The airline industry has yet to fully articulate its vision for the connected aircraft, but the current focus on in-flight connectivity for passengers provides the impetus to establish a robust broadband pipe to the aircraft, creating future opportunities to improve operational efficiencies.
Instead of operating in a self-contained bubble, a fully connected aircraft could be communicating in real-time with the airline’s systems, like any other node on the internet. Today these opportunities hover tantalisingly on the horizon.
According to the 2016 Airline IT Trends Survey, co-sponsored by SITA and Flight Airline Business, more than a third of airlines are operating aircraft with connectivity, and this will jump to two-thirds by 2019. However, only a handful expect to have a fleet of connected aircraft by 2026.
The prize today is improving the passenger experience – a key benefit for 46% of airlines; less than a fifth mention maintenance and cockpit benefits. However, broadly 80% of airlines intend to invest IT&T resources in wireless services for both passengers and crew in the coming three years.
The backdrop to this landscape is increasing digitisation: consumers want to be connected to social networks, to email, and to access content wherever they are. A wave of new-generation aircraft, avionics and architecture is coming into service – SITA OnAir calculates that 9,000 new-generation aircraft will be in operation by 2022. Furthermore, high-throughput connectivity is reaching the aircraft via satellite en route or wi-fi, and 3G/4G cellular on the ground.
SITA OnAir’s chief technology officer, Gregory Ouillon, points out that airframers and OEMs have sensors and telemetry on these aircraft and components such as engines that are generating a wealth of monitoring data that can be turned into predictive and condition-based maintenance decisions, or enhance operational efficiency. Meanwhile, air navigation service providers and regulators are developing new air traffic management architectures, such as Nextgen and SESAR, that will be heavy consumers of aircraft connectivity.
“Airlines are receiving new-gen aircraft, including Boeing 787 and Airbus A350, which spearhead truly digital operations,” says Ouillon. “This evolution provides airlines with a challenging range of technical and service choices, and the connected aircraft world will remain a world of complex systems integration for the next few years.”
Connectivity is not just for those with newer fleets. “We think everybody eventually will be looking at connected aircraft,” says Gogo’s vice-president of connected aircraft, Andrew Kemmetmueller. He believes even turboprops such as ATRs will be connected aircraft in the future. “The value of putting connectivity on an ATR is not to support the passenger, but it’s being able to connect the sensors on that airplane, connect the aircraft to data inputs from the ground [and] give that pilot a much better visibility about what the operations are in the sky than he has at this time.”
First movers on passenger connectivity have typically been full-service airlines looking to differentiate their services. But with hardware and bandwidth becoming more affordable, and passengers travelling with their own smart devices, wi-fi connectivity is within the reach of other carriers.
“The market is getting bigger and sizeable enough for low-cost carriers and hybrids to really take a serious look at this. Not just for their passengers, which was really not a business case for them, but for their total operations,” says Kemmetmueller.
TEAMING UP
Strategic alliances forged by the in-flight entertainment OEMs indicate how they view the future. Gogo has teamed up with Ultramain Systems and PACE to provide real-time connection for their aircraft maintenance apps and flight profile optimiser respectively. It also recently began a collaboration with The Weather Company. Global Eagle Entertainment (GEE) acquired the masFlight operational data analytics platform and Navaero electronic flight bag and cockpit data solutions. Meanwhile, Panasonic Avionics Corporation bought AirDat’s real-time weather data and forecasting technology, and is working with Teledyne Controls to develop an integrated solution to enable real-time operational aircraft data transfers during flight.
How will the connected aircraft make a difference to airline operations? It will eliminate “sneakernet”, where an individual has to offload data from – or upload to – the aircraft. Panasonic Avionics’ vice-president of global communications services David Bruner says: “Don’t waste [the mechanic’s] time where they are plugging into a box and sitting there for an hour watching it drain off information and take it back somewhere. That can all now be handled remotely.”
Real-time weather information, route and aircraft optimisation will be early wins. “Forward-looking radar on an airplane is about 200 miles out. By the time they get to a place where they see the weather on their radar, they are going to have to make a big course correction,” says Gogo’s Kemmetmueller. “If you are able to connect and get this information via a network, you can make a much smaller correction, much earlier on, that will have a bigger impact on how you divert around some weather. It will save fuel, time, wear and tear on the aircraft.”
Maintenance is another big hitter. “Probably the best opportunity for value in connected aviation”, according to Kemmetmueller, highlighting the aircraft log book as an example. He says that by creating an electronic hub for many of the aircraft maintenance functions and distributing information in real-time, maintenance issues could be assessed much sooner.
Fault-finding will get easier. Instead of physically flying an engineer around while he taps into a system, you will be able to acquire that data via the network. “Software complexity is where the errors of the future are going to reside and we can help build the ecosystem that allows all the different constituencies on board the aircraft to collect data more quickly, find faults and fix it faster,” says Panasonic’s Bruner. “I think that is going to be very important for the quality of the service delivered by everybody in the aviation sector.”
EFFICIENCIES TO COME
Eventually, the proliferation of onboard sensors exchanging data with the ground will enable efficiencies that are not immediately obvious today. “There are not really the big killer apps for that domain yet,” says Frederik van Essen, Inmarsat Aviation’s vice-president of aviation strategy and communications. “I imagine that will heat up in the coming years when you actually see providers of galleys coming up with smart galleys that automatically report to the ground that something needs to be refilled or repaired, so they can minimise downtime.”
To realise the industry’s aspirations, data security and reliability will be vital. “Airlines need to ensure that onboard apps and systems can exchange data securely with all ground systems, apps and stakeholders, in a complex ecosystem of data sharing and application management,” says SITA OnAir’s Ouillon. “For airlines to really change their processes and move to fully digital operations, this end-to-end ecosystem needs to be highly dependable and requires 24/7 global operation.”
RESOURCE COSTS
It may be tempting to assume that the financial investment to install connectivity and buy the broadband subscription are the big costs. But the time commitment required from airline stakeholders is a greater issue. “I would say the number one cost, and scarce resource, is the time of the different departments inside the airline to pull together priorities, set a definition of what they want, and then to make that happen,” says Bruner at Panasonic.
Improvements in situational awareness, operations, flight management and maintenance will have a positive benefit for passengers, particularly when it comes to managing disruptions or potential service glitches. They will also allow airlines to use their assets more efficiently. How does that translate into hard currency?
As examples, Bernard Asare, GEE’s vice-president, connected aircraft systems, calculates that a mid-size airline could use real-time optimisation of flight profiles to cut fuel burn by 2%, which could drive over $20 million in annual savings. Real-time data and analytics also could make a dent in crew scheduling costs. “Managing duty lines and aircraft/flight assignments to increase monthly productivity by just one round-trip flight would drive more than $30 million in annual cost savings, with additional benefits to pilot hiring and flight operations overhead.”
One of the reasons it is hard to fully articulate an industry vision for the connected aircraft is that people are wedded to paper-based processes. “The airplane and the flight today is driven by papers. Even things that have been automated are really electronic forms,” says Bruner. “They are really not running like [the aircraft] is a 100% connected-all-the-time device, as they would with so many other simple, low-value assets within their networks.”
Another issue is that multiple suppliers may be needed to connect different pieces of avionics that talk with a variety of communication systems. Who brokers those relationships? Bruner, citing Panasonic’s partnership with Teledyne, says: “You would expect someone in the airline to broker that, but that didn’t happen. It was actually ourselves and Teledyne that got together and figured this out. I think we’ll find more solutions like this start to happen as we get a bit more traction.”
Many airlines are challenged by legacy systems and integration issues, so how do you avoid the connected aircraft becoming another silo on the network? “The obvious risk is that airlines weigh up the risks and costs of the integration and lifecycle of available solutions ‘per silo’ and per aircraft fleet,” cautions Ouillon at SITA OnAir. “Airlines are becoming increasingly aware of this silo challenge and are starting to take a more holistic approach to their connected aircraft strategy. They also realise that aircraft connectivity and e-enablement needs to become a long-lasting programme to manage an accelerating technology and service lifecycle. With a long-term holistic approach, airlines will experience the full benefit of a common and scalable infrastructure.”
MULTIPLE BUSINESS UNITS
Craig Foster, senior consultant at Valour Consultancy, says connected aircraft projects have a better chance of success if multiple business units are involved. This was key for KLM entering new 787s into service. “KLM established a new aircraft IT group consisting of staff from different groups such as IT, maintenance and flight operations. This multi-disciplinary team helped avoid the siloed approach and was able to solve problems around loading software on this inherently e-enabled aircraft.”
Data access can be a concern: many airlines have an incomplete picture of their data because legacy systems were never designed for wide-ranging sharing across the business. “There is a difference between storing data and being able to find it/repurpose it – datasets move regularly, while assets like aircraft have a multi-decade lifecycle and there is a reliance on the tribal knowledge of engineers to know where data is,” explains Foster.
Data integrity and infrastructure security will also need careful consideration. Asare says: “As airlines use the data in critical situations, the reliability of each component must also be analysed and monitored. The vulnerability of aircraft avionics is a significant consideration, particularly when in-flight connectivity systems used for operations are shared with consumer activity. The introduction of two-way communication between ground and cockpit further increases the necessity of firewalls between cockpit data infrastructure and consumer internet access points.”
The benefits offered by the connected aircraft will not kick in until connectivity reaches critical mass. “When it’s on every aircraft, behaviour will change,” says Panasonic’s Bruner. “We now have a number of customers who are midway in their fleet implementation and we see more people willing to spend time to do the planning necessary just to handle the procedural changes – what does the crew do? What does the maintenance team do when you have this capability? That doesn’t really catch fire until they get deep into one of their larger fleets or completely finish their fleet.”
FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE
In future, as the connected aircraft transforms processes and operations, airline business models will change. The connected aircraft is more than just the flow of data from air to ground, says Asare. “The model promises a fundamental change in how airline system operations centres schedule, dispatch, and manage flights in real-time. The connected aircraft impacts all aspects of an airline’s operation, from aircraft routings and assignments to flight plans, maintenance, crew scheduling, load planning and customer service.”
Inmarsat’s van Essen says experiments are under way to find the ideal model, with airlines questioning what their core business is when they look to the future. As information and choice is readily available to consumers, the balance of power is tipping towards passengers.
He says: “In the past, running an airline was really this magnificent logistical operation and the one who could run that most efficiently would win the game. The typical airline CEO was someone who was a master in organising that whole service. I think what we are seeing now is that the skills that C-level executives require are much more the skills of looking into what the customer needs.”
Source: Airline Business
