News - UFIS Airport Solutions

UFIS-AS installs Multi-Source FIDS in Terminal 2 at Dubai International Airport

office@ufis-as.com — 2013-05-21

Darmstadt, GERMANY, May 21, 2013 -- UFIS Airports Solutions (UFIS-AS) and its partner Dubai Technology Partners LLC (DTP) have successfully completed the expansion of the FIDS in Terminal 2 at Dubai International which went into operation on April 30, 2013. With the installation of UFIS-AS's Universal Flight Information Display System (UFIDS), Dubai Airports can now choose from any display supplier that has a PC-based controller running Windows or Linux and easily integrate additional displays into the system itself. Multi-source means that the FIDS can easily incorporate information from other sources such as newsfeeds or the Internet into the display layouts of the FIDS information.

The new FIDS has been installed as part of a necessary expansion and refurbishment of the existing Terminal 2 due to the continued growth of passenger traffic at Dubai International. The existing displays which were part of the UFIS� FIDS provided for Terminals 1 and 2 and Concourse C were replaced by 40" and 55" displays with Windows-based controllers which are managed by the UFIDS application. Through 160 screens, UFIDS provides information to the dedicated and common check-in areas, the gates and the baggage reclaim belts in addition to arrival and departure summary displays. This information is shown in both Arabic and English. The UFIDS Manager client application was included in the delivery which enables the authorized users to modify and design new screen layouts without any knowledge of graphic design. Screens can be designed to include areas of web content together with the flight information. Thus, videos and flight information can be displayed on the same screen or when flight information is not being displayed the full screen can be used for advertising commercials or infomercials. Other sources of information such as metar data can be obtained and displayed in real-time on the screen.

The basis for the UFIDS is provided by the UFIS� AODB which has been operating at Dubai International for over a decade. In addition to the AODB and FIDS, UFIS� at Dubai International also includes the Resource Management System used for auto allocation of parking stands and check-in counters. It also has interfaces with ACL Slot coordinator, SafeGate VDGS, AFTN, IATA Type B messages, NavCanada EFPS, Honeywell AGLCMS, ParkAir Radar and the Baggage Handling System. This means that the UFIS AODB provides the complete flight schedule for the airport and handles updates from the various sources automatically.

UFIDS goes live at Dubai International Airport

office@ufis-as.com — 2013-05-08

On schedule, the new expansion of Terminal 2 at Dubai Airport was opened on April 30, 2013. Our Universal Flight Information Display System is in operation, displaying information from the AODB on various displays throughout the terminal.

At midnight the migration to the new system started with the closure of the old check in area. By 03:00 h, the new check-in area was fully operational and the first flight departed from the new gate area at 04:20h.

Congratulations to the staff of Dubai Technology Partners and the UFIS employees who made this project a success.

UFIS-AS to provide Hub Management System to Emirates

office@ufis-as.com — 2013-01-04

Darmstadt, GERMANY, January 4, 2013 -- UFIS Airports Solutions (UFIS-AS) and its partner Dubai Technology Partners LLC (DTP) are pleased to announce that they have been awarded the contract to supply a hub and turnaround management system as part of the Emirates' Hub Matrix project.

The main functionality will be provided by the situational awareness application Ground Control and Monitoring System from the UFIS� product portfolio. This includes the functionality of a turnaround manager to monitor the status of the ground handling activities and the functionality of a hub and connection management system to focus on the special activities that relate to efficient management of a major hub operation.

The solution will provide common real-time view of the operation on the day for all stakeholders, both internal and external, including the necessary communication channels and user interface for all stakeholders. The project also aims to establish command centers with a real-time view of the events in the operation via automated data feeds. The control centers will receive real-time updates on the state of operations and will be able to detect potential problems before they affect the operation.

The Hub Matrix Project is being undertaken with the objective of delivering the IT solutions, systems, and services required to meet Emirates airline�s future vision (up to 2020) of the hub command and control. The business objective is to improve On Time Performance while best utilizing aircraft and without compromising on safety and security, customer service or brand identity. Visibility of operations in real time, ability to predict operational dynamics and the means to communicate the current situation and decisions are the key challenges faced by the business today. As around 60% to 70% of the traffic is transfers and connections, the complexity of a single departure increases due to its dependency on multiple arrival flights.

The project scope also includes the integration of data from other Emirates' systems and third-party systems at the airport as well as data repository and business intelligence. Additionally, the Hub Matrix system will integrate with Dubai Airports (DA), Immigration and ATC systems which will allow Emirates to view the arrival and departure slots and will form an A-CDM concept with ATC and DA. This will enable the various stakeholders to collaborate efficiently and effectively.

"We are excited and honored that Emirates has chosen to award this contract to DTP and UFIS," said Abdul Razzak Mikati, Managing Director of DTP. "We look forward to providing a system environment that will enable all the service providers, both internal and external, to collaborate to provide more efficient hub operation" stated Holger Mattig, president and CEO of UFIS-AS.

UFIS-AS and delair provide integrated A-CDM platform

office@ufis-as.com — 2012-12-13

Darmstadt/Braunschweig, GERMANY, December 13, 2012 -- UFIS Airports Solutions' (UFIS-AS) and delair Air Traffic Systems GmbH are cooperating to provide the aviation market with a complete A-CDM package (delair). This combines the products of both companies which means that from approach to take off, all airport and ATC activities can be handled by a single system. The step to integrate both sets of products has been completed with the development of a bi-directional interface between the delair client applications and the UFIS Operational Database. The integrated A-CDM platform is currently undergoing operational trials at two major international airports.

The cooperation between UFIS-AS and delair to provide a complete A-CDM platform started in March of 2012 and publicized with a joint stand at the Passenger Terminal Expo in Vienna, Austria in April.

Holger Mattig, president and CEO of UFIS-AS says, �The cooperation with delair means we can offer UFIS� to our customers as a complete A-CDM platform handling capacity planning, arrival management, resource allocation, ground service allocation and departure management. � Dietmar Dippe, managing director of Delair agrees, �The combination of UFIS� A-CDM platform and our proven management tools like AMAN and DMAN provide customers with a complete, harmonized set of tools for optimizing airport operations.�

For more information please contact Stewart Maxwell, Tel: +49 6151 368 1725; E-mail: stewart.maxwell@ufis-online.com or Dietmar Dippe, Tel: +49 531 215 3612; E-mail: dietmar.dippe@delair.de.

UFIS-AS Launches Cloud Computing Solution at Passenger Terminal Expo in Vienna

office@ufis-as.com — 2012-05-03

Darmstadt, GERMANY, April 27, 2012 -- UFIS Airports Solutions' (UFIS-AS) launched the newest addition to the Universal Flight Information System (UFIS�) product portfolio at the Passenger Terminal Expo in Vienna, Austria earlier this month. Airtilus� is a cloud- or intranet-based multi-airport resource management and information system. It provides all the functionality of an AODB, Resource Management System, Flight Information Management System and FIDS for single or multiple airport environments. Furthermore it incorporates a Performance Dashboard so that management can monitor the performance of the airport.

"Airtilus� is designed with two sectors in mind," says Holger Mattig, president and CEO of UFIS Airport Solutions, "Firstly, as software as a service for smaller airports that have very small IT budgets and limited IT support personnel and secondly the larger airport management operation where multiple airports need to be linked in a single operational platform."

Flexibility is a key feature of the system. A large operation may not want to have their data 'in the cloud' but still want a cost effective means of providing the necessary IT at a number of smaller airports. These customers can install Airtilus� on their own server environment and provide access to this via the Internet/Intranet to their different locations and airport operations.

For more information please contact:

Stewart Maxwell
Tel: +49 6151 368 1725
E-mail: sma@ufis-online.com

UFIS-AS to provide Multi-Airport AODB and Resource Management System to ADAC

office@ufis-as.com — 2011-11-30

UFIS Airports Solutions' (UFIS-AS) and its partner Dubai Technology Partners LLC are pleased to announce that it has been awarded the contract to supply a multi-airport Airport Operational Database (AODB) and Resource Management System by the Abu Dhabi Airports Company (ADAC). The scope also includes the provision of the system integration for three airports as well as a data warehouse and business intelligence.

The central system will be UFIS-AS's Universal Flight Information System (UFIS®). When the system goes into operation it will provide a true multi-airport database managing the flight-data for the three airports Abu Dhabi, Al Ain and Al Bateen. It will be possible to manage the data for the airports from one datacenter located in Abu Dhabi. In the unlikely event of a complete communications failure between the airports, local systems at Al Ain and Al Bateen will allow operations to continue normally. Once communications are restored then the data will be synchronized and central operation will be resumed.

The UFIS® package for ADAC includes an Airport Operational Database (AODB), a Basic Data Processing System, a Flight Information Management System (FIMS), a Resource Management System (RMS) and the UFIS® Information Broker (UFIS-IB).

FIMS is used to manage long- and short-term flight schedules and updates these schedules in real-time, including actual times and load data, for all flights operating or being handled at the three airports. One essential source of information is IATA Type B messages that are received via an interface. UFIS® interprets these messages as well as messages that come via the interfaces to ATC, airline and ground handling systems and updates the database accordingly

The Resource Management System dynamically allocates resources to flights based on the flight and transfer information, the physical restrictions of the particular resource and a set of rules which reflect the service agreements between the airlines and the airport.

As a foundation, UFIS-IB will use IBM's WebSphere products for system integration. "Using WebSphere as the basis for the integration," said Abdul Razzak Mikati, managing director of DTP, "will mean that we will provide a defacto industry-standard integration platform that will enable easy integration of the systems currently in the scope as well as new systems in the future."

"We are excited and honored that ADAC chose to award this contract to DTP and UFIS," added Holger Mattig, president and CEO of UFIS-AS. "We look forward to providing an integrated environment between ADAC's three airports so that all airport stakeholders can benefit from automated data processing and increased operational data accuracy.

"To provide the airports' management with the required data, DTP will also provide a data warehouse solution based on IBM Infosphere and tools to generate the necessary reports using IBM Cognos BI solution.

UFIS Airport Solutions exhibits newest release

office@ufis-as.com — 2011-10-04

At the inter airport Europe, October 11 - 14, 2011 in Munich, UFIS Airport Solutions (UFIS-AS) will be exhibiting its newest release - UFIS® 5.1. This incorporates many functional advances, including a re-design of the graphical user interfaces. Using an integrated business process management tool, it is now easier to define processes for ground handling, passenger handling or airport operations in the system.

From these business processes, UFIS® gathers the relevant data and displays them in the relevant UFIS® applications. This ensures that processes are followed and accurate data for measuring KPIs and SLAs is obtained. With the new UFIS® real-time one glance application and dashboard, situational awareness is given and KPIs can be accessed at a click of a mouse button.

With the mobile components of the UFIS portfolio, all data is visible in real-time on PDA, smart phone or tablet PC as well. It is ensured that the right information is available at the right time at the right place.

If you would like to hear and see more about the UFIS® product portfolio for airport and handling operations, come and visit us at Stand 1042 (Hall B5).

Cooperation with SATS and Launching the Revolutionary UFIS 5.1

office@ufis-as.com — 2011-07-05

"UFIS Airport Solutions (UFIS-AS) recently signed a cooperation agreement with SATS Ltd. In this cooperation, SATS provides the user expertise while UFIS provides the technology. The partnership between SATS and UFIS promotes continuous innovation and enables the UFIS Command and Control (C2) system to continue to be at the cutting edge of operations. At the UFIS User Group conference held in Rome in May 2011, SATS presented the latest version of the UFIS system which incorporates artificial intelligence (AI). This new C2 system has embedded artificial intelligence capability that enables real-time dynamic resource allocation, scenario planning and provision of pre-emptive solutions, and supporting delivery of consistent high performance. The AI can also learn from the actual versus planned performance so that it can continuously fine tune the resource planning module to ensure continuous performance improvements.
The SATS Operations Control Centre (SOCC) was established in 2003 to manage the hub activities for Singapore Airlines and Silk Air. Currently, SOCC manages over 400 flights a day involving complex passenger, baggage, and cargo operations interline connections. SOCC comprises an integrated team from all the ground handling components – Apron, Passenger, Cargo, Security, and Catering; with the objective to ensure safe and efficient operations, and to manage exception handling.
By middle of 2011, SOCC will be transformed into SATS Integrated Operations Centre (SIOC) by co-locating and integrating its work processes with other key stakeholders in Changi Airport such as the airport authorities, security services, and immigration, to enhance the efficiency of Changi Airport as a HUB. Beyond synchronizing all activities in the airport, this new arrangement will enable critical airport resources, such as parking stands, runway, and taxiway, to be fully optimized."

Picture below:
Signing Ceremony between SATS and UFIS Airport Solutions on 19 May 2011.
Left to right: Mr. Erik Mathisen (CFO, UFIS AS), Mr. Holger Mattig (President & CEO, UFIS AS), Mr. Philip Lim (Senior Vice President, SATS Lt.), Mr. Clement Woon (PCEO, SATS Ltd.)

2nd UFIS User Group Meeting � Rome, 25th to 27th May 2011

office@ufis-as.com — 2011-04-04

Invitations to the 2nd UFIS User Group Meeting have been sent out to our customers and partners with a very positive response. The event will be hosted by Softlab S.p.A in conjunction with Aeroporti di Roma (AdR) and Alitalia in Rome, Italy. Already we are looking at an attendance of more than 60 people with a number of weeks to go to the event.

If you would like to receive an invitation to the user group meeting, please contact Susanne Henkel at she@ufis-online.com for more information.

We are looking forward to welcoming many of our customers and partners to this event which will give UFIS® users from different airports around the world the opportunity to exchange experiences and to initiate discussions on new applications and features.

UFIS-AS Developing Airport Performance Dashboard

office@ufis-as.com — 2011-03-01

UFIS Airport Solutions (UFIS-AS) is developing an Airport Performance Dashboard (APD) as a portal for top management information. The APD will deliver easy-to-access, high-level information based on an airport's performance and quality goals.

Airport operations managers can view the performance of the operations such as:
• The number of flights arriving and departing per runway
• The number of arrival passengers (based on load information) per flight per hour
• Flight on-time information
• Flight delay information by delay code
• The length of time between on-block and first bag on the baggage belt by flight type (domestic, international, mixed)
• Length of the taxi-in time (from touch-down to on-block)
• Length of the taxi-out time (from off-block to airborne) by flight type
• Utilization of gates
• Utilization of parking positions.

Many of these key performance indicators (KPIs) will be shown for the last two, six, or user-specified period of time. Alerts will be shown when KPIs reach a specified level. Figures can be shown as bar graphs, line graphs or pie charts.

Other KPIs can be added in the future. These include the availability of the baggage handling system, the utilization of baggage belts and the availability of car parking.

The Airport Performance Dashboard is being developed as part of the enhancement contract for the Flight Information Management System at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport but will become part of the UFIS® product portfolio.