The economic costs of aircraft delays in Europe have been estimated at 1.25Bn Euros per year. Aircraft delays also result in environmental costs: aircraft holding or queuing with engines on, resulting in excess environmental emissions and air quality or noise impact, unnecessary ground movements and activation of auxiliary power units.

Airport IQ will develop a mobile information sharing system connecting back-end A-CDM systems with mobile devices (smartphones, tablets and other wearable devices) carried by ground staff. The system will provide the right information at the right place and time to the right people, making it easier for planners to make optimal use of resources. This will help reduce primary and reactionary delays, improve the reliability of estimates, and allow airlines to make smarter decisions about turnaround buffers, that will be shorter than before. Airport IQ will also offer a simple way to simulate turnaround activities, making it possible to run operational exercises using the same mobile tools, which will simplify and improve the quality of training, as well as providing the basis for designing longer-term improvements in ground handling processes.

The solution has the potential to create significant economic and environmental savings for the entire air transport value chain, as demonstrated by pilot trials to be organized in 3 European airports (Lisboa, Heathrow and Targu Mures), involving real end-users (i.e. ground handling and other airport staff) using “live” onsite data. The project duration is 24 months and the requested EC contribution is 2M Euros.