The aviation Digital Alliance, the partnership initiated by Airbus and Delta TechOps in 2019, is expanding to include GE Digital. The vision for the expanded Digital Alliance is to further develop real solutions that curb operational disruptions, drive progress in unplanned maintenance events and ultimately benefit global commercial operators’ bottom-line financial performance.
Under the umbrella of the alliance these industry leaders will combine their respective know-how of aircraft systems, airline and maintenance operations, digital analytics, as well as operational data and front-end user applications. In particular, GE’s entrance into the alliance will connect its extensive aerospace systems engineering expertise and best-in-class predictive analytics to Airbus’ Skywise suite of proven digital solutions and Delta’s operational and maintenance excellence and related predictive models.
The resulting cross-fleet portfolio of integrated services offered by the alliance will deliver cost savings, network efficiencies and increased fleet availability to around 140 customers worldwide which are already engaged with Skywise Core. With GE Digital’s added analytics capabilities and systems portfolio covering a variety of aircraft, airlines will further benefit from cross-fleet health monitoring and diagnostics, reliability analysis and predictive maintenance analytics enabling airlines to avoid operational disruptions and accelerate maintenance decisions by quickly predicting potential in-service issues across their entire aircraft fleets.
The integrated capabilities will digitally transform airline operations by bringing stronger collaboration between the airline maintenance control centers (MCCs) and engineering and reliability teams, while breaking down existing information silos.
Andrew Coleman, Senior Vice President & General Manager Aviation Software at GE Digital commented: “We are looking forward to bringing our analytics capabilities and significant coverage on aircraft parts to the aviation Digital Alliance, together with Airbus and Delta TechOps. In doing so, our joint capabilities will integrate into Skywise’ powerful applications, and also bring GE Digital’s software expertise to the fleets of 140 customer airlines engaged with the Skywise Core platform.”
Don Mitacek, Senior Vice President, Delta TechOps & President, Delta TechOps Services Group (DTSG) said: “Delta TechOps teams have unparalleled expertise in their roles to safely and strategically support Delta’s vast, global aircraft fleet maintenance operations in addition to the comprehensive portfolio of services for our more than 150 maintenance, repair and overhaul customers worldwide. Together in the aviation Digital Alliance with Airbus and now welcoming GE Digital, our teams are looking forward to combining our complementary strengths on the Skywise platform, for the mutual benefit of all.”
Lionel Rouby, Senior Vice President, Customer Services Innovation & Digital Solutions at Airbus said: “We are delighted to welcome GE Digital into the aviation Digital Alliance. The resulting combination of Delta’s know-how in both airline operations and maintenance, Airbus’ aircraft design expertise, Skywise’ operational fleet ‘big-data’ and now GE’s industry leading predictive analytics, will provide even greater value for the multitude of airlines worldwide already connected to the Skywise Core platform. These airlines will soon benefit from even more powerful ‘nose to tail’ and cross-fleet digital solutions.”
The alliance covers airframe and systems analytics and predictive maintenance for a wide range of ATA Chapters on both single-aisle and widebody Airbus aircraft. Delta contributes analytics capabilities covering nearly all airframe and engine types and configurations across Airbus and other OEM aircraft fleets. As currently the only customer among the alliance members, Delta can also ensure products are validated and applicable.
GE Digital will complement the alliance’s existing portfolio by bringing its own extensive analytics capabilities. The equipment and related predictive models which GE Digital will contribute encompasses many types of aircraft systems in various ATA Chapters.. Overall, GE’s joining the alliance will approximately double both the number of analytics algorithms as well as the number of aircraft parts which can be monitored by the analytics.
To support the growth of the aviation Digital Alliance, Airbus has set-up a dedicated team of data scientists, customer experience designers and software developers based in Atlanta to work closely with Delta TechOps and GE Digital.
