The document discusses the potential uses and challenges of adopting tablets in aircraft flight operations. It notes that while tablets are gaining popularity in consumer markets, very few aviation-specific apps have been developed due to the small market size and regulatory hurdles. It analyzes why existing flight operations software is difficult to adapt for tablets. Some promising initial uses of tablets identified are replacing paper flight manuals with electronic PDF versions, and capturing flight report forms electronically to transmit data back to operations. However, fully integrating tablets into existing IT systems remains a challenge.
1. 10 | WHITE PAPER: CONDUCE CONSULTING | AIRCRAFT IT OPERATIONS | AUTUMN 2011
Tablets in Flight Operations
Are tablets, asks Paul Saunders, Operations Director at Conduce Consulting, a Technology fashion
trend or a permanent solution?
S INCE THE LAUNCH of the iPad 2 in
March 2011, you may have heard the
words ‘post-PC’ used quite a lot. Indeed these words
appear in nearly all Apple Inc. marketing blurb, e.g....
“We are approaching a post-PC era.”
“ e majority of our revenue now comes from post-
PC devices.”
“We are living in a post-PC world.”
e idea of a world without PCs is debated ‘ad-
nauseum’ in tech blogs and journals. Analysis of
PC and laptop sales certainly indicates that there is
a major shi underway. It is clear that the netbook
appears to have had its day, analysts are revising
their predictions downwards for the growth of
desktop PC sales and the demand for certain
tablets completely outstrips supply. Not all tablets
though… the Blackberry Playbook is a half-baked
op having only shipped to date the quantity that
the iPad sells in 48 hours whilst HP’s abandonment
of WebOS has le TouchPad owners with an
expensive rectangular Frisbee.
Despite Microso seemingly hedging their bets
with a mobile and tablet friendly new operating
2. AUTUMN 2011 | AIRCRAFT IT OPERATIONS | WHITE PAPER: CONDUCE CONSULTING | 11
system in the shape of Windows 8 on the horizon, connected apps. Some people seem to be waiting for
I tend to think that we are not going to see an the tablet market to stabilize before committing to
end to PCs and speci cally laptops for a while a particular hardware, so ware or operating system
yet… having said that, ve years is an in nity in choice under the belief that the wrong decision at
technology terms. If Microso , ‘defenders of the such an early stage in the market life cycle could
faith’ for PCs, are preparing for a possible decline lead to a failed return on investment, or worse, a
in PC sales then you’d better believe that a change complete waste of time and money. Even innovators
is coming. What is certain is that interest in tablets, and early adopters are proceeding with real caution.
and especially the iPad, in the Flight Operations I can’t point to a single airline that has yet fully
arena is very high indeed. I mean, the fact that rolled out an entire mobile IT landscape which
you’re reading this paper indicates something doesn’t includes tablets, complete with a full suite of apps
it? Dozens of airlines across the world are either and connected systems. Even the most advanced
evaluating tablets, building business cases, piloting innovators such as Alaska Airlines have built a
tablet use or have rolled out tablets in a limited business case for investment based on a tightly
form. I’ve not seen a paradigm shi like this in focused set of functions where they have simply
aviation IT since the late nineties with the mass replaced paper ight manuals with PDF versions of
adoption of email and the internet. Are tablets a the same documents. Presumably a broader vision
passing fad, or do they represent a viable long term which includes a complete Electronic Flight Bag
technology solution for Operations IT? (EFB) and a full set of connected business apps will
A recent study suggested that 92% of Fortune come at a later time. Other early adopters, such
500 companies in the USA are either deploying as United Continental, Delta and BA are wisely
or piloting iPads. Whilst presenting during the following a similar path. Actual airline CIOs wanting to build such a
Airline & Aerospace MRO & Operations IT So why aren’t we seeing a bolder and more rapid business case should take notes. Let’s assume for a
Conference at Darmstadt in July this year I posed adoption of the sort of mind blowing, awesome apps moment that we’ve already made a decision about
the question to delegates “how many of you are and hardware that we use at home or for generic which hardware we’re going to buy. Let’s also assume
currently deploying or piloting tablet devices?” business purposes? Where is the killer app that is that I’ve got a fantastic deal for the bulk purchase
Although highly unscienti c I was interested to see going to radically change aviation in the same way of my devices. We should further take for granted
that approximately 25% of the audience raised their that Angry Birds radically changed the way that we that we have managed to convince IT that this is
hands. Anecdotally I know that many airlines are waste our time? a worthwhile pursuit and that I’ve made all of the
making initial steps to roll out tablet devices for OK, so imagine you’re the CIO for an airline necessary assurances that they going to be given
a variety of use cases. ere is trepidation though wanting to build a business case for the deployment adequate resources to support the vast expansion of
largely due to the lack of appropriate useful and of tablets for your ight and cabin crew. their support network and capability requirements.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL SOFTWARE DETAILS AND FOR A DEMO
order in
b
ew ca orms
n tf
repor AP Innovative software to make your airline
AS
more efficient. Solutions for:
Library & Notices
Training Management
Expenses & Leave Bidding
ew
se nd cr to
es Fuel Analysis & EU-ETS
notications
outst Safety Management
Crew Reporting
Journey Log
EFB & iPad
evoke
systems
+44 (0)3456 521240
www.evoke-systems.aero
3. 12 | WHITE PAPER: CONDUCE CONSULTING | AIRCRAFT IT OPERATIONS | AUTUMN 2011
Now what? to be purchased and used for my imaginary airline by Alaska Airlines and rolled out to the iPads
Obviously, I need to decide on the functions for business case. Furthermore, of the pitiful number purchased for their pilots to help replace the paper
which we will be using tablets. at should be easy of commercial aviation targeted apps, there is ight manuals that they had been hauling around
right? We’ve all seen the adverts about how tablets nothing available that isn’t already o ered on other since time immemorial. Assuming that Alaska
will revolutionize our lives. We’re going to be ultra- platforms. In aviation we simply don’t see the mind Airlines has 1400 ight crew; this works out that,
connected with simple yet sophisticated so ware blowing, plentiful and cheap innovation that we a er Apple’s 30% cut, GoodReader’s revenue for this
that will connect to and from anything, which have seen for other consumer markets. gig was a staggering $5,000.
means we can do anything for which we used to Why is this? Cue, ironic cheers.
have to be in the o ce, but at any time of the day First of all, it’s very hard to make money Secondly, it is very hard indeed to change
or night from anywhere in the world. developing and selling mobile apps to aviation. e platforms and retro t a tablet or mobile enabled
Right? prospect of developing an app for what is a limited front end to your existing aviation so ware product.
Wrong! aviation market that has a mine eld of regulatory Focusing, for a moment, on developing for Apple’s
OK, maybe if my job involves reading magazines, approvals to negotiate is simply too big a risk for iOS iPad and iPhone platform, there are a couple of
video-conferencing with my grandchildren, watching most independent technologists to even consider. pre-requisites that you will need.
videos, sending emails, writing articles for my blog Compare the aviation app market to the consumer To develop for the iPad you will need an
and that I work from my local co ee shop equipped app market and I know where I’d be committing Apple Mac and an iPad, plus Apple’s So ware
with perfect Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity, as seems to my talent if I were a young developer looking to Development Kit which will set you back $99 a
the case for the tablet users on the TV adverts, then make my fortune in so ware development. e year. No big deal I hear you say…. For around
yes, that’s all possible. so ware engineers of tomorrow aspire to become $3000 that’s you tooled up for one developer. One
However, the current crop of tablet devices and successful by developing the next Angry Birds or other small but signi cant investment you will need
most speci cally the iPad were designed purely as the next social media craze, which technically is a to make is around $15 on a book like ‘Objective
consumer devices, not business devices. e tablet fair bit simpler than writing something as complex C for Dummies’. Your existing developers may
market as we know it today is not even 18 months and sophisticated as a crew rostering system. Why well be pro cient in a number of programming
old and the business sector has barely started to would you spend months writing an app for such languages such as Java or one of the various avors
bridge the gap that the consumer market has le in a limited market that you then have to spend time of C, but unless they have already been exposed
its wake. If you are expecting to nd a bewildering actively selling and marketing to airlines that have to Objective-C which is the proprietary language
array of so ware choices for aviation when you existing legacy solutions to the speci c problem that used to develop for iPhone and iPad, then there is
log on to any app store, then you have a rude you have solved with your app, when you can spend an awful lot of unlearning and relearning that your
awakening. Today, there are very few tablet apps two nights making a sound board app for the latest developers will need to go through. Objective-C is
that have been speci cally designed and developed comedy catch phrase, put it on the app store for 99 a completely di erent beast from any programming
for the commercial aviation sector. Of the rst cents and watch the cash roll in. language in which most modern aviation so ware
100,000 apps that were launched for the iPad, less Consider the developers of GoodReader, a ve products are written. Cross platform support and
than 4% are aimed at business and there are only a dollar PDF reading app that synchronizes with a reskilling for some of the latest generation tablet
tiny handful of those apps that are readily available web facing le repository. is app was purchased and mobile devices is a major undertaking for any
4. AUTUMN 2011 | AIRCRAFT IT OPERATIONS | WHITE PAPER: CONDUCE CONSULTING | 13
so ware vendor and should not be underestimated. is factor
alone may account for the forecasted success of more familiar
programming platforms such as Android, Windows and HTML5.
Consider also the amount of e ort needed to retool an existing
aviation so ware system for use in a mobile tablet environment.
Most of the enterprise level aviation so ware packages that we
use today have occupied hundreds of thousands of man-hours
of development and contain millions of lines of code. Even the
most up-to-date systems are likely to be based on a technical
architecture that pre-dates some of the modern techniques and
procedures that would preclude a near-total rewrite to bolt on
a tablet user interface. I have seen at rst-hand the draining
of color from the cheeks of so ware vendor CTOs and CEOs
with the shock of realization at just how much resource they are
going to have to sink into a major rewrite just to provide today’s
technology buyers with something they are growing to expect –
their so ware available on a free iPad app.
Lastly, the general lack of openness in the aviation industry is a
major barrier to innovation. From an outsider’s perspective there
is a laughable level of opposition to and anxiety about the idea
of open and semantic data, open architecture and open source
technology compared to equivalent industries. is antiquated
attitude to protection of data and intellectual property in aviation
by airlines, MROs and so ware vendors alike is preventing
independent technologists from innovating and extending the
capabilities of existing so ware. Instead talented developers are
turning their attention to building cheap, simple but lucrative
add-ins for social media platforms which tend to have a potential
market size measured in millions of users, not thousands.
ese factors combined mean that o en there is no alternative
but to directly commission your own suite of apps. I do not
foresee this situation changing in a hurry. It is going to take many
CLICK HERE FOR FULL SOFTWARE DETAILS AND FOR A DEMO
5. 14 | WHITE PAPER: CONDUCE CONSULTING | AIRCRAFT IT OPERATIONS | AUTUMN 2011
is technical publications. For most airlines it should be a fairly routine and
cost saving exercise to convert the current distribution of paper manuals to an
electronic distribution of PDF documents saving ample time for pilots, crew
and technical librarians alike. Cutting down on crew admin time to receive and
incorporate manuals into their already heavy ight bags has a double e ect on
productivity. Saving time that pilots and crew, in the crew room, spend fa ng
around with manual revisions not only increases their productivity, but reduces
the number of duty hours that they consume. A saving in the order of minutes
per crew member per month soon factors up to a decent return on investment
over a span of years. Some airlines have factored the reduction of the weight
of paper being brought on board into their business cases and have calculated
attributable fuel savings. Others have included the number of lost productive
days based on injuries brought about by lugging around such heavy tomes
of manuals in their business cases, and still others have included the cost of
mitigating against industrial action by the unions for the alternative of retaining
paper manuals for the foreseeable future. It will not be too far in the future that
we see more sophisticated technical publication apps which are highly contextual
providing a smart way of recognizing the aircra being boarded and presenting
only the necessary documents for the user. ere is a lot of scope to move
beyond a simple set of synchronized PDF les in future.
e acquisition of data
is perhaps the most
obvious solution that you
would wish to implement
via a tablet device in
ight ops. We see reams
and reams of paper
months, or even years in some cases, for so ware vendors to forms being lled in
catch up with user demand and release tablet apps of their own or during a ight, gathered
APIs to allow third parties to easily develop apps. With a meager up and sent back to
selection of commercial aviation apps on o er, for what purposes base via 19th century
should we be thinking about using tablets in Operations IT? To technology, where it is
answer this question I believe that we have to refer back to what then manually loaded to
the latest tablet devices were originally designed for and translate central systems. Wouldn’t
the intended use cases for the consumer market to our industry it be great if we could
and their potential applications in ight operations. capture that information
e iPad and the majority of the latest Android tablet devices on a tablet device and
were designed speci cally for the consumer market and operate auto-magically transmit
best as a means to consume media, for internet browsing, for the data back to base
reading and for staying connected through smart working (using once we re-establish
email and other productivity apps). Choosing the best business communications on the
applications for tablets involves translating those device strengths ground? Having a full
into practical use cases. Doing so in the typical ight operations suite of apps that hook
environment poses a number of speci c challenges due to the into an existing central
environmental constraints. Right now most operators have system is the holy grail
restricted, at best, or zero communications in ight and potentially of tablet ROI, but it is
limited connectivity on the ground. We may also have to rely
entirely on a single battery charge for the duration of a ight and
beyond. Having said that, certain tablet characteristics are well
suited to ight operations making them seemingly a more suitable
device compared to existing EFBs and other devices which have
gone before. Most tablets really do have an all-day battery life. I
use an iPad, and this device can go days on end without the need
to be charged. Even with continuous use, the batteries should last
a full working day with no problem. Today’s tablets are lighter,
smaller and more easily stowed than a laptop, a netbook or other
equivalent devices. ey are also amongst the most desirable
items on the technology market today and this, for me, is a vital
factor when it comes to usability and user adoption.
Let’s take it for granted that users will be working smarter using
tablets through the usual suite of productivity apps, such as email,
calendar, to-do lists, and o ce apps hooked in to cloud based
document storage. at’s pretty obvious and each airline and
individual will have their favored methods of working here, as the
concept of remote working for ight and cabin crew is already
well established for many airlines.
e next most obvious application for tablets, which most early
adopting airlines have used as their primary business case driver,
6. AUTUMN 2011 | AIRCRAFT IT OPERATIONS | WHITE PAPER: CONDUCE CONSULTING | 15
less than straight forward to realize. As I mentioned iPads in a pilot study. Would you expect to see a
before, most so ware vendors of existing aviation similar willingness to ‘bring your own technology’
business systems simply aren’t geared up to provide for some of the hardware and so ware trends that
such apps, and, worse still, their so ware does not have gone before? Eighty per cent of the same
possess the requisite infrastructure to make third airline’s ight crew are existing iPhone users, so the
party application development a straightforward roll out of iPads to an eager set of users is expected
or inexpensive proposition. Secondly, most to go without too many hitches and minimal
enterprise level business applications require a familiarization training.
bi-directional ow of data to operate normally. As Analysts predict a bright future for the edgling
well as acquiring data from the user, we normally tablet market. Apple currently has a 61% market
need to interrogate or validate against data held share and has sold nearly 30 million iPads to date.
and maintained in the central repository. In these Recent Gartner studies suggest that by 2015 there
times, prior to ubiquitous and inexpensive in ight will have been approaching 300 million iPad sales
Wi-Fi, it is a much simpler proposition to plan for and it is hard to believe that they will have held o
asynchronous data acquisition. Rather than looking the might of Android to have such a strong market
to provide wall to wall o ine capability of existing share by that time. Even with the most conservative
systems, I would encourage so ware vendors and market estimates, it is widely believed that tablets
airlines to start small and provide apps with limited will be pretty abundant. Combining this with
features for use in cases where validation or cross ubiquitous Wi-Fi, in- ight connectivity and the next
checking of latest data sets is relatively immaterial. generation of aviation and business apps on the
Consider an aircra maintenance repair system horizon, could we really be seeing the advent of a
where we are recording vast amounts technology revolution? I’m not sure about the
of data relating to aircra maintenance, demise of the PC, but I do think that tablets
journey logs, defects, maintenance represent a long term technology solution rather
forecasts and so on. None of this data is than a simple trend..
relevant to a pilot who simply wants to
raise a single defect.
He has little interest in previous
defects or maintenance history, he
simply wants to record a fault and have
it recti ed at the earliest opportunity.
e same would apply to cabin defects,
crew fatigue reports, cabin safety PAUL SAUNDERS
reports and other safety occurrences.
‘Always connected’ applications are a Paul works in the UK for
long way o , so airlines should think Co
Conduce Consulting and Conduce
about starting small with one eye on So
Software developing and
the future. optimization and diagnostic apps, which currently im
implementing aviation software.
Charts and navigation apps have come a long need a PC on which to operate, have the potential He has spent the past 13 years
way in just a few months. e Jeppesen and Lido to be tweaked to run on tablets. e promise of working in Aeros
Aerospace IT within MROs, OEMs
charting apps which were essentially glori ed proof tablet devices running Windows 8 that are just as and Software Companies in the UK and the
of concepts for the iPad at the beginning of 2011 are good as the current forerunning tablets cannot come Middle East. In recent years he has been heavily
now almost fully featured with enough functional soon enough for some so ware vendors. involved in developing software with a focus
and content coverage to meet the needs of the e consumer IT industry has been on user experience and user centric design.
majority of mainstream airlines. eir business characteristically swi to seize upon the technology He regularly writes and present on trends
models for monetization make great sense, where trend of tablet devices. Unsurprisingly Apple’s iPad within aviation IT, being described by some
the app is given away on iTunes, acting as a shop is at the forefront of a revolution that is leading to as ‘visionary’. Paul has recently worked on the
window of capability, whilst content is distributed the consumerisation of business so ware. Airlines design and development of a number of tablet
through subscription services. is is a business around the world have recognized that iPads and and mobile apps for aviation and has assisted
model being copied by similar so ware subscription other tablets are here for the long haul and have airlines, MROs and software vendors devise and
services. It is unlikely that we will see iPad apps made sensible baby steps towards adopting such implement mobile and tablet strategies.
acting as primary navigational devices instead of on- technology. In spite of the current limitations that
board systems, but it is widely believed that tertiary I have mentioned, many airlines have already ASK THE EXPERT
navigation and weather charting apps might be on e ectively and creatively constructed business plans In addition to being available now to answer
their way. for the acquisition of iPads or other tablets, whilst any questions you have arising from this White
We should expect to see a whole host of niche keeping one eye on long term plans for further roll Paper, Paul Saunders and his colleagues Wayne
utility and productivity apps springing up with out and utilization. User adoption of such devices Enis and Rachel Andrews are available all year
OEMs, MROs and aviation service providers and systems is excellent. One airline that I have round for one-to-one consultancies via the Ask
actively evaluating how they can extend their worked with had no fewer than twenty volunteer The Expert feature at www.aircraftIT.com. They
service capability through technology. Performance ight crew who signed up to use their own personal will be happy to assist you with your queries.
INTERACTIVE
About Conduce Consulting ASK THE AUTHOR A QUESTION
CLICK HERE TO LEAVE YOUR QUESTION
Conduce Consulting is the consulting arm of Conduce Group. Their focus is on the relationship
between IT and corporate strategy. They provide high quality professional services in a number
of elds including Enterprise Architecture, Project Management, Data Services and Business
INTERACTIVE
JOIN THE DEBATE
Consultancy in the Aviation IT sector. CLICK HERE TO LEAVE YOUR FEEDBACK ABOUT
THIS ARTICLE AND START OR JOIN A DISCUSSION