Toulouse | June 11, 2019–United Airlines has become the latest US airline to connect to Airbus’ open-data platform, Skywise, following an agreement recently signed between the airline and Airbus. United will leverage Skywise to enhance all aspects of its maintenance and engineering operations on its Airbus fleet.

With flexible and visual tools, Skywise enables airlines to store, access, manage, and analyze data more efficiently while also benchmarking against other airline users’ trends. Skywise provides all technology elements in one place, including data warehousing, visualization, alerting, and even machine learning packages, allowing United and other airlines to nimbly develop and deploy their own analytical products.

In addition, Skywise seamlessly connects with the data integration platform, Palantir Foundry. United began using this platform in 2018, and the combination of Palantir Foundry and Airbus’ Skywise will provide United with the data and tools to enhance its operational reliability.

“We are proud to partner with Airbus and Palantir on this new data platform, which will allow us to maximize the performance of our Airbus fleet by analyzing the best data we have available and using those insights to continuously improve our operation,” said Praveen Sharma, United’s Vice President of Digital Products and Analytics.

Marc Fontaine, Airbus’ Digital Transformation Officer said, “Skywise will bring significant value by unlocking data, which will power operational efficiency in aircraft maintenance and flight operations for United Airlines’ fleet. He added, “By extending Skywise to other company business functions, with Palantir, the potential for United will be even bigger.”

Launched in 2017, Skywise is fast becoming the platform of reference used by all major aviation players to improve operational performance, ensuring complete data continuity with benefits across the entire value chain. Today over 70 airlines around the world are connected to Skywise.

Skywise provides all users with one single access point to their aggregated and anonymized aviation data, enriched from multiple sources across the industry into one secure, cloud-based platform. The more data that airlines or OEMs share into the Skywise Core platform, the more accurate the predictions and models for customers connected.

As a recognized leader in innovation, Delta Air Lines partnered with Airbus to enhance Skywise

Through the agreement an additional 400 Delta aircraft will be connected to Skywise

Toulouse, France | October 15, 2018– Delta Air Lines has entered into a multi-year contract with Airbus to continue using the Skywise open-data platform and related predictive maintenance services. The airline will expand the use of the tool to its A320 and A330 fleets – comprising around 400 aircraft – to track and analyse their operations and performance data and assess failure probabilities in order to anticipate maintenance tasks.

Delta was one of the airlines involved in the development of Skywise Predictive Maintenance by co-designing, testing and making improvement recommendations about some of its key features.

“Skywise is the latest example of our great partnership with Airbus,” said Ed Bastian, Delta’s CEO. “Delta people are continuously focused on improving the experience for customers, and this new tool will enable them to provide an exceptional, reliable experience.”

“I’m extremely proud to see our long-time partner Delta Air Lines, one of the leading airlines of the world, join the Skywise platform,” said Tom Enders, Airbus’ CEO. “Skywise is propelling the aviation industry to new levels of productivity and efficiency, and it is truly becoming an industry flagship. I want to thank Delta for their trust and confidence.”

Skywise was developed to enable Airbus, airlines, equipment manufacturers and maintenance operators to tap into vast amounts of aircraft operational and performance data and identify areas of improvement. Skywise can gather and track many thousands of data parameters on aircraft in operation.

Use of the Skywise-based applications to analyse extensive aircraft data can enable airlines to identify efficiencies, cost savings and enhanced revenue opportunities. Key applications help airlines reduce operational interruptions, maximise aircraft utilisation and flight operations. In particular, Skywise Predictive Maintenance enables them to turn unscheduled maintenance into scheduled maintenance and thus optimise aircraft operations. Airbus rolled-out the Skywise platform at the Paris Air Show in 2017.

• Flight-test programme now underway;
• Three development aircraft will prepare A350-1000 programme for certification.

Toulouse, France | November 24, 2016– The first A350-1000 took off this morning for its maiden flight at Blagnac in Toulouse, France at 10.42 hrs local time. The A350-1000 is Airbus’ largest and most powerful twin-engined airliner ever – and the world’s most fuel efficient large widebody. Equipped with specially developed Rolls-Royce Trent XWB-97 turbofans, the A350-1000’s first flight is taking place over south-western France.

The crew in the cockpit on board this flight comprise: Hugues Van Der Stichel, Experimental Test Pilot; Frank Chapman, Experimental Test Pilot and Gerard Maisonneuve, Test-Flight Engineer. Furthermore, monitoring all the test parameters at the Flight-Test-Instrumentation (FTI) station behind the cockpit are: Patrick du Ché, Head of Flight & Integration Tests; Emanuele Costanzo, Head of A350 Development Flight Tests; and Stéphane Vaux, Flight-Test Engineer.

Benefitting from the experience of the original A350-900 test campaign (accomplished in 2014), the A350-1000’s development programme will be shorter – under one year for the three aircraft. The overall campaign will culminate in the type’s certification followed by its entry into airline service scheduled for the second half of 2017.

The A350-1000 is the latest member of the Airbus leading widebody family, together with the A330neo, offering unprecedented levels of operating efficiency, low noise and true long-range capability. As well as having a longer fuselage to accommodate 40 more passengers than the A350-900, the A350-1000 also features a modified wing trailing-edge, new six-wheel main landing gears and more powerful Rolls-Royce Trent XWB-97 engines. The A350-1000 embodies all of the fuel efficiency and ‘Airspace’ cabin comfort of the original A350-900 – but with extra size perfectly tailored for our customers on some of their busiest long-haul routes. To date 11 customers from five continents have placed orders for a total of 195 A350-1000s.