Month: August 2021

Ground and ramp safety are paramount to all successful aircraft operations. Airport ramp accidents can derail success metrics, such as profit, environmental sustainability, and efficiency. The process to rectify these losses begins with a culture of accountability and safety automatically reinforced by an effective artificial intelligence tool, such as Synaptic Aviation.

The Dollar Cost of Airport Ramp Accidents

According to data compiled from several international airlines, the Flight Safety Foundation estimates that 27,000 ramp accidents and incidents occur globally each year. That amounts to one safety incident per 1,000 flights. The consequence of these incidents is airlines losing a whopping $10 billion per year. Much of these costs are related to flight cancellations, schedule disruptions, and maintenance costs, but they also incorporate medical expenses for worker injuries.

The largest concern is that many of these incidents do not meet the deductible threshold for insurance, which requires airlines to account for these costs out of pocket.

What Causes Ground Accidents?

To begin solving this issue, we must first determine the root causes behind these incidents. While the general cause tends to be human error, we have found that there are several specific factors that lead to airport ramp accidents:

• Violating ground safety procedures
• Disregarding worker fatigue
• Inadequate worker training
• High turnover rates for staff

Ramps contain a complex flurry of activity within a limited amount of space. Ground staff teams need to supply fuel, unload baggage, move cargo, and perform maintenance on aircraft in the same area.

While flight schedules often contain padding to try to account for delays, many delays occur due to preventable causes—and not solely due to uncontrollable factors, such as weather. A new approach is necessary: ground teams require more communication and accountability to get flights out on time. With this approach in mind, you can eliminate delays and become more efficient in your operations without the need to add bulk to your schedules.

How Does AI Mitigate Human Error?

Our Ramp Operations Optimization Tool (ROOT) covers several bases when it comes to preventing airport ramp accidents.

Track Unsafe Ground Crew Behaviors

Many unsafe behaviors result from worker fatigue. That is why AI acts as an additional pair of eyes to correct dangerous activities. From missing safety cones to FOD walks not conducted, our AI sends real-time alerts to team members and prompts them to correct their actions.

Promote Safe Aircraft Maneuvers

Many accidents occur due to aircrafts striking personnel or other objects on the ground, leading to injuries and airplane damage. Our AI tool can detect ramp obstacles and verify the presence of guide crews to promote safe aircraft driving. 

Valuable Crew Training

From arrival to departure, our computer vision technology captures details that are easy for ground crews to miss. Our AI cameras log events and record high-definition videos that get sent to a searchable database. Quickly and easily find videos to train your ground personnel and introduce a culture of safety.

Request a Demo Today

Resolving the root cause of your airport ramp accidents may seem complex, especially due to fast-paced work environments. Fortunately, our Ramp Operations Optimization Tool (ROOT) is easy to incorporate into your daily work schedules, largely because of its automated nature. Let us show you how simple and effective it can be to implement. Request a demo at synapticaviation.com or contact us at 844-505-4496.

Based on a telephone survey with 1,500 randomly selected U.S. airline customers, the 7th most used airline also proved to be the worst for customer experience—scores of poor customer experience made up 16.4% of their overall ratings. In the airline industry, a smooth and timely customer experience is the ultimate goal while your travelers are sailing through departures and arrivals. While airlines may still struggle in this respect, it provides an excellent opportunity for additional revenue. When forming an airline customer experience management strategy, an artificial intelligence tool like Synaptic Aviation may help you close the gap between customer use and customer satisfaction.

What Creates an Excellent Customer Experience?

Airlines have made great strides in curating an excellent experience through varied seat choices and elite dining options, but there is still much room for improvement in other areas. According to a 2019 Qualtrics study, there are five main reasons why a customer refuses to fly with an airline again:

1) 39% of customers cited lost luggage.

2) 38% cited hidden fees.

3) 35% cited flight cancellations.

4) 25% cited unfriendly flight crews.

5) 25% cited unclean restrooms.

Part of your airline customer experience management strategy must also include ways to appeal to the next generation of passengers. Millennials and baby boomers have different priorities when it comes to travel. Consider these statistics:

• Millennials are twice as likely to stop using an airline over a delayed flight.
• However, they are 25% less likely to stop using an airline over lack of legroom.
• Baby boomers are 2.5 times more likely to state that having no assigned seat was their biggest frustration.

How Does Artificial Intelligence Improve Customer Satisfaction?

Synaptic Aviation’s AI tool provides unprecedented visibility into the baggage loading process and insight into the landing, taxiing, or docking status of an inbound or outbound flight. This new clarity allows you to communicate effectively within your team and with customers, resulting in various new improvements:

Reduce Waiting Time for Passengers

As flight operations have improved, an upgraded Air Navigation System can now manage air traffic more efficiently. An aircraft can arrive earlier than anticipated, but there may still be delays on the ground that prevent passengers from reaching their layover flight or destination on time.

An AI-powered system like Synaptic Aviation can help airlines avoid these events by alerting ground crews about an inbound aircraft. The system should also issue real-time alerts in case an aircraft reaches the gate and the ground crew is not ready.

Keep Passengers Informed

One of the most frustrating events for passengers is waiting in an aircraft cabin with no indication of when they will be able to exit. After the aircraft parks at a gate, our AI tool can identify when the Passenger Loading Bridge (PLB) is not connected within a specified period of time so your crews can keep customers informed.

Improve Passenger Comfort

Oftentimes, passengers are left waiting in uncomfortably warm temperatures when ground crews do not connect the appropriate units to the aircraft. Synaptic Aviation’s technology alerts crews to prepare to connect ground power and air conditioning units on time.

Boost On-Time Performance

Through our AI, airlines can avoid or minimize common service failures before they turn into controllable delays. Better on-time performance leads to greater customer satisfaction.

Polish Your Airline Customer Experience Management Strategy

The use of artificial intelligence in aviation is often neglected in customer service, but a cutting edge partner like Synaptic Aviation can help you implement a technological solution with ease.

Ready to test our AI? Let Synaptic Aviation show you how simple and effective it can be to implement. Request a demo today at www.synapticaviation.com or contact us at 844-505-4496.