6 Ways to Increase Aircraft Uptime

Aircraft uptime is critical to maximizing profits—and delivering the customer experiences people are demanding. With Honeywell Connected Aircraft solutions, you can keep your operations running efficiently and improve your aircraft’s performance in a variety of ways, one of which is minimizing aircraft downtime.

The commercial aviation industry is pressured on multiple fronts, from constantly fluctuating fuel costs to the need to keep aircraft flight-ready around the clock. Aircraft uptime is critical to maximizing profits—and delivering the customer experiences people are demanding. With Honeywell Connected Aircraft solutions, you can keep your operations running efficiently and improve your aircraft’s performance in a variety of ways, one of which is minimizing aircraft downtime.

Here are six ways the Connected Aircraft can help you increase aircraft uptime:

1.    Learn about minor issues before they develop into major problems. Honeywell Forge Connected Maintenance helps minimize aircraft downtime and reduce costs through predictive maintenance, cognitive diagnostics and wireless data transfer. Working together, those technologies deliver predictive, prescriptive alerts to ground crews, notifying them of impending mechanical issues and potential failures. With the ability to repair or replace components before they fail, you can keep operations running smoothly and cut down on mid flight surprises. With Honeywell Forge Connected Maintenance, crews can cut maintenance time and costs and reduce operational disruptions by 35%.

2.    Gain insights that reduce troubleshooting time. Connected Aircraft solutions provide precise insights and predictive analysis that can significantly reduce aircraft-on-ground (AOG) time, allowing you to get more from your aircraft and crew. Precise insights and automated options can cut troubleshooting time by up to 25%, which can reduce turnaround time, as well as overall maintenance and operations costs. Predictive analysis on aircraft components and systems alerts crews to maintenance or potential failure issues before downtime occurs.

3.    Avoid being grounded by false maintenance alerts. Every aircraft contains a myriad of sensors that will alert crews to potential problems. Once in a while, however, sensors themselves can get damaged or fail for another reason—and they trigger an alert when there is no true maintenance issue to manage. Honeywell now offers a range of proximity sensors that can detect when a sensor is damaged. In essence, it can tell pilots whether a sensor reading is accurate or is putting out false alerts due to damage or another problem with the sensor itself. This information can help flight crews avoid delaying or canceling flights due to a faulty sensor, and ensures that only real maintenance issues get the attention they need.

4.    Alert crews for faster turnaround time. Honeywell Forge Ground Handling connects flight crews to ground crews to improve on-time performance by 30%. It helps turnaround crews manage the aircraft turnaround process and shave seconds off wherever possible. The solution is conveniently accessible on mobile devices to deliver real-time information on each aircraft’s status and alert teams to potential delays. In addition to improving on-time performance, the solution can enhance invoice accuracy, streamline resource planning and utilization, and reduce flight delays by 22%.

5.    Plan with real-time information. Traditional pilot flight bags weigh up to 40 pounds and can’t deliver up-to-the-minute information. No more printed weather reports that are hours old. With the Honeywell Forge Flight Bag solution and mobile app, you get constantly updated information on weather, airport conditions, flight plans and more. Save up to 12 minutes per flight plan, or reduce flight planning time by up to 50%. With Connected Aircraft, the latest data can empower much safer and smoother flights.

6.    Minimize weather-related delays. One of the most common causes of delayed flights is bad weather. In fact, a study tracked flights from October 2015 to September 2016 and found that about one-third of those flights experienced weather-related delays of at least 15 minutes. The important thing about weather is that it can change at any moment, but having the right information ahead of time can help pilots adjust routes to avoid delays. Honeywell Forge Weather Information Services uses real-time weather information, coupled with trends, historical data and patterns, to deliver a clear view to pilots. Honeywell weather radar systems can also give them a bird’s-eye view of weather patterns that allow pilots to keep flights in the air and on time while steering clear of trouble spots.

By improving uptime, you can streamline turnarounds, improve on-time performance and keep passengers satisfied and loyal. And thanks to Honeywell’s reliability, expertise and range of Connected Aircraft solutions, we make uptime easier to accomplish than ever.

Controlling air flow throughout the aircraft.