Snowflake Software agrees to join Cirium in a deal focused on delivering a complete, real-time view of world flight operations

Snowflake Software Ltd (Snowflake), an innovator in fusing and streaming live flight and navigational data, has signed an agreement to become part of Cirium, the expanding aviation analytics group. Cirium, which is part of RELX, expects the acquisition to give the combined group a world-class capability in handling live flight data for the global air transport industry.

Based in Southampton, UK, Snowflake has accelerated the integration and exchange of flight, weather and aeronautical data through its cloud-based Laminar Data platform. This will now be brought together with Cirium’s flight status, schedule, fleet and traffic analytics.

As demand for air travel increases, seamless data exchange to enable collaborative decision making is fundamental to the future growth of the air transport industry. Snowflake with its award-winning Laminar Data platform is well-placed to leverage this unprecedented demand for data exchange across many airspace users including Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs), Airlines, Airport and Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM) providers.

One such global initiative pivotal to the success of the International Civil Aviation Organization’s (ICAO) Global Air Navigation Plan (GANP), is System Wide Information Management (SWIM). Snowflake is recognized as a key innovator in SWIM having recently operationally deployed the SWIM Gateway for the UAE’s General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA), the first such installation outside of Europe and the USA, providing end-to-end flight data management in the region.

In addition to leading ANSPs such as the GCAA and UK NATS (previously known as National Air Traffic Services), Snowflake’s Laminar Data platform underpins numerous high-profile data exchange initiatives with organizations such as Rolls Royce, International Air Transport Association (IATA) and SmartSky Networks, as well as businesses in the emerging market for traffic management of unmanned drones.

Jeremy Bowen, Cirium’s CEO said, “Both companies share a common mission to free data from its legacy silos and help it flow more fluently around the air transport industry. That is going to be critical if aviation is to achieve efficient and sustainable growth.”

“Combining Cirium’s world-class analytics and global scale with Snowflake’s expertise in fusing and streaming flight information will deliver major benefits across air travel through better and more collaborative decision-making and ultimately smoother traveler journeys.”

Ian Painter, Snowflake’s founding CEO said, “The two businesses clearly share a very similar vision for how data can shape the future in air transport and I’m excited to see what we can now achieve together. The combination should be a huge win for the industry”.

Snowflake will form part of Cirium’s portfolio of aviation data analytics businesses, including: Diio, a leader in airline market intelligence tools; FlightStats, a provider of flight information for airline and travel sectors; and Innovata, a flight schedules company.

Snowflake’s team of specialists in Southampton will join approximately 500 Cirium technologists, analysts, data scientists and market experts based in more than a dozen office locations around the world.

The transaction is subject to customary consents and is expected to complete later in the first quarter of 2020.