LONG BEACH, Calif. — Airlines and airports have long looked at ways to cut the time between when an aircraft lands and when its next flight can depart, saving money and improving on-time performance.
Newly developed AI-driven platforms combined with old-school video cameras are helping do just that, especially when it comes to turn time, or how long an airplane is at a gate between arrival and departure.
Three technology developers lead the way in this emerging market, with each boasting strong improvement metrics from test cases at airports such as Los Angeles, Toronto, New York JFK, Seattle and Amsterdam and with airlines including United, American, Alaska and Spirit.
Zurich-based Assaia has deployed its solutions at approximately 1,500 gates worldwide. In one case study, the company said its technology has helped Alaska Airlines reduce aircraft turn times by 12% at its Seattle-Tacoma Airport hub.
Alaska said Assaia's technology has helped it save nearly four minutes per departure, "which translates to a better guest experience and the ability to identify patterns to continuously improve the safety of our operation."
Miami-based Synaptic Aviation has its solution in use at approximately 1,000 gates globally. For example, president and chief technology officer Sal Salman said that the company's technology has helped Spirit slash the frequency with which flights must wait near a gate before docking by 75%.
The third primary competitor is the owner and operator of Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, Royal Schiphol Group, which says on its website that the predictive portion of its in-house solution can reduce last-minute gate changes by 25%, resulting in overall on-time performance improvements of 1 percentage point.
The solutions rely on existing cameras at each gate, which are operated by either the airport or the airline leasing the gate. However, they leverage those cameras to a degree not otherwise used by airlines, monitoring and reporting when an aircraft arrives at the gate and when each of dozens of key turn-time tasks are completed.
The solutions are able to display when a key task, such as refueling, catering or cleaning, is behind schedule and also estimate how late the plane will likely push back as a result.
For example, Synaptic's technology recognizes 32 objects that are commonly seen on ramps, such as belt loaders, baggage carts and power systems. That capability enables the system to render camera images into real-time data feeds, which are contextualized by the AI learning algorithm.
"We know when things are meant to happen. We know when the catering truck should arrive if you want to have a perfect turnaround." Salman said.
By considering real-time turn estimates in conjunction with incoming arriving aircraft times, airports and airlines can reassign gates to reduce wait times and smooth operations. They can also release aircraft already waiting on the airfield for a gate with more precision. In Seattle, the Assaia tool fueled a 17% reduction in excess hold time, said Tim Toerber, the company's president of the Americas.
Airlines can also utilize the tools more holistically, applying them to analyze their stored data to determine which portions of turns are most frequently delayed or could be better planned. And carriers and airports can also use that data to keep closer tabs on ground-operating contractors and to set performance-based contracts, Toerber said.
Each of those processes can improve efficiency, with savings amounting to approximately $100 per minute on each turn, Toerber said during an interview at the Future Travel Experience conference held Sept. 9-11 in Long Beach, Calif.
"You can only manage what you measure," he said. "Now that we're measuring all of these activities, airlines can manage this to a more nominal value so they can reduce the overall turn time."
Safety can be another benefit. At the LongBeach conference, Breeze CEO David Neeleman said he was likely to begin working with Assaia to more closely monitor the activities of ground contractors.
"You have a lot of inexperienced people with high turnover on ground crews, and you have to keep them accountable. It's not just recording, but it's also logging everything that happens, so you can flag outliers," he said.
Not everyone is as bullish.
Aviation industry analyst Bob Mann of R.W. Mann & Co. acknowledged that better managing the turn process can save time but referred to such solutions as "expensive Band-Aids."
Much more substantive, he said, would be for airlines to put more resources into flow management -- the coordination, prioritization and timing of operations from pushback at one airport gate to arrival at the next.
"That's more deterministic," Mann said. "The problem is when everybody needs a fuel truck, everybody needs a fuel truck. There are only so many fuel trucks. There are only so many catering trucks."
Toerber, though, said the benefits of Assaia's tools can be profound, stabilizing airportwide ground operations, especially at the most constrained airports, such as San Diego, Seattle, New York JFK, New York LaGuardia and Newark.