Skyguide and Flightkeys team up to deliver optimized flight planning

Skyguide, the Swiss Air Navigation Service Provider (ANSP), and Flightkeys, the Vienna based company that created the innovative new flight management system FLIGHTKEYS5D, have entered into a partnership that will allow Flightkeys to use skyguide's quality-enhanced worldwide SmartNOTAM and AIP data service.

The SmartNOTAM service provides skyguide’s customers with numerous NOTAM enhancements such as translation into English, deduplication of NOTAMs, format standardizing and digitizing of textual information into XML. Flightkeys and skyguide will further develop the SmartNOTAM service and add new information and capabilities to enable increased optimization of the automated flight planning process in FLIGHTKEYS 5D.

The skyguide AIP data service not only assures monitoring and screening of AIP changes worldwide, but also offer digitalization of specific information that is automatically processed and loaded by FLIGHTKEYS 5D into its comprehensive system database. This allows FLIGHTKEYS 5D to subsequently automate various processes in more detail, such as airport and en-route suitability checks.

“Observing the slow global spreading and availability of digital NOTAMs coded in AIXM, we felt that a more streamlined and focused technical and semantical approach is required to fill that non-availability gap of digital NOTAM information for flight operations. A big part of the AIXM features aim to model data that is not directly relevant for flight management and planning. The fact that the AIXM model aims to be holistic, is slowing down the adoption process for digital NOTAM publication”, says Felix Hackl, one of the Flightkeys founders and CTO.

“5D NavServices is an integral part of our FLIGHTKEYS 5D solution. We are building up a team of experienced dispatchers, who will monitor worldwide aviation publications and make information that cannot be automatically parsed, available in our system database. The cooperation with skyguide gives us the opportunity to automate the loading of a further extended range of navigational data without manual intervention. This does not only free up resources for more demanding tasks, but is also a quality assurance measure”, analyses Patrice Cotton, also one of the Flightkeys founders and Director of User Experience.

The FLIGHTKEYS 5D customers will not only profit from the improved quality of the data, but also from the higher automation of processes, that are still manual in other flight planning systems. Another asset is the improved NOTAM briefing capability for both dispatchers and pilots. Patrice Cotton states, “With more NOTAM data being provided by skyguide in digital format and the higher automation of processes in FLIGHTKEYS 5D, the dispatchers can focus on tasks where their knowledge, expertise and experience is much better applied and used to create value for our customers. On the other side, pilots will be presented with a more condensed and refined NOTAM briefing, providing them with the information that they actually need for their flight preparation and in a much smarter and clearer way”.

Andreas Lüscher, responsible for the SmartNOTAM and AIP services at skyguide, says, “The cooperation with Flightkeys strengthens our SmartNOTAM customer base and gives us the opportunity to further enhance our service offering and contribute to improving quality and safety.” Flightkeys and skyguide have entered into a multiyear partnership contract with the possibility of further development of the services.