MAPPING BUSINESS AVIATION
CJI Tech Map
CJI's Tech Map charts the digital landscape of 21st century business aviation from aircraft sales to catering and from FBOs to fuel and handling. More than 150 software-based solutions feature in our guide.
Aircraft sales
Safety and compliance
Data link providers, integrators
Flight data
Catering, FBO, fuel, handling
International trip services
Flight planning, electronic flight bag (EFB)
Aircraft management, passenger/owner
Planning, crewing and optimisation
Maintenance network/systems
Scheduling and fleet management
Air Maestro
Alrplane Manager
Market intelligence
Charter marketplace
B2B charter sales
Business Operation Systems
Charter payments
Crew logistics
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MAPPING BUSINESS AVIATION
Digital business aviation – two industry views
A rising tide of digitalisation is sweeping across business aviation. We ask Satcom Direct and stack.aero to answer four questions about the pace and direction of process.
1 Do you think business aviation lags behind other mobility industries in terms of digitisation?
Catherine Buchanan, Director of Business Development, stack.aero:
Business aviation lags a long way behind the others. If you look at traditional industries like maritime and shipping, or freight forwarding, they have standardised data models that ensure clear communication between systems and companies for integrations.
Commercial aviation has done this too, but business aviation has nothing. On the growth side of aerial mobility, the newer VTOL markets don’t have the legacy software in place, so they have a clean slate to build upon and plan their digitisation strategy. Business aviation carries a heavy technical burden with so many legacy systems.
Michael Skou Christensen, chief commercial officer. Satcom Direct:
Yes, in some areas the sector has been slower to adopt the full potential of digitisation when compared with other sectors, even commercial aviation has been digitising data longer.
Part of the challenge is that the business aviation industry is very fractured and by its nature of operating very private/discreet services, the willingness to share data has been slower.
We note that large leading players implement their own standard operating data systems while smaller companies develop their own systems. This has reduced industry optimisation of digitisation and limited the creation of international standards. This is gradually changing and we note a greater number of technical solutions in the market, but we still see many different versions of the same type of service.
At SD we have an agnostic approach and develop products that can integrate with these diverse data sets and can add value by aggregating, analysing and using data to improve operational efficiencies.
As an industry that is committed to being carbon neutral by 2050, there is a lag between the commitment and the means to accurately capture data about CO2 emissions, aggregate it and then report and offset it. We’ve developed the SD Carbon Module as part of our offering to support customers that want to be responsible in reporting accurate statistics. The technology measures all elements of fuel burn, provides accurate reporting and automatically calculates the carbon emissions, and then enables validated reports to support appropriate offsetting. It complies with international standards and reduces workload for the flight department.
2. What areas are furthest ahead or lagging most when it comes to the transition to digitised operations?
Buchanan, stack.aero:
Furthest ahead: automating workflows and digitising sales/operations process – the internal sales and ops processes of brokers/operators is definitely further ahead. Sales teams and operations teams can reply on a multitude of tech integrations to help standardise, digitise, and in some cases automate certain workflows. The tech is very much there and on offer – whether brokers and operators are utilising it is another matter.
Lagging: automating the sales process – It is naturally very complex to the nature of our business. Everything is bespoke so trying to automate sales with complex pricing, numerous moving parts (fleet, crew etc), and varied routings is very difficult. Some are trying to do this now but it is yet to be seen whether it is successful.
Also lagging: the inventory of costs incurred at all different locations for different services. Until there is a uniform location/service to store the pricing agreed with a client for fuel/handling/services etc, the ability to calculate pricing is limited. This is slowing the sales process significantly.
Christensen, Satcom Direct:
Due to the highly regulated nature of the sector implementing technology that is robust, resilient and compliant with all the regulations can take longer in business aviation. Yet business aviation generates immense amounts of data and much of it is unused. Technology can be better used to translate data into actionable insights to initiate, support and inform commercial activity. This is where we see the most obvious lag.
In an ideal world digitisation should enhance the customer experience, reduce the workload of the flight operations team and raise global industry standards. At SD we develop all our products on an open architecture platform, to help attain this goal.
3. How often do your customers have chief technology officers (CTOs) or figures in similar roles that oversee the digital side of operations?
Buchanan, stack.aero:
Typically our Enterprise customers have someone fulfilling the CTO role and this person is typically overwhelmed by the requirements in front of them, and potential platforms which partially solve the core set of challenges faced by the business. Smaller customers typically don’t, although and they appreciate the technical knowledge and support that we offer.
Christensen, Satcom Direct:
This has changed in the past five years with the silos between IT and flight department) s being broken down as the need for strengthened cybersecurity, or the exchange of fiscal information being shared with finance teams has grown. This means that while the number of CTOs for flight departments is still low, there is a lot more communication between these departments than perhaps a decade ago.
4 Can AI chatbots like ChatGPT help business aviation and how?
Buchanan, stack.aero:
Absolutely, my initial thought is in areas of customer service. Drafting notes to customers about why Option A is better than Option B and providing human-readable summaries of aircraft comparisons that explain the benefits of one particular aircraft over another, for the particular trip being flown. They could be used to qualify leads too. Instead of customers sending unqualified enquiries to operators/brokers, chatbots could give them estimated pricing and filter out who is serious and who isn’t.
Christensen, Satcom Direct:
AI can help in terms of support but the reality is that people like to talk to people when it comes to optimising the connectivity systems. Technology is only as good as the humans that are using it and while we believe there is a place for AI, our customers still value the human contact. AI is useful in understanding the original questions, but a human response is always welcome.
CJI Connect
Conor McDougall Garmin [email protected]
Greg Principato National Aeronautic Association, President and CEO [email protected]
