Fuel Efficiency for Airlines: The Right Data is Just the Beginning

A sustainability crossroads

The aviation industry generates an estimated 2% of global CO₂ emissions, as well as a host of other emissions and noise concerns. While 2% may not seem like a lot compared to the impact caused by other modes of transportation such as land-based and shipping transportation, it is still has an impact—and the effects aren't limited to the lower parts of the atmosphere.

Leaders such as IATA have already made commitments  to reduce the aviation industry’s impact on the planet—however, there’s still plenty of room for improvement. The flying public increasingly cares about the environment, and some passengers prefer to fly on airlines with a good environmental track record.

Having a well-developed and effective fuel efficiency program in place has become increasingly important for any airline. Aiming to reduce the cost of operating aircraft by eliminating instances of wasted fuel, these programs focus on doing more with “less.” This means concentrating on objectives such as operating better maintained aircraft with less weight on board, and more efficient flight operations through aircraft handling, flight planning and integration with external partners (e.g., Air Navigation Service Providers, National Regulators). This also means using data to make better long term fleet renewal decisions.

Doing more with less

Ideally, a fuel efficiency (FE) program is positioned as an airline-wide initiative backed by executive sponsorship, enabled by a Fuel Management Information System (FMIS) and managed by a Fuel Efficiency Manager who is working at multiple levels with cross-functional teams (e.g., flight ops, line staff and other stakeholders). An effective program often involves coordinating initiatives, measuring improvements, replicating successes, and sustaining achieved improvements. It requires accurate data, organization-wide participation, and a comprehensive strategy.

For most airlines, FE programs and the associated fuel saving initiatives are nothing new. Apart from step-changing fuel efficiency through fleet renewals, most airlines have implemented some form of fuel efficiency drive, often implementing the best practices as recommended by IATA in the various editions of its famous Fuel Book ("Guidance Material and Best Practices for Fuel and Environmental Management") and other publications by OEMs and industry experts.

Basic, well-known FE initiatives cover activities in flight operations, flight dispatch, maintenance and engineering, and other areas of the airline where fuel is touched. The implementation success of the initiatives relies on factors like subject matter expertise, quality data and organizational drive being brought together to enable analysis and decision-making, which impacts fuel efficiency.

One cannot manage that which one cannot measure

At Honeywell, we’re well positioned to bring subject matter expertise and quality data to the table with Honeywell Forge Flight Efficiency.

Honeywell’s subject matter expertise provides value-adding consulting support to airlines around the world. Depending on where an airline is in their efficiency program journey, our consulting service is tailored to complement the in-house fuel efficiency efforts. Our experienced professionals focus on knowledge transfer and coaching stakeholders and team members toward optimized program execution, maximized efficiency gains, and a deeper understanding of their operational data, analysis and gained insights.

In terms of data quality, Honeywell Forge Flight Efficiency is a SaaS platform designed to collect and sort a wide array of flight operational data from any synced dataset, then make that data available to users for review and analysis. The system provides users with a vast repository of actionable insights to help manage the various facets of a fuel efficiency improvement program:

·       Implementation definition of what good looks like for your program

·       Assistance with roll-out of the program and tracking progress

·       Tailored and customizable dashboards to enable seamless, user-specific information access for stakeholders organization-wide

·       Highly adaptive data queries that can help you generate next-level insights, initiatives and results

It’s a data quality management system providing the user with basic data, a full range of flight events, and their related data insights.

Taking fuel efficiency further

A big data platform should be designed to integrate different types of data from multiple operational sources into a quality-managed single source of truth for operations-related data. Our cutting-edge algorithms and analytics capabilities support the uncovering of hidden savings potential.

Airlines with mature and sophisticated fuel-efficiency programs have reported unlocking additional savings after implementing Honeywell Forge Flight Efficiency. Today, we support around 2,500 aircraft worldwide, which helps us to refine our insights in this ever-changing environment.

For an end-to-end view of fuel efficiency parameters for any given flight, Honeywell Forge Flight Efficiency gathers data covering more than 1,000 parameters, validates inputs and reports the results. Easy-to-interpret reports and graphs in fully configurable dashboards can also be exported to flight crew’s electronic flight bags with the Pilot Connect app, allowing flight crews to fully engage in the operational efficiency improvement program.

Best of all, Honeywell Forge Flight Efficiency is scalable and flexible. No matter where an airline is in their fuel efficiency and sustainability program, Honeywell can help them take steps toward a smaller carbon footprint, support the optimization of current best practices, unearth new saving opportunities, or perform a deeper analysis of data.

By selecting Honeywell Forge Flight Efficiency, an airline can join a community of some of the world’s most efficient airlines supported by Honeywell's expertise, which includes forward-looking industry heavyweights such as the IAG group, the Lufthansa Group, Etihad Airways, Japan Airlines, Turkish Airlines, KLM and many more.

Fuel efficiency strategy is normally managed by an airline's Fuel Efficiency Manager, but Honeywell Forge Flight Efficiency platform access is available to many different users in the airline, with custom levels of access to the available base data and all derivative values. User-specific dashboards and feeds ensure that each user has access to relevant information so they have the ability to analyze data. The built-in expression language enables data interrogation and results manipulation, providing a step-change in analytical capabilities. With Honeywell Forge Flight Efficiency, data and processes are transparent compared to black-box environments, which often obscure clarity in the process towards output.

Let us help you achieve your organization’s efficiency and sustainability goals. Get in touch with our experts to schedule a demo today.