Objectives of the service
A full Crisis Management Service designed to support airlines in handling the entire life-cycle of a crisis from training to audit to actual crisis handle.
- Allow simultaneous inputs from multiple users in multiple locations
- Capture incident information from various sources
- Create a central repository of incident information
- Support effective and safe operations of field teams
- Automate the flow of information among response team members
- Create templates from pre-planned information
Generate reports
Users and their needs
In the feasibility study, AirAsia (a Malaysian airline), PrivatAir (a Swiss airline) were involved as representative organizations from the targeted users’ community.
Crisis Management Policies have, in principle, a common core structure, but the procedures vary for each airline. Based on the Crisis Management Policy, Crisis Management Centers are formed, which are usually located at the company's offices, the location of the incident, the departure airport, the destination airport, etc.
The major problems airlines typically have to face are:
- Delay of communication or no communication at all between the crisis management centers and the airline lack of images from the accident location
- Lack of intelligent software able to filter information to and from the crisis management centers
- Lack of coordination regarding the deployment location of the field teams and information on the shortest and safest way to get there
The aforementioned gaps were examined within the study and an integrated solution was defined. The basic element is an intelligent Crisis Management Service (CMS) which is able to filter all incoming and outgoing information based on defined categories and parameters. The Crisis Management Service, as it is being studied, is integrated with space assets improving the situational awareness, as well as supporting communication and operations.
Service/ system concept
System Concept
As the Crisis Management Service (CMS) is an integrated solution/software with space assets improving the situational awareness as well as supporting communication and operations it will cover any current gaps in airlines crisis management procedures, such as delay of communication, lack of an intelligent software able to filter incoming and outgoing information and lack of coordination regarding the deployment location of the field teams and information on the shortest and safest way to get there. The system provides the ability to the airline to handle crisis quicker and more efficient. It also provides to users the ability to use a software with interlayer, categorizations and high availability capabilities.
Problematic procedures are optimized and handling a crisis becomes more efficient by using a full Crisis Management Service.
Space Added Value
The Crisis Management Service (CMS) will employ three different types of space assets:
- Satellite Communications, will be used for the communication between the Headquarter and the External Team where communication infrastructure is not available and/ or non-existent via an Inmarsat BGAN Service with global coverage and broadband data up to 492 kbps to support voice and data exchange. This will allow to implement a No-Pointing Wi-Fi Global Satellite Internet Hotspot.
- Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), via a BGAN device, will be used so that the exact coordinates of the External Team’s location is provided to the Headquarter and fed to the system database. The location will be displayed on the map API (embedded in the system) for the Headquarter team to determine the main and alternative routes so as to feed the External Team with the incident’s location (and how to reach it) and its geographical terrain (natural access points or access obstacles, etc.). The estimated time of arrival will also be determined in order to schedule further actions.
Satellite Earth Observation, is needed so that base map imagery is used for preliminary overview of the incident area and team coordination preparation. This remote overview will be achieved by using optical satellite imagery. Most of the images in Google Earth and Bing maps are considered updated for the system as time capture of the imagery, is not significant in this system, because geographic features that need to be identified do not change.
Current Status
The study has been completed with the Final Review in August 2018.
On assessing the feasibility of our proposed Crisis Management Service we conclude that the system at all levels can be considered technically feasible and commercially viable.
During the study, we found that there is no risk in the integration of the system and the implementation of the software. Further, having in mind that safety is the most crucial success factor for the Aviation industry, owning an efficient Crisis Management Service is the most important asset for every company operating in this industry.
ICAO mandates that each airline is responsible for establishing a safety management system that includes structures, accountabilities and procedures. Practically, that means that airlines have to adopt an efficient software, no matter the cost, in order to maintain their legitimacy and furthermore the interest of their stakeholders.
Prime Contractor(s)
Subcontractor(s)
