The challenge

Challenges that arise in daily operations are felt by both large commercial airlines/airports and small regional ones. Operational challenges can lead to delayed and cancelled flights and a bad passenger experience. Let’s take a look at some of the pain points felt by large airlines and small regional airports.

Large commercial airline pain points:

• Difficult to keep track of all flights departing and arriving and which tasks are required.
• Making sure tasks are completed on time to ensure efficient turnaround and minimise delays.

Small regional airport pain points:

• No IT team

• Lack of resources to ingest flight data from the airlines

• Lack of consistent data causing confusion

• Using collaboration software like Microsoft Teams or Slack to communicate across different departments throughout the airport

Pre-2011, pen, paper and excel spreadsheets were the norm for managing operations in the service and aviation industry, even though these tools weren’t created for this purpose. Today, most large enterprises have some kind of software, but these are often siloed and are an amalgamation of different interfaces. That’s where Springshot and OAG comes in.

Given these challenges – Springshot needed a complete, reliable and comprehensive source of flight status data that could be easily integrated into their platform. The integration enables the team at Springshot to create a timeline view of key operational status data related to flights arriving and departing.  

The solution

Springshot relies on great data to deliver a a clear and accurate/timely view of where resources are required and what tasks are needed in order to get the aircraft turned around in time.

By integrating a live feed from OAG, Springshot creates a schedule for the airport/airline. With that, users are able to see which flights are arriving and departing, with estimated and actual times for gates and runways and where resources are required. Small changes to an aircraft arrival time or equipment used can have a huge impact on on-the-day operations if they are not spotted early.

But, with the integration to OAG data, all changes are reflected instantly. The platform receives all timed data updates such as arrival terminal, gate, baggage carousel and more, allowing staff to keep track of all updates and plan their work accordingly.

Springshot combines status data elements with data mining techniques to determine what tasks (or missions) are required for both inbound and outbound flights, such as cleaning, re-fuelling and catering and are assigned to workers based on the aircraft type, skills, certifications and gate. Springshot has built a platform that teams at companies regardless of size love to use thanks to its human-centred design.

The results

Relying on OAG data , Springshot is able to deliver a high quality platform that airports and airlines can trust and manage their everyday tasks, based on the exact times aircraft are arriving and departing.

When a large global airline in the Americas incorporated the Springshot Platform into their operation, the benefits were immediate and dramatic. Just three months after introducing the platform, the airline’s preventable flight delays and delay minutes had dropped by over 40%, generating millions of dollars (USD) of annualized operating savings. Even better for the airline, comparing these savings with the cost of Springshot, they realized a Return on Investment (ROI) exceeding 20x.