Air Austral on fuel reduction pilot with Panasonic and Safety Line

Reunion-based Air Austral is to see fuel reduction on its Indian Ocean flights thanks to a new data analysis system developed by Safety Line in collaboration with Panasonic Avionics.
Time Aerospace thumbnail


As a first step, Air Austral will implement Safety Line’s OptiClimb solution on all aircraft in its fleet, which will allow the carrier to save up to six percent of fuel during ascent by delivering optimised climb profiles to pilots ahead of each flight based on known data from each individual aircraft.
The optimisation process leverages historical flight data and combines machine learning performance models for each aircraft together with accurate 4D weather gradients throughout the climb.
In parallel to implementing OptiClimb, Air Austral has also agreed to test Safety Line’s OptiCruise and OptiDescent solutions. These utilise Safety Line’s on-board OptiFlight App together with Panasonic’s connectivity to provide real-time flight recommendations taking into account the latest weather forecasts.
This test campaign is a major step forward in the strategic partnership between Panasonic and Safety Line which was first announced in November 2016 and is geared towards delivering connected fuel saving solutions to airline customers.
“Air Austral looks forward to saving fuel and reducing the carbon footprint of both our narrowbody and widebody operations. We are also very excited in partnering with Panasonic Avionics and Safety Line to test and validate innovative fuel saving solutions that will benefit the industry as a whole,” said Olivier Jay, head of the airline’s flight operations at Air Austral.
“Combining our strategic partnership with Panasonic Avionics, one of the major players in aviation, and the agility of Air Austral, who operate a modern and well-equipped fleet allows us to accelerate our innovation process in ways we could only dream of,” said Pierre Jouniaux, CEO of Safety Line.