Finnair is part of the One World group and monitors a fleet of 68 aircraft including A340s, A320s, B757s, EMB170/190s and MD11s from their main base in Helsinki.

Finnair has been conducting FDM / FOQA since 2003 and had previously used AirFase for several years. After a trial, Finnair chose to upgrade as the accuracy of Aerobytes analysis and ease of use reduced their workload while improving the information available.

Aerobytes achieves excellent results by being able to assess the quality of certain recorded values. By being able to recognise poor quality data means that false events are very low.


Finnair A340 now monitored using Aerobytes' FDM software

Ari Etelavuori, Head of Quality and Safety Flight Operations, of Finnair commented that "Aerobytes allows us to do proper Flight Data Monitoring ( FDM ) with all the tools necessary in one place. Setting targets for improvements and monitoring values is what it is all about. We are now much more focussed on changing things rather than tracking events"

One feature that Finnair liked and that is unique to Aerobytes is the ability to drill down from statistical points to the point in the flight data they came from allowing for a much greater understanding of the issues.

Drill Down in more detail
'Drill Down' allows Aerobytes users to move from statistics to flight data without intermediate steps. i) Users draw a box around points on a statistical report to list them, ii) select which flights to open (multiple flights can be opened), iii) decide how much data to open. (whole flight, take off, just events etc) The flight data opens at that exact point in the flight where the event or value on the statistical report came from.

Kevin Martin, Aerobytes Sales Manager explains "All crew know they are not supposed to be fast on approach so informing them this is the case will have limited effectiveness. Being able to get to the event and then view the data before lets you see the WHY. Acting on the WHY leads to much greater improvements in safety and economy. It also cuts down on the large amount of time users of other systems can spend validating data never knowing whether it will be viewed again. Most of it isn't"

(This example is not Finnair flight data)