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United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs Sustainable Development

OptiFlight

Safety Line (
Private sector
)
#SDGAction33652
    Description
    Intro

    Using Flight Data to support fuel savings for all airlines. OptiFlight is the only predictive in-flight guidance solution allowing airlines to optimize all flight phases including climb thanks to machine learning performance models for each tail, accurate 4D weather forecasts, and customized recommendations issued to pilots for each flight.

    Implementation of the Project/Activity

    Initial OptiFlight Reasearch project : 2012 - 2015, research and solution development First flight test and customer with Transavia 2015-2017 : Transavia France has become the test customer for OptiClimb from Safety Line and, in April 2016, became the launch customer for OptiClimb which was extended to cover all Transavia France and Transavia Netherlands fleets by the beginning of 2018. The tests started in 2015 on 100 flights with a small team of pilots. The airline and service provider decided to extend the test group to 10% of Transavia France pilots and to conduct further tests over a longer time during the summer of 2016. During this period, about one thousand flights were flown with OptiClimb. After the test period of about five months, it was concluded that a fuel saving of about 75kg per flight had been achieved with an application rate of almost 75%. Contracts were signed at the end of 2017. OptiFlight today : 21 customer airlines (Air France, Transavia, Condor, Aerologic, Tui Group, Viva Aerobus, Sky, Air Austral, Air Asia Group) for a total fleet of 857 aircraft. The OptiFlight solution is now made of 5 solutions: - OptiClimb, clim phase optimization - OptiDirect, shorcut in the sky - OptiLevel, flight level optimization - OptiSpeed, cruise speed optimization - OptiDescent, descent optimization We continue to develop our solution and our reasearch. As an exemple, we participate to the on-going research program : CleanSky Perf AI Project (since 2018) We are very pround that Optiflight is recognized as a green innovation. We were part of the Clean Sky 2 projet which is an european research programme dedicated to aviation. It is a Public Private Partnership between the European Commission and the European aeronautics industry, the main goal is to develop breakthrough technologies to significantly increase the environmental performance of aircraft. Safety Line is leading the “Perf AI” initiative, research project which optimize aircraft performance through the use of Artificial Intelligence. We are supported in this project by our long-term partner, the French national research institute for digital sciences, Inria, and we have invited two airlines, Lufthansa and Transavia France to join the project advisory board. Clean Sky 2 is the largest European research program developing innovative, cutting-edge technology aimed at reducing CO2, gas emissions, and noise levels produced by aircraft.

    Results/Outputs/Impacts

    With OptiFligth, our customers save at each flight. Please find several customer savings stories : Transavia is operating 42 medium haul 737 fleet. They are savings in average 82kg for each climb which represent 70 tonnes of yearly fuel savings per aircraft i.e. 223 tonnes of yearly reduction in CO2 emission. In total Transavia can save up to 2 940 tonnes of fuel each year which represents 9366 tonnes of CO2 emission savings. Aerologic, joint venture between DHL express and Lufthansa cargo, is operating 14 777F cargo aircraft. They are savings 234kg for each climb which could translate into a fleetwide carbon footprint reduction of at least 5,000 tons of CO2 per year. AirAsia has implemented OptiClimb which will save up to 3 percent of its climb fuel, potentially representing a fleetwide carbon footprint reduction of at least 73,000 tons of CO2 per year.

    Enabling factors and constraints

    Safety Line has raised 3 millions of euros in 2017 from ADP (Paris Airport), Safran and BPI (french national investment bank) to support OptiFlight development. We have partnership with several research institutes such as Inria. We are leading the perf AI initiative part of the Clean Sky 2 project (more information in the "implementation question"). Our solution doesn't require any hardware but we need to get access to flight data. This is the main constraint to the implementation of OptiFlight. Flight data is a sensitive data, especially for Pilot Unions, so we need to demonstrate we are only using those data to do fuel efficiency and no pilot analysis. To overcome this constraint, we are working closely with management and pilot team to explain them our solution will help them and is dedicated to them.

    Sustainability and replicability

    Our solution can be used by any airlines worldwide. Also we are continuing to develop our range of solution using our aviation expertise and data science knowledge. the sustainability and replicability of our projet is simple: - developping new OptiFlight solution - Expanding our initiative to Airport in order to help this time airport to leverage their data to run greener and more efficient operation. This new solution is called AirsideWatch and we are currently working for Paris Airports and other partners on a POC.

    COVID-19 Impact

    The Covid-19 crisis has further enhanced the general drive for more sustainability in aviation. More than ever, sustainability is at the heart of aviation strategies, and OptiFlight helps to contribute to CO2 emission reduction. Alos since Airline are facing great cost constraints, helping them reducing their fuel consumtion, one the main cost, is key.

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    Timeline
    04 December 2017 (start date)
    31 December 2022 (date of completion)
    Entity
    Safety Line
    Ongoing
    No
    SDGs
    Other beneficiaries

    OptiFlight benefit to all airlines stakeholders. Our solution helps airlines to make sustainable operations a priority. It empowers pilots to further contribute to more efficient and greener operations.

    More information
    Countries
    France
    France
    Contact Information

    Elisabeth, Sales manager