Severe flight delays that have plagued airports all over China have given rise to a new breed of services aimed at providing flight status to passengers. China's flight information field has formed a situation of tripartite confrontation featuring the three brands, Hangbanguanjia, VariFlight and TravelSky in less than eight years.

Any traveler who has experienced a flight delay or cancellation might get a frustratingly vague explanation from airlines, explaining that the problem is with local weather or air traffic control. However, few are aware of the fact that one of the reasons for they being stuck at the airport has something to do with airport ground operation efficiency.

Well, that surely does not include the CEO of VariFlight, Zheng Hongfeng. He invited Xiao Xia, a journalist from 21st Century Business Herald, to visit Guiyang Airport in late July, witnessing a new phase of airport upgrade. VariFlight, with over 800 million users, is now expanding its service to metropolitan airports in China.

Though China's aviation industry has seen huge growth since its beginning, there still remains the problem of data collection, let alone information integration among airport, airlines and ATC, which lowers the operational efficiency in the aviation industry as a whole. Zheng has a clear vision to reverse rising trend of flight delays based on the comprehensive and accurate data VariFlight possesses.

It's Time to Step Up Airports' Technology Game

A new system developed by VariFlight is at its trial operation stage, as showed on a two-storey high screen at the AOCC (Air Operations Coordination Center) of Guiyang Longdongbao International Airport.

This system is called A-CDM(Airport Collaborative Decision Making), aiming at improving the overall efficiency of airport operations and the predictability of events by integrating and processing data from multiple chain players, e.g. ATC, airlines etc. Besides, it also displays the real-time airport departure volume, weather, and the status of each scheduled flight. For a metropolitan airport, it is crucial to automatically collect these information, which help make proper assignments to parking locations, airport vehicles and ground handlers, optimize the use of airport resources and ultimately ease the severe flight delays in China.

Methods that are used to collect information at airports are surprisingly traditional. "At some airport, including some of the largest, employees even write those numbers on a piece of paper," Zheng said.

Kunming Changshui International Airport is one of the nine airports that has a capacity of over 300 million passengers annually. Information such as flight status, weather forecasting and parking allocation are not shared across different departments prior to working with VariFlight, leaving them vulnerable to massive flight delays. The story of Kunming Airport suffering another significant delay is constantly on the front page of major newspapers. And the frequent delays often lead to passenger complaints, protests and occasional acts of violence against airline staff in China. It was a nightmare for both passengers and airlines, so to speak.

Kunming Airport started to work with VariFlight about two years ago. VariFlight is in responsible for developing a brand new airport ground operation system for Kunming Airport and other provincial airports. According to CAAC (Civil Aviation Administration of China), Kunming Airport is ranked top in the flight departure rate among airports with a capacity of 100 million passengers annually in China.

Guiyang Airport still has a long way to go, especially when compared to Kunming Airport. However, for a metropolitan airport with a capacity of more than 130 million passengers like Guiyang, there was apparently pressing need of data integration. Guiyang Airport, the first portal of Guizhou Province, is determined to make some progress as Guiyang is doing so well in the booming Big Data industry in the past two years. But there is no shortcut to success. It takes a lot of time to collect all the information we need due to the airport's low informationization level.

The entire pre-departure process is divided into 38 touchpoints to have a more accurate takeoff time, as Zheng points out. The exact start and end time of each step, such as catering replenishment, aircraft cleaning, loading of passengers and baggage, is requested, in that the actual takeoff time is relevant to every step of the way.

VariFlight-It - All About Data

VariFlight, established in 2005, is dedicated to provide incomparable solutions and technologies for China's civil aviation industry. It has three major strategic business units which are tailored specifically to airports/ATC/airlines, businesses and customers.

Today VariFlight has covered more than 30 industries such as travel, logistics, car-rental and insurance. And over 1,000 entities are using its flight status data and industry solutions-including some of the most innovative companies in China and class-leading airports around the world.

Contributed by VariFlight