Rockshore provides a range of real-time information services to UK airports. Here's how we helped British Airways by providing a real-time geographical view of the airfield using our Situational Awareness Platform.
The Project
The Situational Awareness Platform was deployed at London’s Heathrow Airport and accessed by a number of carriers, including British Airways.
BA started using the system across a range of functions in April 2007 within their Global Operations Centre based at the airport.
Download the BA Situational Awareness Case Study.
BA access the Situational Awareness Platform securely via the Internet from a variety of standard PCs within their estate. In addition to office –based access, remote users can also use their laptops to securely access the platform.
The service gave operational people an accurate real-time view of events for the first time. This allowed improved, planning, allocation and management of resources, coordination between organisations and ultimately an improved service to passengers.
Feedback
Rockshore spent some time with various operational people at BA's central control centre; here's what they had to say:
With the introduction of the Situational Awareness, British Airways has been given a tool that enables operational staff a real-time view of airfield movements. Aircraft, with active transponders, are now displayed on an Situational Awareness display via the Internet. This gives anyone with a PC the ability to view aircraft movements 24 hours a day. We are continuing to roll the system out to ever more users.
Alan Sheldon, Air Traffic Service Manager, BA
Alan went on to highlight the following user groups as having particularly benefited from the introduction of Situational Awareness:
- Flight Technical Dispatch – responsible for all flight planning.
- Operations Control - maintain BA’s daily schedule, coordinating aircraft, cabin crew and flight crew.
- Heathrow Airport Centre - coordinate all aspects of the ground operation.
- Centralised Load Control - responsible for providing the technical part of load control for aircraft.
Flight Technical Dispatch
The Situational Awareness Platform was displayed on large plasma screens as well as individual PCs. It enabled staff to keep track of arrival and departure movements and quickly identify aircraft locations. It has enabled staff to answer flight deck queries regarding airfield congestion and stand availability.
It’s especially useful if there are any airfield incidents, you can see if the aircraft has departed the runway or taxiway etc. For last wave flights we can monitor the aircraft once they have pushed back.
Chris Barlow, Operations Control Manager, BA
Operations Control Room
Being able to identify aircraft locations quickly and easily has meant improved communication within the department and with external agencies.
It is of particular use during fog and snow conditions.
David Timney, Operations Control Manager, BA
BA Heathrow Airport Centre
Staff can see an aircraft is on the ground and quickly notify ground teams of it's imminent arrival on stand. They can re-allocate resources as required and provide accurate details of aircraft location.
They can monitor pushback procedures, in real-time and react quickly when disruption occurs.
Situational Awareness is particularly useful when we have critical flights needing to be airborne prior to the NJB. It has assisted in discussions with the Tower to promote these critical flights. It has been a strong visual tool for explaining operational situations - for example when there are start up delays or queues at taxiways. Fantastic tool.
Rebecca Grogan, BA Heathrow Centre Manager
Centralised Load Control
CLC compile load sheets for flight crew use. Final load figures are passed to the flight deck after the aircraft has left the stand. Being able to spot aircraft movements much quicker has enabled staff in CLC to proactively ask for loading figures from the Turnaround Manager and speed up the end-to-end process.
The system has been very useful. If the aircraft has called up for final load sheet figures, by looking at the display we can gauge how close to the runway the aircraft is, and therefore the urgency with which we need to pass information.
Ralph Oston, CLC Duty Manager, BA
Last Updated on Sunday, 07 March 2010 16:26.