Aurelian Meltei has spent more than 25 years in hospitality technology — working across Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and North America — and now leads the technical department at Airwave. We caught up with him and talked about his favourite subject, technology.

 

Aurelian, tell us, where does the story begin?

Aurelian: With curiosity, I suppose. Every toy I was given as a child, I had to open it to see how it worked. I wasn't always able to put them back together again, which was a bit of a disaster, but the curiosity was always there.

I think that's probably how it starts for most people who end up on this path. You ask questions. You need to understand what's inside things.

In terms of career: I studied computer science, then spent many years as a network engineer, then a senior network engineer, then managing teams of senior network engineers. Gradually going up the ladder, as people do. I also have an MBA. I've worked across different companies, different markets, and I hope what that accumulates to is a wealth of practical knowledge — best practices, what works, what doesn't, and why.

 

Does the curiosity follow you home?

Aurelian: My wife would describe my desk as a pile of junk. To me it is extremely valuable testing equipment!

I repair circuit boards as a hobby — finding faults, understanding how things fail. Everything I watch is about how things work or how they're repaired. I have equipment at home that mirrors what I use professionally, and I apply what I know at work to my own setup.

I also keep every phone I've ever owned. I can't bring myself to throw them away. And it always surprises me: I'll look at a phone I thought was the most impressive thing I'd ever seen, pick it up a few years later, and think — how did I ever consider this the best there is? That is a better measure of how fast technology actually moves than any report or forecast.

 

What is the Aurelian Meltei technology philosophy?

Aurelian: Test, experiment, understand what works — and then do it that way every single time. Adapt when variables change, because something that worked today might not work in five or ten years. But the adaptation itself becomes part of the process.

I like things to be clear and documented. I like structured communication. I don't like vague storytelling. I want information told the way it needs to be told — precisely and repeatably. Think of it as painting by numbers: you still get the picture, but nobody has to guess what they're supposed to do. That isn't because creativity is bad. It's because predictability is efficient. Maximum results with the least amount of resources.

It also means involving the team in change. If people are part of shaping how things are done, they adopt change more easily than if it's simply handed down to them. So we always encourage people to bring ideas, to raise their hand, to be an active part of the process rather than passive recipients of it.

I'm very lucky to lead a team that is engaged with the learning process. It makes my job not just easier, but more enjoyable.

 

What does that mean for how problems get solved?

Aurelian: Fixing will always exist. But I don't want fixing to be the method. If something breaks, you fix it — but then you eliminate the reason it broke, so you don't repeat the same work over and over again. A lot of resource gets wasted by applying the same fix repeatedly instead of doing the more difficult work first: finding the permanent solution.

Once you've done that, you don't need 20 layers of checking, because the process itself catches issues earlier. The checking becomes embedded. And the goal at the end of every job is the same: right first time. It goes in one end of the conveyor belt, everyone does their part, it comes out the other end done properly. Then you move forward.

 

What sets Airwave's technical operation apart from others in this space?

Aurelian: Technology is technology. If you understand it, you can build a business around it. The difference is how you support customers — the relationship, the connection.

A lot of organisations have layers: tier one, tier two, tier three. I understand why that structure exists, but it blocks a personal approach. For a customer, a technical issue isn't just a technical issue. It's emotional. There is a person on their side who is responsible for that solution working. When it doesn't, the specific issue isn't always obvious. The customer then gets bounced between vendors, guests complain, managers escalate.

As far as I'm aware, we are also the only UK-based company in this space that still has a dedicated support function in the UK — first line, telephone support, all of it. Many competitors outsource support overseas and use partners for installation. Their model is: sell, procure, hand over operational delivery to someone else. With us, there is no filtering and no third-party triage. We deal with customers directly.

And also, we will never say, "this isn't an Airwave issue." If the problem lies with another vendor, we won't walk away. We go further — we demonstrate why, with evidence. The customer needs hard facts to address the problem quickly. So that is what we give them.

This one-to-one relationship changes everything. It sets us apart.

 

How do you produce that evidence?

Aurelian: We have tools embedded in our solution that allow us to simulate issues from a user perspective. Most systems collect logs, statuses, and reports — but that is typically from a server or service perspective, not from the perspective of the person actually in front of the TV. We monitor and test from the user's point of view.

Sometimes a service is sitting on a network we don't control. We can't simply say it's the network and leave it there. The customer needs evidence. The network provider needs something specific to investigate. So we try to behave as if we are in front of the TV when we're not — simulate, press buttons, observe what happens — and provide proof: this is where the problem most likely is. It takes longer, but it resolves properly. And the customer knows we did everything we could.

 

How much has hospitality technology changed, and how much further does it have to go?

Aurelian: Enormously — and I don't think we've scratched the surface yet.

I can give you a practical example of how fast the shift has already happened. A few years ago, student accommodation required much the same technology as a hotel room. Recently, that's changed completely. These buildings now want monitors. A good HDMI connection for a games console, reliable internet, app access. No satellite, no TV channels. Just a screen and a signal. That tells you everything about the direction of travel — and of course, that generation will be checking into hotels within the decade.

The thing is, the technology itself is rarely the issue. The harder question is whether the businesses serving that guest are ready when the change arrives. And change doesn't announce itself on a schedule. It has to be embedded in what you do — something you're watching for constantly, not waiting for.

My daughter is at university. She does not watch live television. She considers a TV to be a casting device — a monitor, if anything. She doesn't understand the purpose of being in front of a screen at a scheduled time. That generation will be the hotel guest of 2030, and the room will need to reflect how they actually consume content, not how it has historically been delivered.

We have seen this arc before. The telephone in the hotel room was once essential — you called reception, they woke you up, you ordered room service through it. Now you barely notice if it's even plugged in. I've stayed in rooms where the phone was disconnected and I'm fairly sure nobody, including the hotel, had noticed. The service still existed. The use case had simply gone. I think television will follow a similar path. The question is not whether it changes, but whether you are ready when it does.

 

Where does AI fit into all of this — in real, operational terms rather than as a concept?

Aurelian: AI is unavoidable, but it needs to be implemented properly.

There's a lot of talk about AI. "We have AI, there is AI, we serve AI on ice, AI with this flavour, AI with chips."

I feel that much of it is companies trying to appear relevant. That does not interest me.

What does interest me is AI as a genuine business tool. Our technical team already use it daily — not for show, but as the way they find information, automate tasks, and analyse patterns. The pace of development over the past two years has been genuinely remarkable.

And the next stage — self-healing systems, networks that identify and correct their own faults — is not science fiction. It exists already in limited forms, and it is moving fast. When AI is well implemented as a real operational tool rather than a press release, it will accelerate everything we do. That is the version worth paying attention to.

 

The SCCI Group has recently acquired SCS Technologies, who join forces with Airwave. What does that mean from a technical perspective?

Aurelian: I’m excited!

It gives us wider reach and access to more customers, but for me, the bigger opportunity is integration. As a group, we already have a great deal in-house — structural cabling, CCTV, fire and life safety, connectivity — services that customers need across not just hotels, but MDUs, hospitals, retail, and more. The goal now is to operate as one integrated business with shared tools, shared processes, and a seamless experience for the customer.

I'm excited about the acquisition. And I'm excited about the integration.

 

What advice would you give someone starting a career in technology?

Aurelian: I tried to inspire my own children to follow this path and completely failed, so perhaps take my advice with a pinch of salt!

But – the main thing is curiosity. You need to like what you do. People say, “If you like what you do, you never work a day in your life.” I wouldn’t go quite that far — it’s still a job — but without curiosity and the drive to learn, it’s difficult to progress.

If you are the kind of person who raises their hand rather than waiting to be asked; who needs to understand how things work rather than just that they work; who finds a continuous learning curve exciting rather than exhausting — this industry will reward you. Technology is not like other disciplines. What you know today may be obsolete in five years. That never stops. If that prospect energises you, this is where you should be.

 

Outside of work, what does life look like?

Aurelian: I'm happily married — 25 years. Two children: my daughter is 20 and studying at Kingston University. My son is in his final year at school, preparing for A-levels. He is very hardworking. He wants to go into finance or law — anything but technology, apparently!

But I told them both: follow your own dream. Be happy. That's the goal. They seem to have taken that advice rather literally.

 

Finally, given the line of work, do you watch much television?!

Aurelian: Not a great deal. Lots of engineering videos as I mentioned, and I do watch the main channels — BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 — and I have Netflix and Prime. I've also been re-watching older films. My son recently discovered the original Spider-Man with Tobey Maguire, so we have been working through those.

I find I prefer re-watching films I know I enjoy, because with new ones I sometimes forget entirely that I've already watched them. I'll sit down, watch all the way through, and only in the final five minutes remember that I've seen it before!

My son finds this very amusing. I find it a useful reminder that not everything improves with age — though I would argue technology is the exception...