Case Studies and Success Stories

ADF customers see real improvements in operations and profitability, with increased payloads, better aircraft performance and reduced operating costs. Here are case studies of airline customers who implemented ADF solutions and achieved solid results.

Customer: Mid-sized international carrier

Business Drivers: Improve flight operations and on-time performance through enhancing communications, automating processes, more timely use of enterprise data

ADF Solution: The customer conducted a year-long review of its operations supported by Aircraft Data Fusion (ADF) and launched an "Operations Technology Initiative" focused on improving operations performance, communications, automating processes and sharing enterprise data. During this study, the customer management team, aided by Aircraft Data Fusion, mapped current operations processes, reviewed information flows and determined cycle times that are key to the airline's performance.

Applications and technologies were selected on the basis of providing optimal scalability and positive business impact from the initiative:

• Load Planning
• Weight and Balance
• Take-off and Landing Performance
• Technical documentation

Applications were deployed on hand-held mobile HP iPAQ units, with wireless data transmission to airline's operations center and real time capture of critical operations data relating to Fuel Management, Maintenance and Safety.

During the ensuing implementation, ADF played a key role by orchestrating the activities of all technology providers, providing liaison with the FAA to obtain all needed approvals and providing daily project oversight and management support.

The project was structured to be accomplished in phases to ensure the earliest possible return on the effort. The first phase was to quickly implement the global telephony and satellite links needed to improve crew communications and to initiate the Load Planning function to increase payloads and optimize fuel utilization. The second phase was to implement all remaining applications using the handheld PDAs to perform real time calculations for Weight and Balance and Takeoff/Landing Performance and to initiate digital checklists and reporting of key operations data such as ETOPS checklists, ENCON data, fuel management inputs, OOOI times, and safety and maintenance incident reports.

Customer: Midwest-based charter airline

Business Drivers: The customer required the development of a phased initiative to transform its operations into a highly efficient and cost competitive industry standard. Their desire was to use technology, digitization and consolidation of current processes and procedures to horizontally integrate and streamline departmental coordination and productivity.

ADF Solution: The first phase included using a handheld device (PDA) to perform weight and balance, aircraft/airport performance and analysis and other fuel management functions. After training, each captain was issued a PDA to perform these tasks in order to reduce departure delays and operating costs. The business objective was to digitize and streamline these processes making the operation more efficient.

ADF obtained all necessary FAA approvals and provided the PDA-based applications software and all training to achieve the desired goals. An in-depth study of flight operations validated the fuel, maintenance and financial impact of the project.