Artificial Intelligence to optimise Saudi Arabian air traffic management

Frequentis Control Room Consulting (CRC) was selected by SANS to explore how data analytics can be utilised in order to optimise and enhance its air traffic management (ATM) to meet the Saudi Arabian aviation sector growth strategy. Through collaborative workshops and system maturity assessments, teams from Frequentis and SANS identified workflow inadequacies and information deficits at key decision points.

“It was a pleasure to work with SANS engineers and ATM professionals as part of our joint engagement to explore modernising Saudi Arabian ATM data and analytics platforms. Together, the Control Room Consulting team and SANS analysed the data science methods that will improve the quality and timing of decisions,” says Josef Kutschi, Managing Director Frequentis Middle East.

A series of workshops, led by Frequentis principal data scientists and consultants, along with SANS strategy, operations, and engineering departments, provided recommendations and a data technology modernisation strategy for the upcoming years. The workshops followed CRC’s unique methodology to bring lean management into control rooms, securing information flows to ensure the best decision quality for systems.

The intention is to achieve operational efficiency gains in support of the Saudi Arabian grand vision for aviation sector growth.

“The accelerated expansion of Saudi air traffic has exerted new challenges on SANS requiring us to look at our processes and the ways we can increase airspace throughput while maintaining safety. Activating operational analytics is an exciting project we have enjoyed working on with Frequentis experts, which has presented many possibilities for unlocking efficiency gains to enable our growth strategy. Through the employment of a modernised approach and technology set for air navigation services, operational analytics and data science workloads can be enhanced,” says Ahmad Al Zahrani, Chief Strategy Officer SANS.