Aviation Report

Did you know airlines are constantly looking for ways to make flights more efficient? From gate conflicts to operational challenges to air traffic management, the dynamics of a flight can change quickly and lead to costly delays. There is good news. Advancements in real-time big data analysis are changing the course of flight as we know it. Imagine if the pilot could augment their decision-making process with “real time business intelligence,”—information available in the cockpit that would allow them to make adjustments to their flight patterns. The Challenge as offered by GE and Alaska Airlines is the following: Use the different data sets found on this page under Get the Data to develop a usable and scalable algorithm that delivers a real-time flight profile to the pilot, helping them make flights more efficient and reliably on time. Source:  http://www.gequest.com/c/flight This competition is hosted on Kaggle, the platform at the crossroads between the seismic trends

In what has been a year of “firsts” for Boeing, the 737 just added another “first” to its long list. A Next-Generation 737-700 BBJ flown by PrivatAir touched down at the Norwegian Polar Institute - an outpost dedicated to environmental and climate monitoring in Antarctica. The airplane was the first 737 flight to be operated to commercial standards on the southernmost continent. The goal of the flight from Cape Town, South Africa was to prove that a commercial airline could operate a service to Antarctica and maintain industry safety standards, while improving efficiency and minimizing environmental impact. The 737-700 BBJ was specially configured for polar operations, which included landing on blue ice. By the way, PrivatAir is a Geneva-based business aviation and private scheduled-service operator. Source: http://boeingblogs.com/randy/archives/2012/12/my_favorite_things.html

She likes the window seat; he likes the aisle. She wants the shade pulled down; he likes the shade up. She checks a bag; he only carries on. She curls up in a ball to avoid contact; he sits with his elbows and legs splayed out. The sexes can fly in different directions when it comes to airplane and hotel habits and preferences, adding stress to an already taxing experience for couples and families. Men still outnumber women among frequent fliers. Several airlines, US Airways LCC +0.78% and Delta Air Lines DAL +1.32% among them, say their customer base runs about 54% to 56% male. But the difference is leveling off. Virgin America says its passenger surveys over the past year average 52% men and 48% women. British Airways IAG.MC +3.57% actually carries more women than men, a spokeswoman said. Membership in Alaska Airlines' frequent-flier program is evenly split between men and women, at least among members for whom gender is known, according to a spokeswoman for the Seattle

Just a few short months after Apple introduced the world to the iPhone 5’s Passbook app, people are still struggling to find a use for it, although nowhere near as much as they were when it first came out. The function it provides is highly useful in theory but so far there have not been many situations where it would prove useful. While this says nothing about the actual quality of the app itself, it does show that companies have been slow to jump on board and contribute their services to it. However this is bound to change with time as more companies cotton on and giants like Starbucks are already accepting vouchers through Passbook so it is certainly well on its way. In case you are unfamiliar with the app, Passbook is a new feature found on the iPhone and iPad that can collect all these different vouchers and tickets from various apps into one convenient place, from which they can be scanned for quick use. This includes Starbucks cards and movie tickets, making life all the m

Qantas has scrapped plans to offer Wi-Fi onboard its Airbus A380s following average customer take-up of less than 5% during a nine-month trial. The OnAir Wi-Fi service was tested on selected Airbus A380s flying to London and Los Angeles from March to November. Qantas offered the connectivity option to customers in various data packages ranging in price from A$12.90 ($13.48) to $39.90. “Most of our A380 services operate at night and so another dampener on demand was the fact people preferred to sleep than surf the Web,” Qantas said in a release. “We remain focused on delivering services to our customers that they value. Right now, our customers are telling us that access to the Internet on the ground is more important than in the air. We are continuing to invest in upgrading Wi-Fi technology across our domestic and international lounge network. We will continue to evaluate demand for Wi-Fi options onboard.” Existing service, which allows customers to send and receive text mess

British Airways announced they have committed to buying $500M in aviation biofuel produced at the GreenSky London facility for the next ten years and consent is now being sought to begin construction of the facility at a site in East London. GreenSky London is a joint development between British Airways and Solena and once built will be Europe’s first commercial scale low carbon jet fuel production facility. The first-of-its-kind facility will annually convert around 500,000 tonnes of locally-sourced waste, that would otherwise go to landfill, into 50,000 tonnes of sustainable aviation biofuel and 50,000 tonnes of bionaphtha and biodiesel. The facility will also have a renewable power generating capacity of 40 MW. Keith Williams, Chief Executive of British Airways, said: “We are delighted that the GreenSky London project is getting ever closer to fruition. With world-class technology partners now in place, we are well on our way to making sustainable aviation fuel a reality f

Boeing started a new brand awareness campaign with very well done infographics about the company's impact and innovation legacy. The slides are available here:  http://boeing.com/stories/impact.html The timeline is available here:  http://boeing.com/stories/timeline.html

Lufthansa is launching its new concept for European direct services on July 1, 2013, six months after the group’s direct services unit has been merged with low-fare affiliate Germanwings. The new airline, to be branded Germanwings, is a blend of premium and no-frills products and the group’s last effort to turn around its short-haul network to profitability. Germanwings will operate 32 Airbus A319s and A320s that have formed the fleet of the current low-fare airline. Lufthansa is shifting over 29 A319/320s for a fleet of 61 narrowbodies. The unit also is wet-leasing 23 Bombardier CRJ-900s from Eurowings, one of the group’s regional subsidiaries. The new Germanwings is to reach €1.8 billion in annual sales and 16 million passengers with a combined fleet of 84 aircraft, slightly fewer than the 90 originally envisaged. Lufthansa has decided not to transfer all of the existing non-hub fleet to the new unit. Some aircraft are shifted to hub flying, and the company has decided to accele

Where will you go next? Find out with Google Flight Explorer , the latest addition to Google Flights . Unlike Google Flights, which launched in September 2011, Flight Explorer appears to be much more customizable. Not only does it let you easily modify your trip length on the left-hand side, but the top bar is full of options: stops, airline, duration, outbound time, and return time. The first two are drop down menus while the other ones are sliders helping you pick the timeframe you want. The default page loads the “Lowest fares for trips of 3-5 days” and the outline is clearly something we haven’t seen before. There’s a picture of your destination and then a graph of the lowest prices to get you there, taking your filters into account, for the last few months. Clicking on any of them redirects you to Google Flights, suggesting that this appears to be an augmentation of the previous service, not a replacement. Maybe the two will end up being merged together, but for now they

Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill tells the agency she's "prepared to pursue legislative solutions" if it doesn't move at a reasonable pace to allow gadget use on planes. Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill wants you to be able to tweet a photo of St. Louis' famous Gateway Arch while you're soaring above it in your commercial airliner of choice. At least that might be one option open to you if a letter she sent to the Federal Aviation Administration yesterday has the desired effect. The Democratic senator said in her letter that she was "prepared to pursue legislative solutions" if the FAA takes too long to loosen its restrictions on the use of portable electronic devices during flights. "We live in an increasingly connected world, and information is traveling at the speed it takes our e-mail to refresh," McCaskill is quoted as saying in a press release on her Web site. "The current rules are inconvenient to travelers, don't ma

Germanwings customers can now pay for their tickets using e-commerce firm PayPal. The new option allows payments to transferred from customers’ PayPal accounts, meaning that no credit card data needs to be stored with Germanwings. It's worth noting though that customers will still be charged the same fee for PayPal transactions as for purchases using credit card (currently £8 per person per flight segment to European destinations). PayPal started out as a method of enabling secure payments for online auction sites like Ebay (which now owns the company), but has grown to include mainstream companies within its portfolio. Several US carriers including United, AA and Delta allow PayPal transfers, as do British Airways, Emirates, Malaysia Airlines, Singapore Airlines and Germanwings’ parent company Lufthansa. Last month it was confirmed that the Germanwings brand would be expanded to operate Lufthansa flights within Germany and Europe from January next year. Source: htt

In 2013, IATA will launch projects related to Simplifying the Business, a strategic program agreed by the Board in December 2011 (See: http://fr.scribd.com/doc/115696540/Simplifying-the-Business ). E-Borders:  Rather than relying on Airlines for the verification of compliance with border rules (including visas and ESTA-like procedures), Goevernments will own the whole pipeline by providing e-visas, validating them and giving the green light directly to passengers. Customer contact information: Travel agents will have to share direct contact information with customers with the airlines in order to facilitate push notifications about flight status and other urgent messages. Open Source Data Model:  The IATA will work on promoting a standard data format (or API) that will make it very easy for customers to access data about flight cancellations and delay both from airports and airlines. This extends to data formats used between companies, airports and GDSs. The goal is to promote