Malaysia Airlines to adopt space-based alerting system for flight tracking

TINNews |

TIN news: Malaysia Airlines will be the first airline customer to deploy internet company SITAOnAir’s latest flight tracking solution.

Under the terms of the deal, each Malaysia Airlines aircraft will have access to minute-by-minute, fully global flight tracking data that will be provided by SITAOnAir’s Aircom FlightTracker.

SITAOnAir Aircom portfolio director Paul Gibson said: “With the addition of the Aireon data, via FlightAware, to SITAOnAir’s Aircom FlightTracker, combined with our active monitoring and automated alerting capabilities, Malaysia Airlines will be at the cutting-edge of real-time flight-tracking technology.

“With access to up-to-the-minute reporting, Malaysia Airlines will know the location, heading, speed and altitude of all aircraft in its fleet, at all times, and be alerted to any exceptions.”

"With access to up-to-the-minute reporting, Malaysia Airlines will know the location, heading, speed and altitude of all aircraft in its fleet, at all times."

The new solution will help upgrade existing SITAOnAir Aircom FlightTracker by combining Aireon’s space-based automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) data with the existing data from global aviation company FlightAware’s multiple global sources.

This will complement the active air navigation service provider (ANSP) future air navigation system (FANS) activity data.

Malaysia Airlines' aircraft operations centre will use this data to receive real-time position updates of its airborne fleet worldwide.

In addition, the space-based ADS-B data will help bridge any existing data feed coverage gaps that remain, particularly over oceanic and remote airspace, where there is currently no surveillance.

FlightAware CEO Daniel Baker said: “In addition to not requiring any new avionics or modifications to their aircraft, Malaysia Airlines will seamlessly gain real-time flight tracking ability of its fleet, even in areas where regional ANSPs do not have full surveillance.

“The result will be that Malaysia Airlines will have greater visibility of its aircraft’s exact location.”

In November 2016, SITAOnAir, Aireon and FlightAware entered a new partnership to provide SITAOnAir customers with Aireon data via FlightAware.

FlightAware delivers a combination of global air traffic control data, aircraft datalink information and terrestrial ADS-B information via a secure streaming data feed.

Expected to be operational next year, the Aireon system will enable the airlines using SITAOnAir’s Aircom FlightTracker to automatically start viewing the new Aireon data displayed on their systems, without expensive modifications.