Airlines face an increasingly complex operational environment. Rising demand is colliding with labor shortages and infrastructure bottlenecks to make it harder than ever for airlines to hit all their performance, cost and customer-satisfaction goals.

Julian Fish, IBS Software Senior Vice President & Head of Aviation Operations Solutions, who has led multiple digital transformations, is in conversation with Andrew Spillane, an over thirty-year veteran of airline operations at British Airways and Virgin Atlantic and a change-management specialist, about the role of single-source platforms in mastering aviation complexity. 

Q: Why is single-source technology so crucial to an airline's success, now and in the future?

Andy Spillane (AS): They offer the best combination of stability and intelligence. In a system with entirely separate modules, each running its own database on its own infrastructure, there is an increased risk. It's harder to move data around instantly.

API-connections introduce delays and points of failure, particularly during times of crisis. When loads increase, for instance in a crisis or peak-demand situation, they're prone to falling over or slowing down.

API-connections introduce delays and points of failure, particularly during times of crisis.

You won't have the data you need either to make operational improvements or even to recover efficiently from disruptions. The fragility of technical interfaces connecting mission-critical systems can also delay re-synchronization between key platforms, prolonging recovery from irregular operations (IRROPS).

The need to build interfaces between siloed systems introduces both bottlenecks and new points of failure.

With the right single-source platform, you get real-time decision making based on data from across the organization — no siloes. Your different modules, for instance operations, and crew management, work seamlessly together.

Centralized data management and platform configuration also minimizes technical disruptions due to non-synchronized data and rules that are more common than you think in airline operations ecosystems.

Julian Fish (JF): That's a great point. Without a single source of truth, every decision you make is disconnected. You can only make accurate decisions, at scale and speed, using normalized data. There's just no point comparing apples to pears.

How do I ensure high-value customers continue to get a premium experience, no matter what? How do I know my flights are continually crewed, and there is enough standby crew and aircrafts to cover? Without standardized data intelligence, your answers to questions such as these are just guesses.

Data is the new oil of the industry. Accurate data is essential for understandable and actionable operational and commercial insights, and optimal decisions. 

Without a single source of truth, every decision you make is disconnected.

Q. Disruptions are becoming more frequent and complex. How do you think single source technology can make a difference?

AS: Faced with severe disruption, every second counts. You must make the right decision fast, based on the best information. You cannot afford to take the 'fly everything' approach, burning out your crew, taking aircrafts out of maintenance and pushing resources to the limit.

There is no time to call the station controllers or re-optimize your decisions. Without a holistic view of your aircrafts, slots, crew and flight plans it's very hard to know if your decisions are right. You need to build effective scenarios, compare and evaluate them.

Using a single source of truth, gives you centralized and synchronized data available through a fully unified platform. You can instantly and accurately model all possible scenarios. It tells you how much you can actually fly, what's going to be the impact down the line, the effect it has on your customers, and what you can achieve.

Using a single source of truth, gives you centralized and synchronized data available through a fully unified platform. You can instantly and accurately model all possible scenarios.

The enhanced collaboration between operations departments on a single-source platform will draw higher quality data and history from across the organization, so it can learn faster to deliver superior predictive capabilities. That means you can predict disruptions before they happen and then rapidly arrive at solutions that benefit all stakeholders, and customers.

While predictability is valuable, it's important to remember that disruptions are inherently unpredictable. A forecast of six inches of snow could turn out to be just one inch on the day, making pre-emptive recovery plans excessive. Therefore, technology's ability to be dynamic and acutely responsive is equally important.

JF: To Andy's point — when you're managing disruption, you absolutely look at what you can do today. But you can't neglect two, three, five, seven days in the future.

And if you do only fix for today, using a movement board or some other manual process, five days later you end up with burned out crews, maxed out hours, or some other problem. Then double the number of customers end up being impacted.

Technology makes a huge difference to this. You can see instantly the impact of any decision you make today on a range of performance factors days ahead, or even further in the future.

Technology also delivers consistency that is crucial in operations. By sharing and augmenting expertise and intelligence, it allows you to get the best results, reduce reliance on tenured expertise, and bring best practice to bear everywhere, all the time. 

Using a disruption-management module, you can see instantly the impact of any decision you make today on a whole range of performance factors days ahead, or even further in the future.

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Q. Aviation needs to adopt cutting edge technology to achieve the necessary operational performance and efficiency. However, resistance and lack of buy-in get in the way of this. What's the best way to manage technology change within an airline?

JF: The four core pillars of any organization are people, process, culture and technology. Built into each of these is a reason to resist change. And people just don't like change.

Airline operations rely on the knowledge and experience of veterans, built up over decades. A large part of the change-management process involves communicating with these experts, who have been strongly associated with the technology they chose or have used for years. You must explain the vision, the benefits and the opportunity cost if you don't evolve. And you must reinforce the message. 'One and done' won't work.

A large part of the change-management process involves communicating with experts who have been strongly associated with the technology they chose or have used for years.

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Having led multiple mainframe transformations in enterprise IT organizations in the past, I have learned over the years that organizational change must occur in rapid increments and drive measurable business value.

Moving from legacy mainframes to distributed systems, then to microservices is essential to achieve an organization's strategic goals. This transition delivers agility, the ability to upgrade or customize individual services independently, stability, and the rapid, reliable, and resilient exchange of data, even under crisis conditions.

Over the past 60 years, compared to other industries, such as a retail and banking with complex legacy systems and decades of technical debt, airlines have been notably slow to modern their monolithic and outdated technology platforms. But without modernisation, business won't be able to optimize. Organisations will never be able to move fast without breaking things. 

If they don't modernize, organisations will never be able to move fast without breaking things.

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AS: People will be understandably nervous. How will this impact my job? Why should I trust a software over my years of experience? You must bring your teams with you. You must be honest.

You must have conversations about upskilling, rewards and other responses to change. The user needs to understand the reasons for the change and the support you're providing.

And never make assumptions about what people know. Some people are not as familiar with using data or technology. An effective change-management process also needs to take these people with you too, not exclude them.

The user needs to understand the reasons for the change and the support you're providing. And never make assumptions about what people know

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Want to know about single-source platforms and how they can help your airline achieve its business and operational goals?

Watch the webinar for more insights - iFlight Connect - July 2024

Access more about how a single source operations platform is invaluable for disruption management here: Proactive Disruption Management: Accelerating Recovery in Airline Operations 

Contact IBSSoftware to learn more about our Unified Operations, Crew Management and Hub Management Platform.

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