By Neelu Khatri, President, Honeywell Aerospace, India
New Delhi. 03 October 2018. Aviation in India is growing at a rapid pace as the burgeoning middle class takes to the skies. In fact, predictions suggest that India’s aircraft fleet will nearly double by 2027. While this growth has created many opportunities for airlines, it has also put increased pressure on driving efficiency and profitability. But, what does efficiency really mean? For a passenger it’s mostly about getting to a destination on time.
Yet while on-time performance will always be important to airlines, there’s a whole host of other things to be considered. For example, how quickly an aircraft can be “turned around” from one destination to the next. The next big requirement is to ensure that every seat on the aircraft is occupied and the traveller gets all the promised facilities on board. What’s changed this emphasis of these considerations in recent years is the skyrocketing of jet fuel prices.
In India, fuel accounts for about 40 to 45 percent of an airline’s cost of operation. In the last 12 months, the price of aviation turbine fuel (ATF) has jumped to 44 percent, almost double the figure in February 2016. As a result, we’re seeing deteriorating financial performance from Indian airlines, and a lot of furrowed brows in airline boardrooms.
So where can we drive better fuel efficiency? We’ve all been on flights that take off about 30 minutes late, and the pilot says “we’ll make it up on the way.” What this means is the pilot will throttle up during flight – and burn more fuel than anticipated – to make up the lost time. Travelers land on time, but the airline may be burning money along the way. There has to be a better solution.
With the help of the right software, airlines can eliminate this additional cost by analyzing historical flight data to make better strategic decisions. For example, airlines can look at flight routes and take weather patterns, the time of day and approach patterns into consideration. Additionally, pilots can make tactical decisions in flight based on this data. By blending engineering and flight operations expertise with advanced statistical and machine-learning methods, Honeywell Aerospace is delivering an enhanced view for airlines, and in turn helping to drive a new level of airspace efficiency.
Jet Airways is just one example of a local airline using this type of Connected Aircraft technology fuelled by big data and advanced analytics to achieve great results. For example, using Honeywell’s Flight Efficiency software, the airline can better understand the amount of fuel it needs to operate its fleet without sacrificing safety, and can understand not just how much but what is causing the largest amount of fuel burn. Using this solution, the airline achieved five percent annual fuel savings thanks to improved efficiencies.
With ongoing technological advancements we’re going to continue seeing airlines driving out inefficiencies so that rising fuel costs will put less pressure on airlines and passengers. We’re also likely to see improvements in other areas, such as with the use of analytics helping to optimize flight routes to reduce time in holding patterns around busy airports and ensure on-time arrivals.
Overall this type of technology can have innumerable benefits, from driving smarter, more efficient operations to supporting predictive maintenance. All of these tools serve to better prepare airlines and their pilots, future-proof the longevity of their fleets, while protecting margins.
