Operations across the air transport industry have a great deal to gain through digital transformation. Especially now, as airlines and their service partners – original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), maintenance, repair and overhaul teams (MROs), airframers, part suppliers and lessors – make sense of a ‘new normal’.

e-Aircraft® DataHub, and Aircraft Data Management (ADM)

But making digital transformation happen itself relies heavily on having access to timely, contextualized and actionable performance data.

The newer the aircraft, the more precise the data parameters and volume of data it can generate. A new generation aircraft is a complex dot-to-dot of aircraft parts, connected cockpit and cabin devices and applications, all producing and relaying valuable data. Not only is it capable of generating more data than its predecessors, but through a wider variety of more data-hungry formats.

Couple this with high-throughput IP connectivity links to serve up data outputs automatically, ASAP, and aircraft manufacturers, OEMs, MROs and others suddenly have the prospect of a vast library of timely insights at their disposal. This blows possibilities wide open for strengthening operations, by quickly identifying issues; monitoring, responding to and anticipating a part’s true performance; and maximizing functionality.

Needing a powerful way through

Airlines and service partners may well be aware of this potential, but many struggle to work effectively together to unlock it. Airline anxieties around trust, security, and handing sensitive aircraft data to a proprietary, third party system, have often made such collaboration nigh near impossible.

But as airlines and partners turn to digitally-enabled efficiencies in the months ahead, to reimagine, rebuild and recover, they’ll need a powerful way through to help them deliver. We believe we’ve got it.

Turning data into actionable insights

We developed e-Aircraft^® DataHub, and our Aircraft Data Management (ADM) portfolio to help industry players harness trusted, expert data-sharing to realize their digital strategy, business model, or to identify and address operational pain points and opportunities.

e-Aircraft^® DataHub works by collecting an airline’s authorized, multifaceted raw data, and expertly classifying, decoding, storing and distributing appropriate, structured data sets to their selected OEM, MRO, airframer, or other aviation digital service partner. Keeping control and ownership of aircraft data firmly in airlines’ hands, it gives chosen partners global access to the data they need to drive mutually beneficial enhancements to products, services and in-house operations.

To date, the industry has entrusted the SITA group with channeling 60% of its data sets across a variety of services. This includes the SITA FOR AIRCRAFT domain of expertise, whose numerous popular applications manage multiple data sets for a diverse range of uses.

With our Aircraft Data Management platform onside to facilitate a secure, intelligent world of data from various sources, OEMs, MROs, airframers, part suppliers and lessors can develop new digital value propositions and accelerate their time to market. They can marry core aircraft and part data with contextual data sets, to develop fresh use cases and big data models for the industry.

e-Aircraft^® Datahub in action

The beauty of our approach is that there are an infinite number of potential use cases just waiting to be realized and bring benefits to the industry.

Take the example of fuel efficiency. Using e-Aircraft^® DataHub can help an OEM to support its aircraft customer to minimize fuel consumption on a certain route by avoiding overloading the aircraft with surplus fuel. By inviting the aircraft operator to share crews’ full flight plans, contextual information such as situational weather data, and post-flight quick access recorder (QAR) data, that OEM can make valuable fueling recommendations to aircraft operators by reviewing flight plans against what actually happened en route.

Similarly, e-Aircraft^® DataHub can benefit a tire manufacturer wishing not just to keep a close eye on product wear and tear, but to accurately predict when repairs or replacements are needed. By receiving an automated and consistent, aircraft operator-approved tire performance data stream through the solution, rather than limited and sporadic information via the carrier or airframer, that manufacturer can help maximize tire lifespan for their customers, and ensure any replacements arrive whenever and wherever they’re needed.

Facilitating such rich, seamless and secure data flows is fundamental to ADM’s effectiveness, as is its ability to automate and ease data sharing, at no cost to airlines. What really sets it apart, however, is how it supports that all-important collaboration between industry players.

The only industry-neutral solution

As a uniquely neutral, secure hub in the market for operator-approved data exchange, e-Aircraft^® DataHub can help set a new standard for collaboration between carriers and digital service partners. As a trusted intermediary with a global airline footprint, we can help OEMs, MROs, airframers, part suppliers and lessors, simultaneously deliver new digital services while eradicating pain points for customers. It’s win-win.