SITAONAIR - DTN partnership brings industry-leading weather alerting to AIRCOM® FlightTracker

An industry-leading weather-alerting feature, empowering flight dispatchers to avoid or anticipate weather disruption throughout flights, has been launched as a new feature of SITAONAIR's AIRCOM® FlightTracker, in partnership with DTN.

Airline dispatchers using AIRCOM® FlightTracker will now be equipped to help aircraft avoid inclement weather – including aircraft-specific turbulence, icing, and thunderstorm forecasts – supporting the smoothest and safest possible flight experience for those onboard, and maximizing fuel efficiency. 

Already adopted by airlines operating more than 250,000 flights every month, SITAONAIR's AIRCOM® FlightTracker is a ground-based software system delivering vital global real-time aircraft position alerting to airline operations teams. The application aggregates the best available inflight position data from a wealth of sources – including cutting-edge spaced-based ADS-B provided by FlightAware and Aireon using the Iridium NEXT satellite constellation – on a single aircraft position display. What's more, no modifications to the aircraft are required to activate it.

SITAONAIR's FlightTracker displaying DTN's Flight Route-Alerting weather data. (CREDIT: SITAONAIR)

Interest in FlightTracker, and its enhanced, 100% global minute-by-minute update capabilities, is accelerating as the industry counts down to the ICAO GADSS 15-minute flight-tracking recommendation, coming into force in November 2018. 

The incorporation of DTN's Flight Route Alerting data represents an important addition to the solution, making it indispensable to flight operators in their flight planning and flight following. 

Paul Rainford, Senior Product Manager, FlightTracker, at SITAONAIR, says: "The responsibility of tracking aircraft is reliant on intensive manpower from an airline's operations and dispatch teams. But armed with FlightTracker's aircraft tracking alerting, and new, weather-based Flight Route Alerting capabilities, operations and dispatchers can focus their attentions on those flights that call for more detailed consideration. This in turn provides improved support to the pilots in the air, contributing to a better passenger experience."

Jon Reifschneider, senior vice president of weather at DTN, adds: "We are excited to partner with SITAONAIR to provide additional layers of safety to all flights. The system allows you to take charge of your flight plan, planning routes up to 36 hours in advance, giving operators the confidence to schedule flights that keep passengers and crew safe, avoid turbulence, and use less fuel. DTN's insights also shed light on weather events that exceed the parameters for any planned routes, enabling flight planners to select the route that offers the best cost and the least chance of weather-related disruptions."