Scaling Data in Aviation: Inside Brussels Airlines’ Data Strategy - The Data Playbook Podcast with Kris Peeters & Tom Holsteens

How do you transform a broken data landscape into a scalable, self-service data platform?

In this episode of The Data Playbook, Kris Peeters sits down with Tom Holsteens to unpack how Brussels Airlines rebuilt their data foundation from the ground up.

Coming out of the pandemic, the organisation faced a classic problem:

👉 A “spaghetti” data warehouse

👉 No ownership of data assets

👉 A central team becoming the bottleneck

What followed was a multi-year transformation focused on:

• Building a modern cloud data platform
• Moving to a data product architecture
• Enabling self-service analytics across teams
• Balancing central governance with decentral ownership
• Leveraging AI tools to empower non-technical users

💡 You’ll learn:

• Why most data platforms fail (and how to fix them)
• How to introduce data ownership in business teams
• The real difference between controlling vs. BI
• How to reduce bottlenecks with hub-and-spoke models
• A real use case: cutting food waste by 30% with data
• Why perfect data quality is a myth

This is a must-watch for data leaders, engineers, and anyone scaling data in complex organisations.

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Struggling with data bottlenecks, unclear ownership, or slow delivery?

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Chapters

00:00 Introduction & Brussels Airlines context
02:30 What is controlling vs. business intelligence?
06:00 The problem: “spaghetti” data warehouse & bottlenecks
12:30 The transformation: platform, operating model & group strategy
19:00 Hub-and-spoke model & self-service analytics
27:30 Data products & the “restaurant” analogy
35:30 AI, data analysts & scaling data adoption
43:30 Real impact: reducing waste & driving business value