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HOME > INDUSTRY VERTICALS > AVIATION MESSAGING
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| White Paper on Aviation Messaging 2.0 |
| - Copyright 2017: Iver Winther, Frederiksberg, Denmark |
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Aviation Messaging: Faster, Cheaper,
Better Through Modern Technology
The air transport industry has grown
strongly, using what are now legacy
technologies. But cost can be reduced using
modern web-based messaging technology. In
addition, service features will increase
significantly.
Cross-Industry Communication Necessary
The air transport industry is a complex industry
where no company has a complete end-to-end
delivery system. Every company works with
business partners to support the movement of
aircraft, passengers, cargo, and maintenance
support across the globe. The requirement to
work with business partners creates a need for
communication about the flights, their loads and
maintenance status. Obviously, this
communication needs to be standardised, flexible,
and machine-automated to speed up processing
time and reduce cost of operations.
The chosen technology for executing intercompany
communication has been IATA Type B
airline messaging since the 1960s. This technology
offers a simple protocol that is applied globally
and accepted by nearly all companies in the airline
industry. It also offers a very large set of
standardised message formats that are used to
communicate about almost everything – from seat
bookings to airline load sheets and cargo air
waybills to messages describing the onload of a
flight before it lands at the airport.
This means that messaging is used to exchange
information about the shared processes across the
airline industry. It is used when airlines are putting
seats up for sale with their business partners, it is
used to control the process of ordering and
executing cargo transportation, it supports the
execution of flights, it is used to communicate
information about cargo and passengers to the
relevant authorities, and it is used to coordinate
the overall journey of passengers and cargo from
arrival at the airport to final arrival/delivery, and
so on and so forth.
Use is Growing with the Industry
The air transport industry is a continuously
growing. Passenger traffic has grown 69% over the
last 10 years. In the same period cargo traffic has grown more than 45%. (IATA industry
reports.) Equally IATA is forecasting an annual
growth rate for passenger numbers over the next decade of more than 4%, and cargo is estimated
to grow annually by 4,4% in the next 5 years.
Equally, in the preceding 10 years messaging
traffic has grown around 200%. (Estimate based
on industry intelligence.)
With IATA forecasting strong growth in passenger
and cargo volumes it seems reasonable to assume
that messaging traffic is set to continue its
impressive growth in the coming years.
Messaging is Creating Efficiencies
The increase in messaging clearly comes from
supporting the creation of value for the airlines. It
allows for increased coordination, reducing
handling and turn-around times while allowing
marketing and sales people to sell more and
accurately adjust the prices to the demand curve.
The successful communication about flights,
passengers, and cargo allows industry participants
to continuously increase efficiency when business
partners share needed information, allowing ontime
preparation and speedy execution of the
required processes.
As a side note this shared global infrastructure was
envied by other industries and so industries like
the banking and the car industry have copied the
idea and built shared messaging and
infrastructure standards to support collaboration
inside their industries. This has helped them to
grow in manufacturing numbers and advance
product design while keeping total cost under
control.
Because messaging supports processes and
creates value, companies in the airline industry
can benefit from enhanced messaging; for
example, passenger airlines marketing
departments can increase revenues and profits by
managing the price curve of seats more
accurately, allowing them to find a better balance
between sales prices and the number of seats sold
on each flight. Equally, forwarders and handlers
could increase sending of receipts to acknowledge
they have acted on information received. And the
list goes on in terms of activities that would
benefit from an increased level of information;
hence the dramatic growth of Type B messaging.
Legacy Technology Means Legacy Cost
However, the exchange of information through
Type B is often held back because messaging
provided by legacy networks is expensive;
messaging costs are often prohibitive and users
avoid increasing traffic volumes.
Today’s air transport messaging is based on the
Telex technology that was initially introduced in
the 1930s. When airlines started to expand in the 1950s they were looking for a technology that
would help them communicate across the globe -
and Telex was the answer that was set in motion
by SITA and ARINC. The consequence of this is that
the technology that providers are using today is an
evolvement of the original network structure built
on Telex. And while the technology to transport
the data has been upgraded to IP, the structure of
sending all messages to central distribution point
hasn’t been modernized: still using a store-andforward
technique that effectively disconnects the
sender from the receiver and makes all Type B
users dependent on a few central network centres
that the existing Type B service providers have
built.
Keeping a legacy Type B network structure has
both operational and financial consequences.
However, the evolvement of the Type B
infrastructure has had a limited impact on the
pricing of Type B message transportation. The
price models still depend on counting the length
of each message and calculating the price based
on addresses and where these are located – as can
be studied for those who have access to the
standard pricing models for Type B. This leads to
complicated operations and billing systems. And a
slow decrease in the lowering of the price levels.
On the operational level the development of Type
B services has failed to reap the benefits of
modern Internet based technologies. When the
need for Type B, and Type A, traffic started to soar
in the late 1970s and the 1980s, the only cost
effective way of doing messaging was to collect
the messages in central distribution centres for redistribution. The cost of networks and
connections prevented that there could be
network connectivity between any two air
transport partners. And consequently, there were
no messaging standards that would support such
messaging networks either.
New Technology Increases Efficiency
But today it is no longer necessary to maintain
central operational centres that need to store and
forward messages. With the evolvement of
ubiquitous access to the Internet, a modern
messaging infrastructure can drastically reduce
the complexity of technology, removing the need
for storing and forwarding messages centrally, as
well as the need to invest in costly redundancy of
data centres to assure 24/7/365 business
continuity.
And because a customer can connect cost
effectively to Internet anywhere in the world,
there is no need to support private networks
either. The inherent infrastructure of the Internet
means that it may be slower at times but it can
never effectively break down. Network up-time
will be very close to 100% when a user maintains
two separate Internet network connections into
two independent Internet providers.
The Internet-based messaging network topology
dramatically reduces the cost of building a global
Type B messaging network. Likewise, the absence
of a need for a central network hub reduces cost
of running a global Type B messaging network.
The simplification of the technology elements
involved also means an increase in the
transmission effectiveness, security, and
traceability of the individual message.
The reduced travel path leverages effectiveness.
Messages do not need to travel to a central point
to be redistributed.
This improvement in effectiveness reduces the
message transmission times to just milliseconds.
Security is increased through encryption that is
simpler to deploy in an Internet network topology
using modern software technology.
Finally, traceability is improved as well as made
available instantly to the sender and receiver of
each individual message.
In summary, the use of modern internet-based
message transmission lowers cost of development
and operation while increasing service and feature
levels significantly.
This is what the future looks like for airline
messaging, such as Type B. And the future is here
now. The described new technology referred to as
‘EDIfly’ is used today on all 5 continents
supporting operations of airlines, authorities,
ground handlers, airports, and GDS providers.
References:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_tele
type_system
2. http://www.edifly.com/ for details on the
‘EDIfly’ technology, how customers have
reaped the benefits of EDIfly, and how
the decrease in cost supports latest
business strategies.
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