For those who missed it, CCMA was a great conference at which professional relationships were being formed and strengthened. It also featured some really valuable learning opportunities.
ALTA CEO Luis Felipe de Oliveira opened the CCMA conference in Cancun with a call for more investment in airport infrastructure. He also highlighted customs burdens that the inhibit commerce through Latin America. He called for greater uniformity and less complexity in order to facilitate aviation as a global industry.
Big Data
CCMA Technical and Procurement Committee Chair Ahmad Zamany (VP Technical Operations, Copa Airlines) spoke about big data and its use in operations management. He noted that when an airline considers investing in “big data,” it has to assess the cost against the benefit. If current fleet dispatch reliability is at 99.2% and the airline believes that big data can get it to 99.5% then still has to assess the benefits of that dispatch reliability against the costs. There will be a point (a cost), above which the investment is not warranted, especially if you would only be eliminating certain small delays that have minimal cost.
Zamany explained that the value of using “big data” to drive predictive maintenance may be higher than its value in mere dispatch reliability. This is where sees the highest return on the investment into big data. He also noted the safety benefits of such an implementation.
Chris Markou explained that the industry is impeded in using big data efficiently by industry participants who are willing independent and who do not share data. He exhorted the industry to find ways to share data more effectively and more generally.
There were also discussions about who owns the data generated by operations. Air carriers complained that some OEMs are making the air carriers pay to access their own data. Mauricio Rojas Arteaga was there from Skywise, (an Airbus company) and he pointed out that Airbus has invested in finding ways to share operational data more broadly with air carriers. Zamany expressed his belief that the operational data belongs to the operator, because it is produced by the air carrier’s operations efforts. Arteaga agreed with Zamany’s point – that the data belongs to the airline – but he explained that the analysis is the most important part, and that analysis is what air carriers are paying for.
Sebastian Binz of Eurowings said that operators need to be able to control the data as well as owning it.
Zamany notes that part of the problem is lack of standardization which makes it difficult to use and share and correlate information.
CFM-IATA
There were several discussions of the CFM-IATA Agreement. Under that Agreement, CFM has pledged to prevent anti-competitive behavior and has established a mechanism to address allegations of this sort of behavior. IATA hopes that this CFM commitment will serve as a model for other type certificate holders.
Gonzalo Yelpo, ALTA’s Legal Counsel, ALTA led a panel on this subject featuring:
- Jason Dickstein, General Counsel, ASA
- Daniel Kanter, Assistant General Counsel, Chief Counsel Global IATA Antitrust and Competition Law
- Brian Ovington, Marketing Director, GE
- Francisco Sanchez, VP Strategic Sourcing Technical & Supplier Management, LATAM Airlines
It is believed that this agreement could help reduce costs in parts and repairs, as well as encouraging new innovations that will help improve reliability and safety. The ALTA community seemed very excited about this Agreement, with many asking questions about how best to use the Agreement, and some specifically asking about the methods for raising their concerns to the CFM Liaison Officer.
Labor Force and Diversity
Labor force development and diversity continue be important issues with panels on labor force as well as on Women in Aviation. The Women in Aviation panel featured ASA Director Lee Kapel (CEO of TSI Aviation). That panel noted that only 2.39% of the American maintenance personnel are women, and the panelists shared their views on how to bring more women in aviation careers. A labor force panel discussed more generally how to attract the right talent and how to keep them engaged
Additive Manufacturing
Additive manufacturing was another hot topic. We assisted in the learning process by discussing with the air-carrier-only-meeting and the technical committee meeting important factors like
- how to get started
- relying on traditional production processes (like supplier control) as a template for developing novel procedures that are specific to the requirements of additive manufacturing
- the limits of additive manufacturing
- ways for an air carrier to get the benefits without the investment, by encouraging their suppliers to use additive manufacturing where it is appropriate
ASA also shared a workshop stage with Satair’s additive manufacturing guru, Felix Hammerschmidt (Head of Additive Manufacturing Solutions). Satair (an Airbus company) already has over 200 parts being produced using additive manufacturing. Hammerschmidt discussed a number of the factors that influence additive manufacturing. He also noted that in addition to production of part, Satair is also using additive manufacturing to produce tooling on an on-demand basis. This means that Satair does not have to store that tooling in a warehouse, but when a customer need a tool it can be created and shipped immediately. This increases efficiency and allows Satair to be immediately responsive to customer tooling needs. Hammerschmidt estimated that Satair averages the creation and shipping of about one such tool per day.
Competition
All of these topics, above, ended up touching on competition, so it was fitting that the final panel should explicitly delve into competition. Jonathan Berger (ALTON Consultancy Managing Director) moderated a panel about the value of competition in the MRO marketplace. The panelists agreed that that competition was good for the airlines and good for the flying public – hopefully next year the panel will provide more solutions on how to preserve competition in the face of a rapidly consolidating industry.