Kieran Daly / London
But paper still rules as electronic systems await approval
Newly formed chart and navigation data provider European Aeronautical Group (EAG) appears strongly positioned to renew the key British Airways charting contract it inherited from predecessor Thales Aeronautical Services.
EAG emerged in December following the acquisition of the Thales unit by SAS Flight Support at a time when the decades-old deal to provide BA's Aerad-branded charts was due for renewal.
Like its major rivals Lido and Jeppesen, EAG is promoting the possibilities offered by so-called electronic flight bags (EFB), emulating the recent deal whereby BA partner Qantas will use Lido data hosted on Spirent Systems cockpit hardware in its ordered Airbus A330s.
But BA has now made it clear that, although the selected chart provider must be able to transition to an electronic system in future, it does not plan to select an EFB provider at this stage.
Capt John Round, technical projects manager in flight operations, says: "EFBs are not going to be a reality for 18-24 months, so it was not a key part of the tender. EFB is mentioned as part of our future plans. As we migrate to electronic charting, I need it to be in the contract that we can reduce the amount of paper. What we are doing now is the start of the tender process for paper charts and we are not really looking at EFBs and it will not colour our judgement. Basically, it comes down to money."
Round adds: "Aerad is all that most BA pilots have ever used, so there are 'emotional' issues, if you like. Clearly [EAG] knows our business and so when the tendering document is wrapped up within the next couple of months, they have a solid advantage."
He says the EFB business case for airlines such as BA, which run library services that allocate chart-sets to each aircraft, is much weaker than for US carriers, for example, which issue charts to pilots.
Round is also concerned about the regulatory position, adding: "I am interested in what the Australian regulators say about Qantas. This is having a second moving map effectively, and I don't believe Airbus or Boeing have done the trials to test the human factors."
Although Round believes regulators will take a "hard look" at the concept before approving it, he expects fully integrated EFBs to become widely accepted in future.
BA plans to experiment with non-safety-critical application of EFBs first, using systems to present electronic manuals, technical logs and performance calculations.
Source: Flight International
