SITA recruits Rolls-Royce

13/03/2019

Rolls-Royce plc has become a launch customer for a new service by SITAONAIR to provide airlines with a ‘neutral’ system to transmit aircraft technical data to equipment manufacturers and maintenance specialists.

SITA’s cloud-based information management service, dubbed ‘e-Aircraft DataHub’, can collect, classify, decode and store data that is being automatically generated on aircraft, before dispatching appropriate datasets to airline-specified service providers.

The service is available for airlines wishing to send their data to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and third-party maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) providers.

SITA acknowledges the reluctance of airlines to permit OEMs access to sensitive data has been a factor that has “hampered progress” in utilising aircraft data to improve operations, for example through predictive maintenance.

Geneva-based SITAONAIR, which is jointly owned by airlines and other aviation stakeholders, describes itself as “perfectly positioned to act as a trusted and neutral data intermediary between airlines and OEMs”.

Pierre-Yves Benain, head of SITAONAIR’s e-aircraft programme, stated: “By acting as a secure, neutral data-broker between an OEM and an airline, SITAONAIR keeps the control and ownership of aircraft data firmly in the airline’s hands.”

Nick Ward, Head of Product Management at Rolls-Royce, said that the UK company has extensively tested SITA’s service, which he describes as a “powerful data solution”, enabling it to work with airline customers to “navigate and extract greater value from aircraft data in a trusted way”.

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