Operational
Performance
"Ultra's Common Use, FIDS, AODB and Resource Management systems provide all of the functionality we demand as a busy and dynamic international hub airport."
IS Manager, Metropolitan Airports Commission
Management
Information
As the global demand for air travel continues to grow – at around 5-6% per year – airports must be far more creative in accommodating the increase. In many cases, they do not have the luxury of physical expansion: they are constrained by their location and environmental situation. Given such limiting factors, an airport’s best option is to look inwards: its processes must be rendered more efficient, while still maintaining high levels of quality and customer service.
The airports best positioned to achieve this, and so derive the maximum benefit from their existing infrastructure, are those that recognize the importance of accurate, comprehensive, timely and, above all, trustworthy data.
“UltraDB is at the heart of our airport IT operation and UltraIB is its circulation.”
Chief Information Officer, Changi Airport Group, Singapore
Situational
Awareness
Through the consolidation of multiple information sources key to the operation, Situational Awareness offers a visual presentation of the data in a manner that enables the proactive monitoring of the passenger, baggage and aircraft value chain.
The speed of operational reaction time to arising issues can be increased through the support of standardized, pre-defined workflow processes and the availability of relevant, detailed information. This enables problems to be resolved before they materially affect the performance of the operation.
Extensive mobile device support ensures that, as an incident unfolds, staff on the ground can make situational updates based on accurate, relevant and timely information, maximizing their ability to resolve the issue.
By means of the interactive map, the airport’s operational status can be instantly understood; the position and status of aircraft and ground vehicles can be viewed in real time as they manoeuvre around the apron, taxiways and runways.
Advanced
Analytics
By utilizing UltraAPEX’s flexible and highly configurable Graphical Workflow Engine, an airport’s operational processes can be mapped and then enriched with a set of environment specific business rules. This enables the airport to quickly understand the performance of the entire operation and easily identify areas needing improvement.
Historic data can be analyzed against a set of Key Performance Indicators to identify operational performance bottlenecks and accurately determine the factors that contribute to repetitive performance degradation.
The workflow engine, supported by a comprehensive set of pre-configured business intelligence packs, means less time is spent gathering and interpreting data and more time can be spent on operational improvement programmes, which are underpinned by accurate performance information.
“We carefully reviewed our options of what is on the market around operational performance business intelligence, and quickly found that Ultra's offering enables much more than that. Its ability to be custom tailored for our specific needs was a real differentiator that set it apart from the rest of the market place.”
Executive Director, JFK Terminal One
Content
Visualization
The continued proliferation of the smartphone, tablet, 3G, and globalized free WIFI environment has spawned a ‘social media generation’ that expects an instantaneous response to requests for information. This has massively increased the pressure on providers of visual media to deliver their messages with the utmost clarity and visual impact to achieve their desired effect.
The provision of visual information is a key part of an airport's arsenal in the engagement with its customers. Therefore, an airport must understand and adapt to these new media challenges if they wish to be successful in delivering their promotional messages to a media savvy, ‘always on’ society.
Management
Aircraft Flow
Airport Collaborative Decision Making (A-CDM) aims to improve the overall effectiveness of operations at an airport. This is achieved through improved efficiency and transparency between airport and aircraft operators, ground handlers and Air Traffic Control, with a particular focus on the aircraft turn-round and pre-departure sequencing process. Studies have shown that A-CDM offers substantial benefits with a predicted benefit-to-cost ratio of 9:1 and a return on investment within 2 years.
An A-CDM without a pre-departure sequencer cannot realize its full potential. Using scientifically designed algorithms, the pre-departure sequencer optimizes the process of aircraft departures. This improves punctuality and slot adherence, making your airport more attractive to your airline customers by delivering substantial fuel savings, and efficiencies in all aspects of ground handling.
The process is visualized through Ultra’s A-CDM dashboard. This supports all 16 Eurocontrol milestones, but is also fully configurable to enable airports outside the Eurocontrol jurisdiction to define the milestones that are most important to their operation. It provides an overall view of the entire turnaround process, including the capability to view by exception and to proactively manage the flights predicted to be late.
Resource
Optimization
With demands on our time ever increasing, there can be little doubt that the single most frustrating problem for today’s traveller is delays. Whether that is queuing at check-in, waiting to retrieve baggage or being held at a gate due to a late boarding time, the net effect is always the same: dissatisfaction.
What was tolerated in the past is no longer acceptable, and the modern airport needs to be able to address the causes of these delays by unlocking the full potential of its vital resources.
Without the right tools in place, this can remain a distant ambition. Ultra’s Resource Optimization System turns ambition into reality.
"I can utilize Ultra’s RMS software to assist me with my resource planning functions along with the ability to keep the resource layout and rulebase up to date with our current operating perameters. This will certainly assist our operations staff, who work with the system on a daily basis.”
Manager Operational Planning JFK T7
Calculation
Charge
As the competition to attract and retain airline business becomes ever more acute, an airport’s ability to foster an agreeable working relationship with its partners becomes increasingly important. Reducing incidence of disputed financial transactions, through efficient, timely, accurate billing, is a key to building and maintaining this relationship. The ability to manage charging-procedures, and to ensure that corresponding models can be evolved quickly and with minimum negative impact, is essential to ensuring continued growth.