Category: Airlines

As the economy continues to reopen, congestion in the air and on the ground is back. Busy airports lead to busy gates and busy ground crews—and time is of the essence. To avoid burning fuel unnecessarily and reduce carbon dioxide (CO2), the use of artificial intelligence in aviation can help airlines to stay focused on winning every small battle to reduce friction upon arrival and ultimately win the dependability battle.

The Link Between Congestion and Fuel Burn

While airlines continue to restore capacity and the skies become congested once again, the consumption of jet fuel increases. With the price of oil soaring in 2021, it will become even more imperative for airlines to find ways to become fuel efficient, not only to reduce costs but also to show consistent actions to achieve their sustainability goals. 

An area of opportunity is upon arrival by eliminating the friction that is often evident as the aircraft approaches the gate. The aircraft may have to hold short of the gate while the crew gets into position, or while obstacles are cleared. Another area of opportunity is to minimize the time it takes for the airport personnel to connect the passenger loading bridge. 

An aircraft holding on the ground often has the APU running and one or two engines idling which translates into unnecessary fuel consumption and CO2 emissions. 

Eliminating the friction upon arrival the airlines can improve the customer experience, reduce costs, improve dependability and be better with the environment. 

How Can Your Airline Implement the Use of Artificial Intelligence in Aviation?

By reducing the number and length of aircraft hold events, your airline can reduce engine and APU fuel burn. Artificial intelligence can help facilitate a smoother arrival process to receive and service an aircraft as soon as it lands. Here are a few ways that a comprehensive AI tool can help:

#1: Immediate Alerts for Ground Crews

A comprehensive AI tool should detect obstacles in the safety envelope, proper loading bridge parking, and the presence of guide men to send immediate alerts for action. This will make it more likely that ground personnel will be ready to receive an incoming flight and provide services.

Your AI system should also alert you when ground assistance (GPU and AC) units are connected to allow an aircraft to turn off its APU.

#2: Track Your Carbon Emissions

An AI solution should also help you to track CO2 savings. By reducing avoidable disruptions on the ground, the pilots can turn off the engines and the APU quickly. Most international airlines have agreed to join the CORSIA initiative, which is a Carbon Emissions Offsetting scheme pioneered by ICAO; having the ability to track emissions savings is now more important than ever.

AI is the Future for Aviation

The use of artificial intelligence in aviation is largely uncharted territory for ground operations—but a partner like Synaptic Aviation can help you implement a technological solution with ease. Considering that U.S. airlines spent $1.27 billion in fuel this year, cutting back on fuel costs by even 1% can lead to massive savings.

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.

While this assertion may appear counterintuitive, operating a plane in the air is now much safer than operating one on the ground. Over the past decade, U.S. airlines have flown over eight billion passengers with no fatal crashes and only one passenger death. We have seen airlines report more incidents on the ground than in the air—when an aircraft is on a runway or taxiway, it is more prone to human error or incidents. The key to safety improvement in the aviation industry has been to extract relevant data and deliver it in real-time to the right parties. With this in mind, AI in airports may be useful to analyze ground operations data and alert crew members to take immediate action.

Why Are Flight Operations Consistently Getting Safer?

It is of the utmost importance to ensure passenger and pilot safety to prevent loss of life. Additionally, fatal crashes can cost over a billion dollars in damage and insurance consequences. This also includes the damage to an airline’s reputation, which leads to less business and less revenue.

The airline safety revolution propelled many of the changes that improved flight safety. Federal regulators, airline executives, and pilot union leaders collaborated to launch safety programs that would collect data, and pinpoint hazards that cause malfunctions, mistakes, and crashes. Pilots, airline carriers, and government representatives shared or received data on pilot errors and potential crashes. This exchange came with the expectation that pilots and airlines would not face disciplinary action for handing over this information.

In fact, they were rewarded for sharing mistakes—and punished for withholding errors. This served to create a culture of accountability and safety without fear of retribution.

By combing through massive amounts of data, experts were able to pinpoint error patterns that continued to repeat over and over again. These patterns became necessary safety lessons that pilots and airline crews voluntarily incorporated into their new solutions.

One of the most important facets of the situation is that airlines made voluntary changes, which proved to be much more effective than enforcing government regulations.

Another important piece to consider is that applicable data proved essential to spotting these patterns. While the industry may experience data overload, extricating relevant information from the big data available makes a sizable difference in preventing incidents.

How Can We Apply These Methods to Ground Operations?

As a similar method, AI in airports can function as a data collection method that helps improve the safety of ramp operations. An artificial intelligence tool can send proactive alerts to members across a variety of different ground support crews and third parties, who must work together in sync. While it is easy for these parties to become disjointed, this advanced solution ensures that all crews are all on the same page when it comes to safety. It can help prevent:

• Dangerous driving maneuvers around an aircraft still on the ground
• Incorrect placement of safety cones
• Non-compliance with safety vest regulations
• Other unsafe situations that compromise aircraft safety

An AI tool with computer vision technology can take in the vast amounts of data that come from analyzing the crews and processes on the ground. The more data your tool takes in, the better it becomes at optimizing your operations.

Request a Demo and See Our AI in Airports Like Yours

In collaboration with airlines, Synaptic Aviation tools can collect useful information from vast amounts of data and send real-time alerts to relevant parties, providing airlines with unmatched smart data analytics to improve aircraft safety on the ground.

Are you ready to test an AI solution? 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.

Big data has been evolving many industries, including airlines. For some time now, many aircraft engine manufacturers have been analyzing data to assess maintenance needs or safety concerns. While the use of big data in the airline industry is not new, airlines have not been fully using the vast swaths of data at their disposal, especially when it comes to ground operations.

Ground operations prove to be highly fragmented due to the number of ground support crews and third parties that need to work together, leading to inefficiencies and lost revenue. However, an effective Artificial Intelligence (AI) solution can analyze large amounts of data from a variety of different sources and utilize machine learning and deep learning to help airlines make decisions about which processes they need to optimize.

How Does Use of Big Data in the Airline Industry Improve Cost Management?

Eliminate Avoidable Disruptions

Airport traffic is increasing steadily, especially as COVID-19 vaccines roll out to various countries. To eliminate avoidable disruptions, it will be even more important to make better use of big data in the airline industry.  Leveraging data as a valuable resource through the use of AI will allow you to analyze your ground operations and pinpoint weaknesses.

Many point to the National Aviation System (NAS) as the root cause of disruptions. Due to its dated infrastructure, non-linear routings, and inefficiencies, the NAS does leave certain U.S. airports vulnerable to major delays. The NextGen initiative will overhaul NAS, create a more efficient airspace, and help alleviate preventable delays, but airlines will still need to optimize their ground handling.

An efficient airspace cannot make up for inefficient ground operations. If ground teams are not coordinated or ready to receive an aircraft, the flight will arrive late to a gate—even if it landed on time.

Reduce Baggage Loss

In 2019 alone, airlines lost 2.5 billion dollars due to mishandled bags. While many bags go missing because of customer error, luggage often goes missing due to issues with flight transfers. When avoidable disruptions cause flight delays, these delays not only affect revenue and customer satisfaction, but they delay baggage handling. Bags may simply not make it to connecting flights on time.

Improve Fuel Efficiency

Airlines spend a significant portion of their operational budgets on fuel. Airlines spend about 15-20% of their total budget on fuel. Saving just 1-2% on this expense every year can lead to massive savings.

An AI ground operations solution can alert an aircraft that ground assistance units are in place and that it is time to turn off the APU, reducing fuel burn and decreasing CO2 emissions.

Request a Demo and See Our AI in Action

Synaptic Aviation can collect vast amounts of data and provide airlines with unmatched smart big data analytics to help get flights out on time. Our AI solution can help prevent avoidable disruptions, uncoordinated ground teams, baggage handling delays, and unnecessary fuel burn for massive savings.

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.

In recent news, an American Airlines pilot reported seeing a “long, cylindrical object” fly over the top of the airplane on Flight 2292 on February 21, 2021. Air traffic controllers, however, reported that they did not see any object on their radar. When safety-related incidents such as these occur on modern aircrafts, airlines rely on a decades-old concept of cockpit voice recordings and aircraft flying parameters. This program, known as Flight Operations Quality Assurance (FOQA), helps with aircraft optimization. Airlines download this recorded data and compare the flying parameters against a company standard to detect procedure deviations and risky flying maneuvers.

Pilots know that this computer is unbiased when comparing their actual flying maneuvers to the company standards. FOQA has consistently improved safety, reduced aircraft damages, and reduced fuel consumption.

However, when it comes to inefficiencies in ground operations, airlines can work to create a similarly effective solution by adding modern artificial intelligence to their operations.

How Does Artificial Intelligence Compare to FOQA?

The objective of a FOQA program is to take a proactive approach to safety and efficiency. Many airlines have switched from using this data solely to investigate accidents — they also use this program to identify, reduce, and eliminate risks in flight operations and air traffic control (ATC).

The data can enhance training and procedures in operational, maintenance, engineering, and ATC departments.

In a similar vein, artificial intelligence works towards the same goals. AI can help airlines catch mistakes that cause delays before they happen, working towards the increased efficiency of ground operations.

Over the years, the on-time performance of U.S. airlines has not made major improvements. While the upgraded Air Navigation System can now manage more traffic effectively, it is no longer the primary cause of airline delays.

Airlines rely on padded schedules to meet on-time performance goals and often explain that a congested airspace stands in the way of improvement. In 2020, after airlines cut capacity roughly by half, air navigation delays went down by 49%, which helped in reducing arrival delays by 74%.

However, airline-controlled delays went down only 32%. An uncongested air space allows the airlines to make up for their delays in the air but this data also uncovers how padded schedules may be.

If airlines take a methodical approach to reducing inefficiencies just like they do with safety, they can see a sizable reduction in controllable delays.

Request a Demo and See Our AI in Action

An aircraft does not generate revenue on the ground — padding block times steals from the bottom line by preventing carriers from flying more efficient schedules. By approaching ground operations in a similar way that FOQA approaches flight operations, airlines can really start to see progressive improvement in dependability.

Synaptic Aviation can provide airlines with unmatched operational visibility and allow them to eliminate inefficiencies by providing meaningful data to help with decision making.

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.

It comes as no surprise that airline ground operations function as a team. To achieve on-time performance (OTP), numerous ground support crews and other third parties need to work in close alignment with one another. While this need presents a challenge in and of itself, many airlines also face the pressure of working with limited staff who operate in dated infrastructure.

Naturally, finger pointing may become the norm as every team member is under immense pressure to deliver on time and the departure delay attribution methodology of many airlines often focuses on emerging fault instead of looking for the true root cause. However, an AI airline solution may be the key to reaching a sense of collective success and achieving a common goal — to get every flight out on time.

How Does an AI Airline Solution Improve Operations?

Communication is a challenge across the various different teams that work in ramp operations. The Synaptic Aviation solution is an artificial intelligence tool that merges technology and the human touch. Our system can help in several different ways.

#1: Real-Time Alerts to Course Correct at Any Moment

All team players will receive AI alerts in real time. You can even customize reports and alerts for every team so they receive notifications relevant to their role. At any given moment, members can receive insight into the turnaround process. If there is a late loading, late catering, or lack of ground support equipment, your team can immediately work to find the solution and course correct. This allows your teams to be proactive and avoid unnecessary flight delays.

#2: Use a High-Definition Video Database and Hold Your Team Accountable

The AI works to capture every event from an objective perspective — 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Every HD recording is stored in a video database, allowing you to see events unfold at a specific place and time. This puts an end to finger pointing. You will have no question about what happened during a certain situation, creating a culture of accountability and eliminating complacency.

#3: Automate Ground Operations Tasks with Computer Vision Technology

Our computer vision technology eliminates the need to do manual audits and reports. From the moment an aircraft lands, our AI airline solution tracks every critical activity outside of an aircraft. This allows our tool to create accurate invoices for baggage handling and other airport services. Your airline will pay only what they owe, cutting down on unnecessary added costs and allowing you to focus on streamlining team operations.

Request a Demo Today

When your ground support crews and third party teams work as a well-organized unit that stays on-track and on-time, your airline will avoid delays, increase customer satisfaction, and ultimately enhance your bottom line. While pinpointing and resolving the root causes of your flight delays may seem complicated, our Ramp Operations Optimization Tool (ROOT) is easy to implement, largely because of its automated nature.

In one Synaptic Aviation case study, we helped an airline reduce aircraft holds by 90% and save $50,000 a year per gate where our system was present.

Ready to test our AI? Let us 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.

In recent news, a bizarre incident took place at the Las Vegas McCarran International Airport. A man approached an airplane ready for takeoff and proceeded to climb onto the wing of said plane. After pilots alerted the tower, law enforcement officials came to arrest this individual. Before being arrested, the man fell off of the airplane wing, potentially injuring himself. While no one else was injured, the plane had to return and receive a full inspection — meaning passengers experienced a flight delay. We do not yet know how the airline has responded to prevent future incidents such as these. Still, the situation begs a few particular questions: How can airlines mitigate problems before they cause financial or reputational damage? Can AI in the aviation industry help?

Delays Deteriorate Your Bottom Line

This incident is not an everyday occurrence. Nevertheless, airlines must prepare to deal with any inconveniences or emergencies at a moment’s notice. The best protocol is one that prevents a small event from becoming a large crisis or delay. This requires airlines to implement proactive measures that:
1) Catch a problem in its tracks
2) Streamline a solution
3) Promptly return operations to normal in a timely manner

Naturally, airlines will not be able to control certain factors such as extreme weather or maintenance revisions. Other elements, however, can be caught early instead of triggering preventable delays. According to the Bureau of Transportation, late arrivals account for 20% of all delays. In fact, tardy arrivals are the primary reason for airline on-time deterioration. Artificial intelligence (AI) is an emerging solution that has shown promising results in mitigating preventable delays.

How Does AI in the Aviation Industry Improve Operational Dependability and Efficiency?

Synaptic Aviation’s technology works by imitating human cognitive functions to detect unusual events. Artificial intelligence tracks critical activities, sends real-time alerts as soon as it detects anomalies, and swiftly recommends actionable solutions. As soon as an airplane approaches the arrival gate, the system comes alive and analyzes activities. Once the technology becomes familiar with your operations, it becomes more and more efficient.

We know firsthand how diminishing delays will improve efficiency, increase your bottom line, and promote customer satisfaction. To present tangible evidence to the table, Synaptic Aviation has conducted a case study with one of the airlines that has implemented our technology.
● Our AI monitored 2,737 flights
● Where installed, our AI has helped to eliminate aircraft holds by 90%
● Real-time alerts helped prompt immediate action, minimizing turnaround delays
● Annualized savings exceed $50K/year per gate where the system is present
● They saved 13,845 gallons of jet fuel, which translates into 134,962 kilograms of CO2 avoided

Our blend of computer technology and the human touch save you time and money. We partner with you to keep your airline ground operations on-track and on-time arrival to departure. To avoid delays, finger-pointing, and investigations, our solution provides real-time high-definition videos of key activities. Our alerts system allows your teams to course-correct and collaborate. Synaptic Aviation’s Ramp Operations Optimization Tool (ROOT) quickly pays for itself in improved efficiency, lower fuel burn, increased safety, reduced SLA penalties, and enhanced brand reputation.

Looking for a demo of our AI? Let us 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.

Airline dependability is the essence of a contract with your customer. Airlines commit to transport customers to their destinations safely, efficiently, and effectively. This commitment is a promise to perform upon which brands are built or can all too easily fail. Departure delays are costly both to the airline’s reputation and its bottom line. When airlines cannot make up delays en route, passengers and the company incur both financial and time costs. Passengers frustrated with lost time due to flight cancellations and missed connections may make different choices the next time they fly. The cost of delays is estimated in the billions of dollars for airlines due to crew wages, fuel, and maintenance. Shorter turnaround times (TATs) are a critical factor in minimizing operating costs, particularly at hub airports where schedules are under further pressure to make connections. When an individual partner misses an SLA, this can create a domino effect. Delays in the arrival process, in fueling, or in baggage offloading can quickly compound to result in a flight cancellation if a flight violates an arrival curfew at the destination airport, or the crew is close to reaching the limit of their duty time. Airlines may suffer bottom line financial cost as well as brand damage. Identifying and correcting resource bottlenecks is essential for improving TATs to grow airline profitability, particularly during this challenging COVID economy. It is a data-rich problem ideally suited to the application of Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI works to mimic human cognitive functions at scale to rapidly identify out-of-pattern events, trigger alerts, and recommend actions before missing SLAs.

Computer Vision Technology

From the moment the plane lands, sensors trigger cameras to begin tracking activities around the aircraft, capturing process details that the human eye would miss. Cameras function as the computer’s eyes, acquiring digital images, processing, logging, and categorizing the data for interpretation by the AI brain.

AI For Airline Dependability

Through a set of predefined events, the AI analyzes the sensor data logs and triggers real-time alerts, allowing ground teams to course correct, avoiding costly delays. Milestone events are assessed against targets on the way to meeting TAT goals. Examples of milestones may include chocks in, passenger loading bridge attached, ground power connected, and air conditioning supplied.

Applying computer vision and AI technology to meeting airline dependability goals results in several benefits, chief among them being reduced costs.

Reduced Costs

Delays are costly, not only to passengers but for the airline. Missing operational targets is undesirable, impacting station performance and customer perception. While a setback often begins on a small scale, the effects can accumulate. Falling behind may result in a long delay — and ultimately, a flight cancellation. Having a system that partners with you to keep your operation on-track and on-time is priceless. It is set to help you avoid your delays altogether, increasing profit and lowering costs. Instead of finding the root cause of the delay and explaining the failure, the system alerts you in time to course correct! No explanations or investigations are needed, fostering teamwork instead. 

There are several important benefits that help airlines avoid setbacks and increase their bottom line.

#1: Eco-Conscious Consumption

Reducing the number and length of aircraft hold events minimizes engine and APU fuel burn. As a result, you reduce CO2 emissions, helping your airline become an environmental leader and save on energy costs.

#2: Improve Vendor Performance

AI keeps track of each vendor’s performance, letting you know when they fall behind so you can mitigate delays. From ground power to food services, utilizing AI as an early warning system allows you to partner with your vendors to achieve target goals. Hitting those targets leads to fewer flight cancellations that cut into your profits.

#3: Increase Safety

Be alert to safety violations as soon as they happen. AI can help you eliminate unsafe driving around a plane, improper safety cone placement, non-compliance with safety vests, and more. Increasing compliance leads to less safety violation fines your airline must take care of.

#4: Eliminate Manual Tasks

AI allows you to automate ground operations audits and reporting. By tracking all activity outside of the aircraft, it can accurately create invoices for handling and airport services. Your airline will pay only the correct amount, eliminating unnecessary costs from your budget.

#5: Elevate the Customer Experience

AI systems keep track of baggage and passenger loading bridges. If an event is taking longer than usual, you will be on top of it. You can then relay this information to passengers, avoiding frustrating time spent standing in the aisle and wondering why the aircraft door isn’t opening. Increased customer satisfaction leads to repeat customers, bringing your airline more profitable business

These benefits may sound like science fiction, but the technology is available today. Some of the largest commercial airlines are already actively using AI to improve revenue and efficiency. Is your airline keeping up?

Synaptic Aviation is dedicated to airline dependability by saving you time and money from landing to takeoff. We partner with you to keep your airline operation on-track and on-time. Our software helps you to avoid delays, finger-pointing and investigations by providing proactive, real-time alerts in time to course correct. Our technology fosters smooth airline ground operations teamwork that quickly pays for itself in improved efficiency, reputation and reduced SLA penalties. Looking for a demo of our AI? Let us show you how simple and effective it can be to implement. Request a demo today or contact us at 844-505-4496.