard, the optimisation add-on, the Traffic Randomizer and the research support offer
- Read the Research and Development page, where eleven peer-reviewed papers and a SESAR deliverable document the underlying complexity model
- Note the FAQ's offer of a visitor walkthrough of the Complexity Dashboard using preloaded traffic
- Be aware that the published Complexity Sandbox link currently redirects back to the SKAI LABS home page, so that walkthrough does not open on its own
- Reach the working application instead on the sibling domain's own paths, where a login screen requires credentials issued by the vendor
- Use the contact form, the Zagreb phone number, or write to the address the application itself gives for licensing
- Ask for the meeting the FAQ offers, which is the vendor's stated route to deeper access
- Specify your requirement, since the company presents tailored, data-driven products as the norm rather than the exception
- Discuss consulting or joint research separately if you need the model adapted or extended
- Negotiate the contractual framework yourself, because no terms, privacy policy or data processing agreement is published
Pros & Cons
Pros
- The complexity model is patented and supported by more than ten peer-reviewed publications, which is rare in this market
- It has been demonstrated in genuine operational environments, at Maastricht Upper Area Control Centre and Bratislava ACC, with feedback from controllers and instructors
- The vendor publishes measured results: computation 2.4 times faster, from 48 minutes to 20, and complexity cut by up to 30 percent on optimised routes
- Strong academic anchoring as the first spin-off of the University of Zagreb's transport faculty, with access to its aeronautics department
- Real experience of European programmes, including Horizon 2020 and SESAR calls
- The application covers the actual positions of a control room, training roles included, rather than a single generic view
- The company is active and its founder-director is publicly identifiable, with EU InvestEU and Croatian recovery plan support behind the work
Cons
- No legal documentation at all: no terms, no privacy policy, no data processing agreement and no subprocessor list, an absence confirmed by probing rather than merely observed
- No public pricing of any kind, no tiers and no indication of an entry ticket
- The Complexity Sandbox link advertised on two pages redirects to the home page, so the trial the FAQ promises does not actually open
- The deployed application is a demonstration build carrying a hard expiry date of 8 December 2026
- No social presence is published on the site, which makes independent corroboration harder
- No security certification is claimed and no commitment is made about where data is hosted
- A very small organisation, registered as a micro-enterprise with three employees in 2025, which matters for procurement and continuity
Pricing & Plans
No price is published anywhere. The /pricing path returns 404 on a site that answers normally elsewhere, and no monetary amount appears on any of the thirteen pages collected. The only commercial statement is inside the application itself, which invites the user to contact SKAI LABS in order to continue using the product or to obtain a full licence. Acquisition is therefore by licence on request, with tailored products presented as the norm, so pricing is set project by project. Consulting and research work are quoted separately. There is no documented permanent free plan; a time-limited demonstration build exists instead. The performance figures the company publishes, such as computation cut from 48 minutes to 20, are technical results and not prices.
Data, GDPR & hosting
A consolidated view of how SKAI LABS handles your data.
GDPR overview
SKAI LABS d.o.o. is established in Zagreb, Croatia, so the GDPR applies to it as a matter of law. The site, however, contains no implementation of it whatsoever. Across the thirteen pages collected there is not a single occurrence of GDPR, privacy policy or data protection; there is no cookie notice, no data protection officer, no dedicated privacy or legal address, and no retention or deletion statement. No Article 27 representative is named, which is expected since the company is inside the Union and does not need one. Two active forms collect personal data with no accompanying information. The company neither claims compliance nor denies it, which is why the compliance flag is left empty rather than set to no.
Who owns the data?
Nothing can be reported here, and the gap is proven rather than assumed. SKAI LABS publishes no terms and conditions and no legal notice: the /terms, /legal and /privacy paths all return 404 on a site that does answer 200 on its real pages, and the Wix sitemap lists ten pages with no legal document among them. No clause anywhere states who owns customer traffic data, what SKAI LABS may do with it, or who else may receive it. The only ownership statement published is about branding: SKAI LABS and its logo are trademarks of SKAI LABS d.o.o. Because the demonstration application authenticates named users, accounts and data plainly exist without any public rules governing them.
Reuse rights
The site sets out no rules on reuse. With no terms and conditions published, there is no licence granted to the user, no restriction imposed on them, and no stated position on exporting or reusing anything the platform produces. What is known about the data comes from the company's own project report rather than a contract: the solution was validated against operational traffic data supplied by partner centres, Maastricht Upper Area Control Centre and then Bratislava ACC. The material handled is air traffic data such as positions, trajectories and sector loads rather than consumer personal data. Two Wix forms, for enquiries and job applications, do collect personal details, again with no notice attached. Any customer should expect to negotiate reuse rights directly.
Data retention & training
Hosting summary
No hosting country and no region is declared. The company's project report mentions that a backend, a database and cloud infrastructure were integrated into a functional web application with secure data exchange and user authentication, but it names neither a provider nor a location. The marketing site itself runs on Wix, and its resolved address is an anycast node, so that tells you where the brochure is served and nothing at all about where the platform runs; the two should not be confused. The application's backend answers on a development subdomain of the sibling domain, again with no documentation and no stated jurisdiction. Since the publisher is established in Croatia, an EU jurisdiction is the reasonable working assumption, but it is an assumption rather than a commitment, and it is exactly the kind of point to pin down contractually before any operational data changes hands.
Things to keep in mind
Risks and trade-offs to weigh before adopting SKAI LABS.
- Automation bias in a safety-critical setting: a complexity score is decision support, and the company itself says it should inform rather than replace the controller's judgement
- Deskilling risk if teams come to rely on generated measures instead of maintaining their own reading of a traffic picture
- You own no documented rights over your data, because no terms of service or privacy policy is published at all
- Operational traffic data is sensitive material, and nothing states where it is hosted, who processes it or how long it is kept
- The running application is a demonstration build with an expiry date of 8 December 2026, so any evaluation must account for it stopping
- Training exercises built from synthetic traffic can drift from real conditions if the generated complexity is never checked against live operations
- Vendor concentration risk: a three-person micro-enterprise supporting a safety-adjacent system needs continuity and escrow arrangements written into any contract
Setup & Integrations
Technical difficulty
There is no self-service deployment: every route runs through a commercial contact. The product is a browser application requiring credentials, so nothing is installed locally, but the real effort lies elsewhere. It has to be fed operational traffic data and validated by working controllers, as the Maastricht and Bratislava demonstrations were, each of which needed scenario preparation and vendor support. Tailoring is presented as the norm, so integration has to be specified rather than configured. Expect a project, not an onboarding.
Deployment
Supported languages
Behind SKAI LABS
Resources
All the official URLs gathered for verification and reference.
Frequently asked questions
Can we try the Air Traffic Complexity Dashboard before committing?
How does SKAI LABS calculate air traffic complexity?
What does it cost?
Can the products be tailored to our operation?
Where has the solution been validated?
Is there a mobile app or a public API?
Is the tool GDPR compliant?
Who is behind SKAI LABS?
Who is the product aimed at?
What measurable gains does the company claim?
Should you pick SKAI LABS?
SKAI LABS is a genuinely substantial piece of aviation engineering wrapped in a very thin commercial shell, and the two should be judged separately. The science is real: a patented complexity model built on controller tasks, more than ten peer-reviewed papers, a SESAR deliverable, and a demonstration campaign run at Maastricht Upper Area Control Centre and Bratislava ACC that took the solution to technology readiness level 7. The published gains, computation cut from 48 minutes to 20 and complexity reduced by up to 30 percent on optimised routes, come from a completed thirty-month project rather than a brochure.
The commercial side is where a buyer should be careful. There is no price list, no terms of service, no privacy policy and no data processing agreement, and their absence has been verified rather than assumed. The trial the FAQ promises does not open, because the sandbox link folds back to the home page. The application that does run is explicitly a demonstration build with an expiry date in December 2026, and the company's own project report describes commercialisation as a next step rather than a present state. SKAI LABS is a micro-enterprise with three employees.
None of that makes the tool a poor choice; it makes it a direct, contractual engagement rather than a purchase. For an air navigation service provider, a regulator or a controller training organisation, the sensible move is to contact the company, ask for a scoped demonstration on your own traffic, and insist on the legal and hosting framework the website does not supply. For anyone expecting to evaluate and buy unaided, this is not yet that kind of product.
- Choosing a selection results in a full page refresh.
- Opens in a new window.