Honeywell Helps Airlines Save Fuel – and the Planet

Airlines are constantly looking for innovative ways to reduce fuel costs, which can account for about 30% of their annual operating budgets according to IATA. They can’t do much about the price at the pump, so they continue to focus on the other side of the equation – reducing their fuel consumption.

Multiple factors affect fuel economy including the size and configuration of the aircraft, the age and efficiency of its engines and auxiliary power units, the number of people on board, the aircraft’s gross weight, and flying conditions like wind speed and air temperature.

While reducing fuel consumption can lower an airline’s overall operating costs, improving fuel efficiency goes a long way toward helping the airlines tackle another top priority – reducing the environmental impact of air transportation. The airlines are approaching this enormous challenge with their own airline-level sustainability initiatives and as group through organizations like the International Air Transport Association (IATA), which aims to have the industry reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Long-term initiatives like fleet renewal and carbon offsetting will play a major role in achieving net-zero goals, but airlines must also implement immediate fuel reduction initiatives with their present-day infrastructure. It’s also important not to overlook the potential that pilots, fuel managers, dispatchers and other airline decision-makers hold to reduce fuel consumption. But in order to achieve meaningful change, these personnel need reliable, accurate and actionable data.

Tap Into the Power of Deep Data Analytics

Honeywell Flight Efficiency is a cloud-based solution that uses deep data analytics to give airlines and flight crews actionable insights they can use to reduce fuel consumption both in the air and on the ground. It has helped more than 30 leading airlines achieve their efficiency and sustainability goals. Even small decreases in fuel burn can amount to millions of dollars in savings, depending on fleet size and various operating factors.

Conventional flight-reporting software analyzes fuel-consumption information and reports results post-flight, which is good only for historical tracking and training purposes. Honeywell Flight Efficiency takes things to a whole new level.

We use prescriptive analytics software to not simply report results in real time, but also to provide specific guidance to pilots and ground personnel. With this information team members can make informed decisions about fuel loading, taxiing and flight procedures, and gauge the impact of decisions affecting fuel economy on other airline priorities, like on-time performance. Best of all, airlines can implement and track any fuel initiative with Honeywell Flight Efficiency, including advanced use cases like statistical contingency fuel.

It includes an easy-to-use Pilot Connect mobile app to give pilots better situational awareness before, during and after each flight with customizable efficiency KPIs and actionable performance indicators.