Technology has changed the way businesses operate. Across every industry, organizations are collecting and analyzing massive volumes of data to gain insight into every aspect of their business, from back-office processes and technical support to customer service and employee wellbeing.
In the airline industry, companies are using their data to make big changes throughout the whole aviation ecosystem, including pilot and crew support, safety and maintenance, ground operations, and the passenger experience.
With insights from a wide range of data sources, airlines and related businesses can identify bottlenecks and other issues that keep them from working at peak efficiency. Data can also give organizations a significant competitive advantage by identifying where the company could benefit from new products or services or how they can reduce unexpected maintenance issues and downtime—which can cost airlines dearly.
In this article, we’ll take a look at five distinct ways the airline industry is benefiting from big data and analytics.
Benefit 1: Big data enables smarter maintenance and fuel usage
Keeping airplanes compliant with safety regulations and up-to-date on necessary maintenance is critical for airline carriers. With big data and analytics—especially when combined with AI and machine learning—airlines can greatly reduce the amount of unplanned downtime. This data can come from a wide range of sources, from flight data recorder logs and maintenance software to scheduling applications and flight crew notes. Data analytics enables predictive maintenance, which can alert ground crews to potential breakdowns or part malfunctions before they occur. This can help airlines avoid delaying or even cancelling flights for unexpected maintenance issues. It’s especially critical because a delayed or cancelled flight can cost an airline a lot of money.
Analytics platforms can “foresee” potential issues by parsing data from many sources, such as fuel consumption, engine temperatures, flight speed and altitude, and route locations. In addition to helping airlines avoid unexpected downtime due to maintenance problems, this information can also help technicians know when to schedule planned maintenance. They can streamline maintenance processes and increase plane uptime and availability.
Part of efficient maintenance is ensuring that parts are available when they’re needed. Airlines use big data such as parts usage, supplier availability, and demand patterns, to streamline and improve inventory management. This also helps reduce unplanned downtime and can even cut maintenance costs (by not having to pay rush fees for a part that wasn’t in stock, for instance).
There’s another benefit to using data analytics to monitor fuel consumption, and that’s increasing fuel efficiency. Fuel is the second most expensive item on an airline’s budget (behind labor costs) and it can account for up to 22% of an airline’s operational expenses. With net profit margins at a mere 1.2%, reducing fuel usage by even a little bit can be a big help.
Data can tell airline officials exactly how much fuel was consumed per trip, along with other metrics such as wind speeds, altitudes, plane weight, and so on. By analyzing those and other important metrics, data analytics platforms can give airlines deep insight into how to keep fuel usage as efficient as possible. Sometimes that could be as simple as cruising at a lower altitude or slightly tweaking a flight path to avoid bad weather.
Benefit 2: Big data helps increase safety across the industry
The airline industry is subject to extremely strict safety regulations. Big data and analytics can help airlines identify risks before they escalate and alert technicians to issues to help ensure compliance with all regulations. It can also provide insights on safety to ground crews, air traffic control, airport administrators, and so on. More data, when analyzed, can help all of these stakeholders make smarter and more informed decisions.
For example, the European Aviation Safety Agency launched its Data4Safety program in 2017, with an overarching goal of collecting and analyzing data across the entire aviation chain—such as in-flight telemetry information, weather forecasts, and air traffic control data—to identify risks before they become real problems. Analyzing this data will help regulatory officials, airports, and airlines alike pinpoint weak spots along the chain so they can take measure to mitigate them.
Before the digital age, every pilot had to carry a heavy flight bag packed with charts and maps. They used those manual, paper-based resources to devise the safest and most efficient flight plans and prepare the best they could for the flight ahead. Today, most pilots use tablets that contain that information as well as a wealth of accompanying data that keeps them much better informed and able to confidently determine the safest routes, altitudes, and so on.
Some of these flight plan systems provide always-on connectivity between the aircraft and the ground so information can be updated in real time if parameters change. With access to this data and systems that can analyze it, airlines can pinpoint in-flight positions much more accurately, which in turn becomes data that air traffic controllers use to monitor airspace capacity. With more accurate locations, air traffic controllers can pack more aircraft into the available airspace without jeopardizing safety.
One example of safely enabling more airplanes to fly in a specific airspace, SafeClouds.eu, also funded by the European Aviation Safety Agency, uses data analytics combined with machine learning to review information from airlines, safety authorities, subject matter experts, and air naviation service providers (ANSPs). The initiative’s goal is to make possible more air traffic while increasing safety and cutting overall operational costs.
Benefit 3: Big data can enhance the employee experience
The airline industry is increasingly using big data and analytics to streamline employee scheduling for flight crews, ground crews, airport workers, and more. A single airline might need to schedule crews for thousands of flights across the next few weeks, and coordinate locations, availability and time-off regulations while also staying aware of planned maintenance cycles, training, and other regulations. Data analytics platforms can help optimize scheduling and make it efficient—which can go a long way toward keeping employees satisfied and neither under- or overworked.
Some data analytics systems can also factor in fatigue risk, which can seriously affect an employee’s performance, especially if the employee is a pilot or air traffic controller. These systems can schedule in adequate rest periods and take into account employee preferences to help make employees’ working situations more pleasurable.
Data can also be used to get detailed visibility into airport employee work patterns and situations, such as the baggage claim process. Airline and airport data can help improve processes for every worker, from food service and shop workers to gate agents, TSA security and airline counter staff. Analytics can help airport officials identify problem areas, such as where processes are stalling or how an increase in passengers during seasonal peaks affects workers and their ability to do their jobs. Armed with this data, leaders can take measures to mitigate the issues and achieve smoother operations and more efficient processes in general, which all go a long way toward enhancing the employee experience.
In the aviation industry, most employees’ jobs depend on someone else having completed their job beforehand efficiently and satisfactorily. For instance, ground crews can’t do anything until an aircraft lands. Crews responsible for “turning a plane around,” or cleaning up an aircraft after passengers leave and before the next group boards, can’t do their jobs until flight crews have helped passengers deplane. Using data to identify issues and slowdowns in the process empowers teams to optimize work processes and ensure that everyone is able to do their job efficiently and in a timely manner—which then allows the next group of employees to do their jobs, and so on.
Benefit 4: Big data helps airlines optimize pricing strategies
Data is a critical factor in today’s airlines being able to predict demand and price their products accordingly to make the most of business peaks. Historical data is combined with real-time data to identify when and where flights will be needed and by how many passengers. Data can also give airlines insight into expected marginal seat revenues (EMSRs) and exactly how much people are willing to pay for specific flights, locations or times of the year. As an industry that benefits greatly from dynamic peak pricing, data can help airlines optimize profits.
Airlines also use data for revenue management, which is the business of determining how to sell their products to the customers that need it, at the right time and through the right channel. That can be a complicated problem, but data analytics systems give organizations the power to determine needs, adjust prices for certain markets, identify the best channels to reach customers, and keep plane seating filled to capacity as often as possible.
Data is also a great help when an airline is considering launching new routes, adding seats to planes, or adding or removing available flights. Analytics help in load forecasting, which allows airlines to reduce risks when making decisions about the future.
Benefit 5: Big data helps increase customer satisfaction
By collecting and analyzing airport and passenger data, such as how often people fly, where they typically go, what they pay and so on, airlines gain the power to enhance the customer experience and deliver services that meet or exceed customer expectations.
Analyzing customer data also allows airlines to personalize customer experiences based on a person’s buying habits and preferences. The airline can send information to customers about locations they’ve liked, new routes that would make their regular trips shorter or waiving baggage fees or other costs as a reward for loyalty.
Some airlines analyze social media content and customer feedback to identify areas that need improvement, whether it’s providing an easier check-in process, claiming baggage after a flight or enjoying the flight itself.
Airlines can also make some of the data they collect available to customers to improve their experiences. An example of this would be an application that gives customers the ability to track their bags in real time from their smartphones. Airlines already provide that information to ground crews, but making it available in a convenient app for customers can boost satisfaction for passengers.
The bottom line in satisfying customers is that the more an airline knows about a customer, the better they can anticipate their needs and desires and cater to them personally to make that customer’s experience with the airline much more enjoyable and rewarding.
Big data and analytics require robust data storage—and Phison delivers
As a world leader in solid state drives (SSDs), SSD controllers and other advanced data storage solutions, Phison is well positioned to provide the aviation industry with the low-latency, high-performance storage for its big data and analytics needs.
Phison has been a pioneer in advancements such as customized flash memory solutions that consume little power. The company also offers a high degree of design flexibility with its IMAGIN+ service that provides data solutions with industry-leading performance in small, lightweight form factors.
Phison offers data storage solutions that are designed to accommodate heavy-duty read- and write-intensive workloads, such as those found in data analytics, machine learning and AI and high-performance computing (HPC).
As airlines, airports and other aviation organizations work to stay competitive in an increasingly fierce market, it’s important to extract the maximum value from their data through analytics. Only in this way can they make informed decisions that help increase agility, efficiency and potential for success. To get the most from data analytics, organizations also need the advanced data storage that can keep up with evolving analytics technologies. Phison is committed to staying on the cutting edge of R&D to deliver the most advanced and high-performance data storage solutions to help aviation organizations thrive.
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