CASE STUDY: Singapore Lessor (DAC) eyes further digitalization

Singapore Lessor (DAC) Eyes Further Digitalization

Jefferson Ding, Managing Director at Dragon Aviation Capital (DAC) shares some pertinent insights into DAC’s Digitalization Strategy

Dragon Aviation Capital (DAC) provides aircraft records scanning services and digitization, by means of OCR text recognition from which the final digital documents are structured to fit the Lessors’/Aircraft Owners’ requirements, and are fully searchable. These digitized records are maintained in a secured cloud service accessible to anyone who is authorized to do so from wherever they might be located.

THE GROWTH IN DIGITALIZATION OF RECORDS

As an aircraft and engine leasing specialist, Dragon Aviation Capital is prioritizing records digitalization as part of a future strategy to further embed new technologies into the business. In this article, I’m going to share with you something of what DAC proposes to do, how it will be done and what gains we expect to see as a result of implementing records digitalization.

Given that digitalization is a key issue in aviation right now, we’ll start by looking at what Dragon Aviation Capital, as a lessor, has done to implement this into its operation. Over recent years, we have witnessed a shift toward the digitizing of asset records handling and believe the aviation segment has been progressive in its embracing of new technologies, such as the Global Aircraft Trading System (GATS) tool. Digitizing is the new standard for handling aircraft records and has been in active use in the aviation sector for the past few years.

Digitalization is a tried-and-tested process and, in line with the resurgence of available cloud services, and maintenance records management platforms as well as digitizing of managing aircraft records, we expect that aircraft asset management and transitions will be the new standard practice.

As well as for DAC itself, we are also seeing a more wide-spread digital approach in the industry and with some of our maintenance partners. In fact, it is a continuous trend. In the past year during the COVID pandemic, the aviation industry has been relying heavily on digital platforms to conduct their business. Increasing numbers of aviation companies have tapped into digital platforms in areas such as fleet management and maintenance planning. Some examples would be aircraft lease returns, aircraft pre-purchase inspections or acquisitions and aircraft maintenance checks. We too have gained much knowledge from all these new experiences and will continue to do so as we are pressed to adapt to the new norm.

In a particular step change brought about by the pandemic and a shift toward digital technologies, we have also seen an increasing trend, among ASEAN based airline operators and their MRO spin-offs, to engage third party services provider like DAC to provide cost effective solutions for the digitization of historical aircraft records to improve routine operations and support advanced preparation of aircraft and engine End-of-Lease projects.

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