A year after developing the software for the advanced electronic flight bag (EFB) for the easyjet B737 fleet, Aircraft Management Technologies (AMT) is ready for a push throughout Asia.
With one major Asian airline contract already underway, AMT’s founder and CEO, Bernard Hensey is confident that others will see the benefits to be gained from making full use of the available technologies demonstrated on its Flightman system.AMT was founded in October 2000 by Hensey and Steve Hardgrave who recognised the need in the market for an electronic means of capturing and reporting data between aircraft and central systems.
The Dublin, Ireland based company launched eTechlog - an electronic version of the current paper-based technical log held aboard an aircraft and after reviewing feedback from numerous airlines and conducting value proposition workshops and focus groups with flight and engineering crews worldwide, the initial product has grown in line with airlines' specific requirements to become Flightman.
Vice president technical sales, Seamus Moriarty, is at Asian Aerospace to demonstrate the Flightman EFB solution. “Flightman is a software framework that offers a complete solution for the connected aircraft; covering business processes, technical documentation and vendor management,” says Moriarty. “It allows pilots, cabin crew and ground engineers to capture and utilise operational information more efficiently and ultimately reduce operational costs.”
Hensey believes that Asian carriers are prepared to be at the leading edge of technology to improve efficiency and cost. “It is a rapidly growing market and the carriers are happy to adopt new technologies. Flightman will help them do this. We are working with OEMs and system integrators to continually improve the capability.”
AMT has been part of the lean aircraft initiative. The EFB solution for easyjet was part of the European low cost carrier’s goal of increasing operational efficiency. “It supported our strategic objectives to enable sustainable growth, operational efficiency and lower costs,” says former CEO Ray Webster, “It also moved us towards a paperless cockpit and facilitated the efficient and accurate transfer of data between aircraft and airline.”
AMT’s Hardgrave believes that many other airlines could benefit. “I would view EFBs and connected aircraft technologies as being one of the biggest catalysts to drive sustainable cost improvement in aircraft operations, particularly for low cost airlines,” he said. “EFB’s can enable on-board crew reporting, fuel reconciliation and rapid integrated aircraft turn around at all bases.
“To date the aviation industry has been relatively slow to adopt commercial, mass market-derived technologies that have been used extensively in other industries. These would include the use of tablet and laptop PCs and PDAs, wireless communications, and electronic documents. This is starting to change, but it’s taken a while for airlines to move to commercial off the shelf (COTS) technologies in the same way that other industries have.”
Flightman demonstrations can be seen on stand A231 where AMT are part of the Enterprise Ireland display.
Source: Flight Daily News
