Why airlines are reluctant to SWIM
On 20-08-2010, in SWIM, by steve
In the air traffic management context, System Wide Information Management (SWIM) is an accepted concept and in fact SWIM is considered as one of the most important mainstays of both SESAR in Europe and NextGen in the USA. SWIM attained this status through the widespread recognition that the lack of information and the poor management of available information was in fact one of the main causes of inefficiencies in air traffic management.
In the SWIM context aircraft and airline systems are as much part of the net-centric environment as are ATC systems and airports. In other words, information is universal and must be managed as such without artificial barriers separating the partners along legacy divisions based on activity types. It does not mean that everyone may see into everyone else’s kitchen. Commercial and other sensitivities are taken into account but required information is available to whoever needs it, where they need it and when they need it.
Only by going away from the legacy thinking of treating information divided into company domains and replacing it with an information-as-needed type of paradigm can the hunger for information in aviation be quenched. This will certainly cost money but the transition has to be made or the consequences can be dire.
In this light it is certainly cause for worry to read in the July 26 issue of Aviation Week and Space Technology about the debate that took place recently at SITA’s Assembly in Genval, Belgium. There Edward Nicol, Cathay Pacific Airways’ director of information management, while acknowledging the legitimacy of the connected aircraft concept, argued that to date no supplier could provide a business case for such a system. As reported by Aviation Week, he went on to say that the implementation programs being promoted by the manufacturers do not fully recognize the practical difficulties of overhauling an airline’s legacy systems.
Unfortunately the report does not quote the position of airlines in the SESAR and NextGen sphere of influence but I am afraid that their view of the connected aircraft is probably rather similar. And therein lies the lethal trap.
After having discussed information management for more than a decade and having provided input to the operational concept of both SESAR and NextGen, both of which build on SWIM and the idea of a connected aircraft, at a meeting like the SITA Assembly the lack of a business case is quoted as the show-stopper…
May be there is indeed no traditional business case (yet) but there is what one might call an indirect business case. The proven fact that lack of information is the biggest hindrance to creating a more modern ATM system and that reluctance to do away with antiquated systems only perpetuates the situation that blocks progress is in fact a business case in reverse.
The real showstopper is the apparent reluctance of the industry to consider information management on a system-wide basis rather than on a company by company basis.
Paying for the extras on a connected aircraft is probably impossible to justify if only the needs of a company, however big, are taken into account.
Offering an aircraft that is connected only in terms of the airline flying it is similarly senseless.
The new, net-centric environment envisaged by SESAR and NextGen requires the aircraft and the airlines to be connected but those connections are reused for multiple purposes and if the air traffic management benefits are factored in, the price may suddenly appear to be more than reasonable.
SESAR and NextGen are about paradigm change in more ways than one. Among those is the need to change our thinking about information. Closed, legacy systems must give way to ones designed for the net-centric environment if progress is to be made.
Airframers and avionics manufacturers as well as ANSPs must make sure the airlines understand that there is no real choice if future demand is to be accommodated.
But airframers and avionics manufacturers must understand that the airline quest for a business case for the connected aircraft cannot be based solely on airline operational needs and hence they must offer solutions that are compatible with the universal nature of information and which pay for themselves by serving the widest possible need for information, be it on the ground or in the air, be it airline operations or air traffic management.
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Dear Sebastian,
I think that what you mention may play a role but it is unlikely to be the main obstacle. I have been working on various aspects of SWIM for more than 10 years and part of that was for the airlines and IATA. A lot of the questions in the IATA presentation have alrwady been answered…by the airlines themselves when we presented the SWIM principles document to them.
Unfortunately, alot of the people involved have changed jobs or were sent away during the crisis and now I see more and more that the same quetions are being asked again and again instead of actually building things on what has already been discussed and in some ways even agreed.
I think SWIM is suffering under the same kind of major inertia that has made the industry (and that is not only the airlines) miss some of the most important technology opportunities… at least in terms of the workplace in front of business class. ATM could be very different had this not been the case…
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Michael says: We are very keen to get involved in SWIM and replace existing mainframe systems. In looking at developing new systems we continually hit the same obstacle; one comphrehensive source of global data, one source of the truth! How do you see this evolving?
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Michael, things like the EAD (European AIS Data Base)and other collections of information must be seen as elements of the future SWIM environment. The way SESAR and to a certain degre the FAA is developing things, in the future the EAD, the airlines, ANSPs, Airports and what have you would publish the fact that a certain information is available from them and whoever needed that information would then either subscribe to it or ask for it on a one by one basis. Whether a given requester is authorized to get the information concerned will be rgulated by access rules. Take the example of trajectories that someone might need to determine workload in a given peiece of airspace. The ANSP interested in this information would subscribe to trajectory information from Qantas, Singapore Airline, Thai International, etc. and whenever those airlines published a new trajectory they will want to fly, the ANSP system would be informed and they can then picj up the data as they need it. This approach is nice on the originators’side since they do not need to worry about who might need their data (like we do to-day when we have to address a flight plan message correctly) while on the ANSP side they can be sure of having the full information at all times (assuming they subscribe correctly but since this is not done on a company by company basis but rather on an airsapce or airport basis, it is easy). The standardization work to make this possible is ongoing and there are several SESAR projects that are working on this concept. Of course while it would be nice to have a SWIM environment on a world-wide basis, there is nothing against implementing this on a continent or even smaller subdivision, the benefits can be had even if only islands of SWIM exist. Please do not hesitate to write to me at steve@bluskyservices.com if you would like to discuss this further. My company was in fact part of the original team that defined SWIM so we do know a few things about the subject.
Dear Steve,
maybe the airlines who can afford sophisticated information management software today fear loosing their competetive advantage by SWIM?
Compare what IATA said at the 2008 ICAO meeting on the net-centric information environment: http://www.icao.int/NetCentric/pres/D.Behrens.pdf
Best regards
Sebastian