The connected aviation ecosystem relies heavily on data, from airport operations and surrounding airspace to passenger information and the constant communication between the flight deck and the airline operations center.
The continuous flow of data is essential for advancing the aviation industry. Technologies such as machine learning and predictive analytics are crucial, allowing experts to gather, monitor, and analyze extensive aviation data globally. The true power lies not merely in the data itself but in its analysis.
Understanding data is key to achieving faster, more fuel-efficient routes, fewer cancellations and delays, operational enhancements, increased passenger satisfaction and loyalty, more efficient airspace use, and lower flight costs.
Delivering the right information to the right stakeholders at the right time is crucial for ensuring the best flying experience possible. By harnessing and analyzing data, aviation professionals can uncover valuable insights, make better decisions, and drive innovation faster than ever before.
The ability to analyze data unlocks immense benefits across the entire aviation ecosystem. Numerous enabling solutions, such as sensors, onboard hardware, connectivity products, and passenger apps, collect and store data. Algorithms and specialized software analyze this data, making it easier to identify trends, patterns, and potential challenges within aviation.
More positive passenger experiences at airports
Wouldn’t it be great if gate changes weren’t so far away from where your plane lands? Or planes didn’t have to wait on the tarmac for ground or gate crews? What if a single baggage carousel wasn’t flooded with passengers from three different flights at one time? For decades, passengers have been longing for solutions to these problems and air travel free of delays and disruptions. With the power to predict, analyze and optimize, passengers are closer to seeing this become more of a reality.
Using tools like Collins’ AirPlan™, airports can receive data from multiple points within the operations environment through a single application, allowing them to quickly and easily move staff, deploy ground crews and complete flight check-ins, among other tasks.
Specifically, data analysis can reveal:
- Passenger flow and behavior data help optimize airport throughput, reducing queue times. For example, biometric technology is driving up to 30% faster aircraft boarding times.1
- Flight data, especially when combined with FlightAware ForesightSM, improves data accuracy for better aircraft turnaround times, lowers operating costs and allows for more sustainable flights.
- Baggage tracking data improves the handling process, reducing the number of lost or damaged bags.
- Maintenance and resource data helps airports monitor the condition of airport infrastructure, equipment, electricity and water usage for facility and sustainability improvements.
- Cloud-based solutions, like cMUSE, save airports money and reduce carbon output by allowing airlines to share a common, agent-assisted check-in desk. An airport could save more than $100k by switching from core server hardware to cloud-based solutions.2
Reduced cancellations and delays, improved flight tracking
Whether it’s predictive maintenance tools like Ascentia®, aircraft interface devices like InteliSight™ Aircraft Interface Device (AID), or flight tracking solutions like OpsCore™, airlines and business jet operators around the world are taking advantage of what data has to offer. Why? Because of the enormous and untapped benefits data analysis brings to the connected aviation ecosystem.
With Ascentia, real-time analytics can help operators identify patterns and indicators of potential failures. An easy-to-use dashboard also helps aircraft engineers create custom alerts‒ with complex and advanced logic‒ in a low code/no code environment.
Reduced cancellations and delays, improved flight tracking
Airlines and business jet operators globally are leveraging data through tools like Ascentia® for predictive maintenance, InteliSight™ Aircraft Interface Device (AID) for aircraft interfacing, and OpsCore™ for flight tracking solutions. The reason is clear: data analysis brings substantial untapped benefits to the connected aviation ecosystem.
Collins plans to release Analytics Developer Studio within Ascentia later this year. This tool will analyze comprehensive flight data to identify patterns and shifts in performance. When a shift is detected, it correlates with part replacements, providing a curated list of insights for airlines to develop further alerting systems. This allows airlines to shift focus from data review to actionable insights.
The ability to analyze data means airlines can potentially reduce maintenance-driven delays and cancellations by 30% and save up to 20% in maintenance costs with Ascentia.
Meanwhile, InteliSight AID captures, records, stores, encrypts, and securely transmits aircraft data to Collins' robust ground platform, GlobalConnectSM. This platform manages various airline data streams and automates safety and performance data acquisition from aircraft, transforming what was previously a manual process into an automated one. Airlines utilize these systems in multiple ways, primarily leveraging analyzed data in predictive models to enhance fleet efficiency and environmental sustainability.
Real-time data is crucial in today's high-demand travel environment, ensuring flight operations can accurately track flights within the airspace and receive alerts about conditions that could lead to costly flight deviations and unpleasant passenger experiences.
OpsCore Flight Tracking pairs advanced data aggregation and predictive technology from FlightAware with Collins’ connected messaging and fleet management capabilities, enabling airlines to analyze flight information through machine learning, to identify key influencing factors for any flight to forecast future events in real-time and optimize ground resources.
Faster flight plans and less fuel burn in business aviation
Business aviation has often faced criticism for having a higher carbon footprint per passenger compared to commercial flights. However, with data analysis, the environmental impact of private flights can be minimized. Operators have the capability to assess their carbon footprint, monitor emissions, and implement changes to decrease their overall contribution to climate change.
Collins' Next Gen Flight Planning solution offers significant advantages to business aviation by improving flight planning efficiency. This includes reducing the time required to select routes and consider weather and airspace restrictions, while utilizing cost indexing to enhance fuel efficiency. Advanced algorithms enable the solution to utilize data from various sources, such as altitude, runway closures, weather conditions, airport closures, and Notice to Air Missions (NOTAMS), to recommend swifter and more sustainable travel paths.
Data analytics holds immense potential for transforming business aviation. It can enhance efficiency, sustainability, and customer-centricity by empowering operators to make more informed decisions. These decisions not only lower operating costs and improve environmental outcomes but also offer more personalized benefits to customers.
Safer skies and more on-time flights
Real-time data analysis is becoming more crucial as air traffic in the United States returns (and has even exceeded) pre-pandemic levels at the nation’s busiest airports. And with Machine Learning‒ backed by years of recorded air traffic data‒ ensuring safe operations, efficiently utilizing air space and managing the impact of inclement weather and high-congestion days are a few ways air traffic controllers are benefitting from data analysis.
For more than 70 years, Collins’ air traffic team has been producing systems that gather data and alert controllers to potential air space conflicts.
Safer skies and more on-time flights
As air traffic in the United States returns to and even surpasses pre-pandemic levels at the busiest airports, real-time data analysis is becoming increasingly crucial. Machine learning, supported by years of recorded air traffic data, is instrumental in ensuring safe operations, efficiently utilizing airspace, and managing the impact of inclement weather and high-congestion days. These are just a few ways air traffic controllers benefit from data analysis.
Passengers also gain from data analysis within air traffic management. Recognizing common issues like closed runways, ground-based navigation device outages, and weather impacts on a flight’s punctuality is key. Through data analysis, Collins addresses these issues, helping air traffic controllers optimize flight plans for more flexible and efficient routes that can be communicated directly to aircraft and operations centers. These advancements aid controllers in maintaining safe skies and ensuring flights are on time.
While airlines, airports, and airspace management depend on each other to enable the aviation industry, the data and systems within the ecosystem can often be siloed. The key is to gather, analyze, and convert data into valuable insights. Collins provides a comprehensive suite of solutions that can function as stand-alone products or integrated solutions, tailored to meet specific customer needs, to facilitate more data-driven decision-making across the entire industry.
