Saab Group To Help Australian Airport Realize Efficiency Gains

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Saab Group has announced that it will implement its Aerobahn collaborative decision-making platform at four major airports in Australia that will save that country’s aviation industry about $52 million over the next decade. (Image courtesy of Saab.)

Saab Group already has its collaborative decision-making platform, Aerobahn, operating in major airports in New York City, Chicago, Detroit, Houston, and Minneapolis. Now, four airports in Australia are set to implement the platform, as well. Designed to produce efficiency-related improvements across various areas, the platform is expected to save the Australia aviation industry roughly $52 million over the next 10 years.

The Platform

In a news release, Saab says Airservices Australia, the country’s air navigation services provider, identified airports in Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, and Sydney as top priorities for receiving Aerobahn. Saab’s Aerobahn Product Suite includes numerous products, which the company says improve collaboration, efficiency, and decision-making in airport settings through better management approaches.

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Airservices Australia, Australia’s air navigation services providers, singled out airports in Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, and Sydney as priority airports for receiving Saab’s Aerobahn platform, which aims at producing efficiency gains in such areas as taxi time, catering operations, and aircraft scheduling. (Photo courtesy of Saab.)

Aerobahn offerings relate to taxi times, gate allocation, customs queues, catering operations, ground handlers, aircraft scheduling, and more. Saab specifically says the system “streamlines the data sharing between all agencies, allowing more collaborative decisions, which minimizes delays and improves performance during irregular operations.” The products also improve schedule efficiencies, taxiways, and runway and stand use, as well as reduce fuel consumption and related emissions, according to Saab.

Big Savings

Jason Harfield, Airservices Australia CEO, says better management of taxiing aircraft and arrival and departure gates have the potential to reduce delays at the country’s airports. Harfield says modeling using A-CDM (Airport Collaborative Decision Making) shows that improvements could reduce taxi times by roughly 7%, or “1 minute per aircraft in peak busy periods, which adds up to big savings very quickly.” Saab points to its Aerobahn Milestone Manager offering as supporting dynamic configurable alerts that Eurocontrol (an inter-organizational air-traffic management authority for Europe) has defined, as well as local alerts that Airservices Australia stakeholders will define. A-CDM Milestone Manager, Saab states, provides information-sharing and milestone-tracking abilities that fall in line with Eurocontrol and numerous other organizations.

Jessica Öberg, head of Saab’s Industrial Products and Services business area,” said in a statement that Saab and Airservices Australia already have forged a strong partnership while implementing air traffic-control technologies in the country. “By employing Aerobahn’s ability to share critical operational information in real-time among key airport stakeholders, Australia’s four busiest airports will benefit from a host of metrics that will help target other areas to improve efficiency,” she said.

Source: Saab

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