Back to Air Transport IT Review - Issue 1, April 2009

Embracing digital aircraft - collaboratively

The new generation of aircraft now entering service promise a world of opportunities - such as new customer services, high operational performance, greater cost and fuel efficiency and improved environmental profiles.

Best represented by the Airbus A380 and the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, new generation aircraft are intelligent and connected - thanks to thousands of loadable software parts, electronic flight bags, health monitoring and condition-based maintenance, and near real-time data exchange at the gigabyte level.

As a result, digital aircraft communications are requiring new network solutions - moving from the familiar mix of classic SATCOM, VHF, ACARS, ICAO ATN and CPDLC to include broadband IP SATCOM in the air, and to generic wireless IP (Wifi, Wimax) and IP wide area networks at the gate and on tarmac.

However, with the introduction of IP technology, the industry faces the risk of fragmentation, where each stakeholder in the value chain will have their own way of providing connectivity and services.

Stakeholder issues

Each stakeholder will have to manage hundreds of technology and service combinations. They run from network operators and technologies, to aircraft types and aircraft avionic systems; and they embrace airports and airport IT services, as well as airline ground systems. This complexity - and the high costs of entry - will cause slow deployment and ramp-up.

For air-framers, issues revolve around complex IT and communications with fast obsolescence, as well as long avionics fitting and retro-fitting cycles.

For airports, there is a whole set of other issues. No standards or best practices to offer homogeneous service, for example, along with low volumes of aircraft shipments with new technology. On top of that, the business case to build infrastructure with (for now at least) poor usage is difficult.

Airlines in the meantime face the issue of separate IT solutions from the avionics supplier and air-framer for a mixed fleet, as well as the likelihood that each airport provider requires different network interfaces. Then there is the high price of costly contract management for low volumes.

With flight safety ever more dependent on IT security, designing and ensuring secure IP communications between aircraft and ground systems will also be a critical challenge. Proper separation of cabin and cockpit communications will be required to guarantee the integrity of loadable software parts, and to comply with stronger rules on aircraft security mandated by the US FAA and others.

Trust and a clear focus

Air transport has always been a highly interdependent value network. However, the benefits of new technology are in danger of being compromised without a complete approach to digital communications that provides security, trust, open standards and a clear focus.

SITA's role as the community's service provider is tailor-made to deliver this approach. For instance, we are building global airport wireless aggregated services, including managed authentication and end-to-end service management. We are introducing satellite IP communications for all phases of flight. And we are building secure virtual private aircraft networks. With this, we are aiming to make aircraft communications simple, cost-effective and secure, so that the air transport industry can take full benefit of the new generation of aircraft.

Air transport needs strong technology innovation, but it will only be able to deliver on its promises if there is extended collaboration and a sharing of best practice, standards and roll-out strategies. It's a challenge, but one with which SITA will continue to be wholly engaged.

Gregory Ouillon
SITA Vice President Development and Innovation

Defining the new generation communications platform together

Important steps were taken by SITA in 2008 to build the next generation communications network for the air transport community.

Sixteen customers joined the SITA Innovation Focus Group to contribute to the definition and development of a common Information and Communication Technology (ICT) platform to provide services on-demand at air transport industry concentration points.

The programme's objectives are to:

  • Optimize bandwidth cost and performance on the network backbone
  • Offer applications performance, content delivery, IT security, and manage end-user access at all industry concentration points, mainly at airports
  • Support innovation and industry collaboration
  • Ease introduction of new technology and applications through a standard service framework
  • Enable cross-boundary data integration and process automation locally and globally
  • Transition to a new service model with on-demand services

Customer representatives have helped identify more than 20 emerging operational processes or applications that would benefit from this common ICT platform and which help prioritize technologies to focus on.

The air transport industry usage scenarios and scope are broad, ranging from remote office consolidation to in-flight entertainment content distribution, looking at technology from content delivery networks to hosted IT with virtualization. The Focus Group is a unique opportunity to review key issues, decisions and priorities for a phased development and deployment of a community solution.

In 2009, the Innovation Focus Group's work addresses three service priorities. Work on definition and deliverables will move to pilots in the second and third quarters for:

  • Content delivery networks (CDN) and management
  • Virtualization
  • Aspects of architecture, infrastructure and security

Customers wishing to take part in this ground-breaking work are welcome to request a briefing on any aspect of the initiative, including participation in a survey on air transport industry content delivery. Please contact Mathilde Chevee.

Listen to article

Please, rate this page: