Ascentia reduces flight delays by ~30% and unscheduled maintenance by ~20%
Collins Aerospace provides the power to comprehensively predict, analyze and optimize
Are we there yet? With the holiday travel season here, the industry is gearing up for one of the busiest times of the year. And no one ever adds flight cancellations or delays to their wish list.
According to the travel app Hopper, as of early November, nearly 25 million passengers were expected to depart on flights from U.S. airports over the Thanksgiving travel week – up 6 percent from 2019 levels. Airlines, airports and passengers are hoping this increased traffic doesn’t mimic the somewhat chaotic summer travel season that featured unprecedented flight delays and cancellations across the United States.
In fact, in August of 2022, the Department of Transportation (DOT) said it received more than 7,000 complaints from flyers – a 6 percent increase compared with July and a 320 percent increase compared with pre-pandemic levels. With flight problems being the highest category of complaints received that month, 32 percent concerned cancellations, delays or other deviations from airlines’ schedules. And according to FlightAware, a Collins Aerospace company, 19.2 percent of U.S. and international flights were delayed between July 2021 and July 2022 – leaving one in five passengers late for vacation fun or business events.
Technology’s role in smoother air travel
Help is on the horizon as airlines work diligently to ensure crews are available amid ongoing pilot shortages, with flight schedules being adjusted to accommodate these challenges. However, weather remains a factor beyond control, especially during winter when conditions can shift unexpectedly, derailing even the best-laid plans.
Technology plays a crucial role in assisting airlines to maintain schedules, navigate unpredictable weather, and enhance passenger satisfaction. Collins Aerospace provides a comprehensive suite of solutions that empower airlines to predict, analyze, and optimize air travel. This approach not only enhances the passenger experience and supports sustainability efforts, but also minimizes delays and cancellations.
By leveraging historical aircraft and flight data alongside real-time information, Collins Aerospace offers airlines an unmatched opportunity to enhance operations. Their tools enable airlines to anticipate and address potential disruptions stemming from weather, maintenance needs, traffic, or other factors both on the ground and in flight.
Using analytics to improve operations
Collins’ solutions also provide airlines with the ability to gain meaningful and timely insights to the overall health of their aircraft, significantly reducing the need to pull an aircraft from service. For systems that may have undetected and uncorrected hardware failures, losing track of that critical information can lead to equipment damage, flight delays and cancellations, or even costly flight diversions. Having access to additional data leads to fuel cost savings, better maintained aircraft and reduced carbon emissions for the airlines, resulting in a safer, more comfortable passenger experience.
Collins’ Ascentia® analytics services give airlines the ability to make informed, strategic maintenance decisions before an aircraft has to be taken out of service. Leveraging the company’s systems expertise and manufacturing know-how, Ascentia helps transform an airline’s data into actionable information that can be leveraged to improve operations and address pain points.
Ascentia has been proven to decrease potential delays by approximately 30 percent and decrease unscheduled maintenance by approximately 20 percent – both of which result in more ontime operations for the airline and greater customer satisfaction for passengers.
Ensuring the most efficient routes
Nothing beats arriving at a destination faster and safer than anticipated. Flight Profile Optimization (FPO) from Collins is an advanced, real-time decision-making tool for flight crews, airline operators, and dispatchers, centered around the question: What’s the best way to get from point A to B?
In modern travel, we all aim to follow the most efficient route, often using apps on our phones or in our cars to alert us to road obstacles and suggest alternative routes. Similarly, the FPO solution is designed for commercial aviation to identify the best route. It uses real-time weather information, such as changing wind conditions, to determine the safest, most cost-effective, and fuel-efficient path for delivering passengers from their point of departure to their destinations.
Flight Profile Optimizer helps find the safest, most cost-effective, fuel-efficient routes – getting passengers to their destination even faster.
Providing flight information at your fingertips
As a passenger, knowing the exact time your flight is expected to land is important for making connections or communicating pickup times. It’s just as important for airlines to have real-time data so they can better optimize crew schedules and flight turnaround times. FlightAware operates the world's largest flight tracking and data platform that not only provides airlines, airports, and aircraft operation service providers with global flight tracking solutions, but also predictive technology, analytics and decision-making tools. Access to this crucial information means airlines can serve their customers with fewer delays and more on-time departures – all of which makes for happier passengers.
FlightAware has become popular with millions of savvy travelers via its easy-to-use free app that sends updates and alerts for any selected flight – providing passengers with critical information on their handheld devices.
Learn more about the full suite of predictive solutions available from Collins Aerospace.
