Benefits of Intelligent Automation in Aviation

Leveraging Intelligent Automation in Flight Planning: Enhancing Efficiency, Safety, and Compliance

'A good pilot never stops learning.' That's true for aviators, and it's also true for all the professionals who manage and support flight operations. However, continuous learning takes time and resources, which are precious commodities in the aviation industry.

Managers and operations staff are adept at juggling multiple responsibilities, but the daily demands of running the operation are significant, as well as handling repetitive manual tasks and keeping up with regulatory changes.

The solution? Intelligent automation.

Intelligent automation is revolutionizing aviation by improving operations' safety, efficiency, and accuracy. At its core, intelligent automation for operations centers around connecting tools to simplify and optimize your global flight planning. It achieves this while seamlessly bridging the gap between flight planners and pilots. Moreover, it provides time-saving capabilities, reduced errors and mitigating risks, and the ability to focus on critical and value-driven tasks such as regulatory compliance and safety management.

By recognizing the significant benefits, it’s only natural that we’re seeing an industry-wide shift toward adopting intelligent automation across various industries. 

As highlighted in a study by Harvard Business Review on How Automation Drives Business Growth and Efficiency, automation has switched from being viewed as a novelty to a core necessity, helping business—and flight operations—leaders increase efficiency, improve results, and deliver value. According to the same study, the core benefits of automation reflected by over 90% of surveyed employees revolved around:

• Increased productivity
• Boosted collaboration across their teams.
• Getting more done without errors
• Help them make decisions faster

Automation is as much at home in business as it is in flight operations. Especially for those organizations where individuals wear multiple hats, efficiency is crucial. 

3 Common Challenges Hindering Efficient Flight Operations

Streamlining communication and coordination between teams

Interdepartmental silos and bottlenecks are significant barriers to operational efficiency and safety. 

A study by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) found that up to 63% of airlines struggle with team communication and coordination. More importantly, the consequences of these challenges include 47% of flight delays because of poor coordination between teams, such as ground handling, maintenance, and flight planning operations. 

Although this study focuses on commercial airlines, Business Aviation experiences similar challenges. Poor coordination between planning teams and flight crews can easily lead to delays in departure times or parking at the wrong FBO. Miscommunication between maintenance personnel and flight planners can result, for example,  in scheduling lengthy maintenance checks at the wrong time, leading to the aircraft being unavailable for a trip. 

Staying ahead of changes

In a busy operations department, there isn't time (or resources) to play continuous catch-up. One of the most valuable assets Chief Pilots and Flight Planners can possess is the ability to stay ahead of changes. Flight planners handle changes daily; it’s a requirement of their role, but traditional flight planning systems often fall short of supporting them. Limitations in flight planning software can create specific bottlenecks, pain points, and challenges. 

For example, the lack of real-time data integration can make it difficult to adjust to sudden changes (like weather updates or airspace restrictions) in a time-efficient manner.

This becomes increasingly difficult as operations scale, especially when managing multiple flights. Because of this, information can easily be missed, leading to safety concerns and poor passenger experience. 

Balancing schedules and optimizing trip logistics

One of the key challenges flight planners face is balancing schedules and optimizing trip logistics while accounting for various constraints and factors. The complexities further increase in BA as operators must consider varying personalized passenger requests, aircraft availability, and the need for flexible itineraries. This includes managing and meeting tight delivery windows for passengers while considering complex route planning and meeting operational requirements. Trip logistics must also account for contingencies such as weather, airport restrictions, or any other unforeseen circumstances.

Human error

Where there are humans, there is always a margin for human error, no matter how slight the margin. Although the aviation industry has multiple, highly regulated safety management systems and redundancies to mitigate the risk of human error, this does not negate the need for real-time insights and standardized operating procedures. Generally, finding the correct and appropriate information to plan a flight requires leveraging multiple data sources dispersed amongst different tools and providers. This challenges almost all relevant stakeholders and parties to find a single source of truth, increasing the risk of human error.

Considering these challenges, modern aviation has also seen a significant rise in intelligent automation. However, with this rise in automation, there has also been a steep learning curve, hindering flight operations from embracing a full transition from analog to digital flight systems. The solution? A paradigm shift in training to ensure that Chief Pilots and Flight Planners understand the benefits of intelligent automation and how to leverage it to enhance efficiency, safety, and compliance.

But There is a Solution. Enter Intelligent Automation for Flight Operations

The concept of automation is not a novel idea. Certainly not to a pilot. Many operators utilize some form of automation in their operations. However, more often than not, they use independent software systems, which poses a challenge when needing to share information or real-time insights across the organization. These individual software systems often use various formats, leading to disparate information. Separate systems require a user to duplicate information, which leads to errors and distrust in the validity of the data, further compounding the challenges of maintaining two systems.

Here's how we can help.

ForeFlight Dispatch provides an ecosystem that focuses on consolidating dispersed tools to plan all aspects of flights efficiently. Additionally, it improves your existing workflows by reducing the number of tools needed for preparing a flight, acting as a hub integrating external scheduling providers and trip support to advanced flight planning tools. One example is that ForeFlight Dispatch effortlessly integrates with ForeFlight Trip Support, providing them with direct access to flight plans and booked services within an organization's Dispatch instance.

Save time and cut costs.

Intelligent automation reduces bottlenecks in the flight planning process, leading to greater efficiency and reduced costs. One example of this is the ability to automate route optimization. Automated Dispatch tools can effortlessly calculate the most efficient routes while keeping critical considerations in mind, such as weather, air traffic restrictions, and many other variables. Ultimately, this reduces fuel consumption and flight time and allows critical team members to focus on other value-driven tasks instead of labor-intensive administrative tasks.

Mitigate risks and reduce human errors.

Intelligent automation is a powerful risk mitigation tool. It reduces the chance of human error by analyzing a vast amount of real-time data and providing precise calculations. These include calculating ETP and ETOPS, weight and balance, fuel consumption, alternate routes, runway analysis, and more. All of the above calculations are also centralized and continuously monitored to ensure safer flights with significant risk mitigation in terms of operational efficiency, delays, and compliance.

Improve decision-making and enhance safety.

Intelligent automation is embedded in collaborative decision-making, significantly reducing the time (and people) it takes to gain real-time insights and share insights within the organization. For example, automated data sharing ensures that all stakeholders (pilots, and flight planners) possess the most recent information regarding flight plans, weather, and airport data. Not only does this improve decision-making, but it also dramatically reduces the risk of miscommunication or last-minute curveballs, enhancing safety and improving overall efficiency.

Ensure compliance with regulations set by aviation authorities.

With features such as automated documentation, intelligent automation ensures compliance across all aviation authorities, such as regulations and documentation like International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Doc 7030, Air Traffic Control (ATC) regulations, and the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Air Traffic Control System Command Center, which enables operators to navigate through restricted airspace and adhere to airspace management protocols.

It also includes storing and managing all navigation logs, maintenance records, and other relevant flight documentation to ensure they are readily accessible and compliant with current legislation and country-specific regulations.

How ForeFlight Dispatch Uses Intelligent Automation to Improve Efficiency

Ultimately, operators need a Single Source of Operational Truth, which is exactly what ForeFlight Dispatch provides—a centralized hub for flight planning and communication. ForeFlight Dispatch bridges the gap between manual and automated.

Using ForeFlight Dispatch, operators leverage the full benefits of intelligent automation while benefiting from seamless onboarding and training to aid adoption. Stand-out features include: 

• Simplified & Optimized Flight Planning
• Maximized Operational Efficiency Through Automation & Customization
• Seamless Connection Between Planners and Pilots

This sounds great, but how exactly does ForeFlight Dispatch harness intelligent automation?

Efficient trip planning and execution via automation

ForeFlight Dispatch provides an effortless flight planning experience, highlighting optimized routes based on the latest weather and your operational guidelines. This includes mission-critical features such as Global Route Builder, Cruise Advisor, Alternate Routing, Integrated Airport Information, ETP/PSR/ETOPS, and more.

Embracing aviation automation now and into the future

At ForeFlight, we understand that although there's a need for optimized processes, the implementation of automation software shouldn’t come at the cost of a steep learning curve and workflow disruption.

With ForeFlight Dispatch, we help operators achieve optimal performance and operational efficiency, leading to safer, more cost-effective, and more efficient operations. Moreover, we do this while keeping your entire operation in sync and running smoothly.

Planners can also gain greater insight into the status of any flight and an overall view of the day's operations, while pilots can easily see flights assigned to them on the web and their mobile devices. The flexible customizations support flight planners by automating routine tasks, improving efficiency, and allowing them to focus more on safety. Dispatch is a frictionless channel between flight planners and pilots, providing reciprocal communications for updates to flight plans.

Start your journey towards effortless flight planning with ForeFlight’s Dispatch Guide. 

FAQs

What are the benefits of intelligent automation when managing flight operations?

Improving operations' safety, efficiency, and accuracy. At its core, intelligent automation for operations centers around connecting tools to simplify and optimize your global flight planning processes.

How does intelligent automation help mitigate risks and reduce human errors in flight planning?

Manually entering data into multiple systems can lead to data errors. By connecting the various systems used to plan flights, data entry errors are minimized, and so is the chance of using results that are incorrect. Furthermore, automation can be use to check results using multiple factors—in real-time—highlighting figures that are incorrect.

How can intelligent automation improve aviation decision-making and enhance safety?

By automating tasks that are bound by operational rules, any temptation to deviate from those rules is removed leading to more safer and consistent decisions. Ask our sales team about the automated operational rules in ForeFlight Dispatch.