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1 Situational Awareness Technology in Airline Operations WHITE PAPER IBS Software Services Pvt. Ltd.

2 How airlines can prevent disruptions with a proactive situational awareness The Operations Control Center (OCC), although invisible to passengers, manages several complex aspects of airline operations, such as the expensive fleet of modern and old aircraft, large number of crew members, detailed maintenance cycles, optimization of fuel burn, ATC communications, airport slots and so much more. This is enabled by a complex Information Technology (IT) system, which in many cases is so outdated that it would greatly disappoint a customer who believes he/she is flying with a 'five star' airline. Without modern IT systems to warn the OCC staff about difficult weather, maintenance concerns, late or sick crew and other issues, airlines run a high risk of frequent and often expensive disruption in their services. For instance, a diversion to an alternate airport (due to bad weather) can cost the airline around between 15,000 and more than 100,000 according IATA and that is excluding crew and airport staff costs*. Fast decision making and cost-effective alternatives are essential to minimize the impact of disruptions. Lately, the challenge is that there is too much information coming in from various data sources and news streams, to be digested and processed manually by operations and crew controllers for decision making. In the absence of adequate technology infrastructure to support them, this leads to a lack of focus on the real issues. Fast decision making and cost-effective alternatives are essential to minimize the impact of disruptions. Major daily challenges of an Operations Control Center (OCC) 1. Growth in traffic: Despite temporary dips, air traffic continues to grow worldwide. Congestion in major hubs, key routes and ATCcontrolled airspaces is proving to be a real bottleneck for services. Tight schedules result in total collapses stemming from the slightest of disconnections in the chain. 2. Reduction of internal buffers: With a goal of reducing costs, airlines have been squeezing their resources to maximize efficiency. The number of spare aircraft and crew members, as well as buffer time between flights, have gone down drastically while all machines are running at the maximum legally permissible limits. 3. Stress and human error: Every second the human brain gets ten million bits of information from the outside world, of which it can handle only fifty bits under normal circumstances. (Source: This means that % of the information is lost unused, and this is made worse when the person is under stress and working under autopilot mode. As a result, many of the alerts typically visible in a modern operations IT system such as pax misconnects, critical weather warnings at the arrival airport, technical defect alerts (such as APU inop), pax offload, tight or missed crew connection, curfew warnings, diversion alerts, ATC slots, critical airport slots, etc. are all at risk of going unnoticed by a typical operations controller. 4. The illusion of control: In effect, each commercial aircraft is flown by three pilots - the captain, the first officer and the autopilot system aided by the various instruments in the cockpit. This is part of complying with safety regulations. On the other hand, a single fleet of 50 aircraft may be handled by just one ops controller, one crew controller and one dispatcher. The ground staff are obviously stretched more than their colleagues up in the air when it comes to brain capacity and attention spans. In fact, one large European low cost carrier (LCC) has just two ops controllers to watch and control more than 370 aircraft! Psychologically, human beings tend to believe that they have everything under control even if, in reality, they do not. * Source: 02

3 How users are getting lost in information Technology can be used to track and trace which parts of system screens these users are actually looking at, as well as the time lag between the information being presented and the necessary action being initiated. Many airlines insist on providing more and more information on their screens, and IT system providers tend to comply without questioning the effectiveness. An extra alert here, several pop-ups there, flags and remarks and a check list here all the additional information layers do not necessarily lead to a better understanding of the situation, because it's beyond what an actual user can take in and process in his/her brain. Cost impact of undisclosed OCC System inefficiency Root causes of undisclosed OCC system inefficiency International underutilisation of system capabilities 28% 33% System Errors International underutilisation of system 42% 31% System Errors capabilities 39% 27% Human Errors Human Errors The above figures of an undisclosed OCC have been presented at an Future OCC event in Berlin Oct 2014 by Lufthansa Consulting. Modern IT systems take a different path. By displaying only the relevant information, they reduce screen complexity, thus enabling users to understand the situation better and take the most appropriate decision. Users gain control again! 03

4 Situational Awareness Windows An airline operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days a year, which means an ops controller has to be at his seat in front of his system round the clock, managing hundreds of flights and lots of information, to keep everything running in order. It is far more efficient to focus the Airline Operations Managers' attention solely toward those parts of the airline organization where plans are not working out for some reason. Time and effort should not be wasted focusing on those parts of the organization where things are going smoothly. The "SAW - Situational Awareness Window" is a unique approach in airline OCC management which enables key people of the airline OPS to devote time to situations that differ significantly from planned results. Applying this to airline ops allows the operations managers to spend most of their time concentrating on potential disruptions and to only react when something unexpected arises. Technically, this means that the system displays only those widgets that give relevant information. For example, some of these individual widgets as follows: Ÿ All legs with heavy delays resulting in high compensation costs, perhaps close to one route Ÿ Flights which are affected by critical weather or an ATC strike in one area, so as to enable a change of crews or to prepare for diversion Ÿ All flights with a critical crew duty time and where a standby crew would soon be required Ÿ All aircraft on ground (AOG) which cannot be used for a tail change (ACH or EQT) in a case of a next disruption Ÿ All aircraft with a planned maintenance within a defined time range (e.g. 4 to 12 hours) and also not available for disruption healing Ÿ All current events like DIV, RTR, FR or ETD which need monitoring Ÿ All flight with VIP or priority reasons Ÿ All flights to curfewed airports which need special attention at the end of the shift Ÿ All ATC slots and to airports with CDM Ÿ All flights to airports with airport slots and grandfather rights involved Airlines taking advantage of this new approach relieve the ops controller from the need to keep manual lists in Microsoft Excel. By understanding the real problems, he/she can work on the true problems and take the right decisions. Screen shot of Situational Awareness Window in iflight NEO 04

5 What airlines can learn from Formula 1 racing teams? It's still a miracle that all four wheels of a racing car are changed within three seconds (Just watch it during it every F1 race) in a pit stop. How does it work? Well, it's the combination of well trained personnel with a clear focus, optimized processes and sophisticated tools. Every pit stop is a choreography of a team consisting of about 20 people. Each wheel is attended to by three people - one takes out the old wheel, one puts in the new one and the third person manages the wheel-gun. Just like the ops controller, the crew controller and the dispatcher manage the airline operations together, each person has a clear focus area! There are two people ready with jacks to lift the car and more guys on hand if a spoiler or something else needs to be fixed. All racing teams have approximately the same number of people on the pit stop crew. No team in the world wishes to increase this number from 20 to 30* in order to reduce the time spent at the pit stop. Each member of the crew has a dedicated task which he/she practices regularly and is trained further as and when new, sophisticated tools are developed. * 05

6 Benefits for Airlines with Situational Awareness Technology in Airline Operations Airlines will have many benefits while introuducing modern SAW technology in Operations and Crew Control. Minimizing complexity for human controllers Faster understanding of operational facts and disruptions Fewer errors and mishandling of information under stress Quicker decision making when IROPS occurs More quality time for decision alternatives Time gain for other important tasks in OCC Improved on-time-performance due to quicker decision making Improve and quicker passenger communication in IROPS situations Cost savings for delays, cancellations and diversions Improving an on-time-performance of just one percent is resulting in several millions USD annual savings (Source IATA: average delay costs per airline is 223 mio USD/year). Technology support for complex Airline Operations in the future Airline operations controllers do not require a barrage of information that could potentially distract them; instead, they need to see a clear picture of those areas where their focus is required. This includes the potential disruptions and not the entire Gantt chart with all aircraft rotations. A Situational Awareness Window does exactly this, proving that more information does not always lead to better understanding. More people than the optimal number in the pit stop crew will not make things easier. Similarly, airlines should understand that while one more chart or an additional popup is not going to make their job easier. The next step is to discuss how technology can better support airline operations. How can the IT system take over routine tasks and repetitive parts of the daily job which do not need the attention of the operations controller? This would provide more time for the real tough decisions and the critical parts of the job, such as the exceptions which need the focus of the operations controller. Situational Awareness is the game changer in airline operations in the future! Transformational IT Solutions for Travel, Transportation and Logistics 2017 IBS Software Services For Private Circulation only For more information: sales-support@ibsplc.com 06