VENDOR FLIGHT LOG: NAVBLUE

Alarico Fernandes Shares how NAVBLUE has grown both in size and scope to deliver the full range of services needed to complete a mission

Alarico Fernandes brings 20 years of expertise from across the flight ops domain. His experience includes working across several positions in Airline OCC operations and Maintenance Planning as well as developing and managing inhouse airline systems. Rico has been with NAVBLUE for five years and in his new role as the Head of Enterprise Architecture, he is responsible for driving NAVBLUE’s transformation strategy and architectural runway towards a harmonized Flight Ops platform designed for contextual collaboration. Rico’s focus and passion is strategic transformation and innovation.

Aircraft IT: Your name, your job title, and the name of the business?

Alarico Fernandes: Alarico Fernandes, Head of Enterprise Architecture NAVBLUE

Aircraft IT: How did NAVBLUE get started?

AF: NAVBLUE was formed from three independent entities, Navtech, Airbus ProSky, and Airbus LUCEM. In 1994, to expand its flight planning market share and to introduce a runway analysis service, Navtech merged with Compuflight, a flight operations service provider based in New York. The business expanded gradually into Europe by acquiring several other companies. Airbus ProSky was launched in January 2011 with its first initiative being ATM modernization for China Air Traffic Management Bureau (ATMB). LUCEM began as an Airbus program pioneering the Runway Overrun Prevention System (ROPS). In 2016, Airbus acquired Navtech, merging it with Airbus LUCEM and Airbus ProSky to create NAVBLUE. Then in February 2020, NAVBLUE acquired Stockholm based AVIOLINX for their crew management and ops control system and expertise.

Aircraft IT: What is the attraction of aircraft-related software?

AF: Airline flight operations is a dynamic contest between executing a planned schedule, mitigating inevitable disruptions and a constant race against time. There is a continuous hustle and bustle with

“…the reality is that most of the current flight ops software solutions on the market are at least 10-15 years behind what is technologically possible. At NAVBLUE we want to change that, we believe that Airline Flight Operations deserves a new generation of smarter data-driven solutions designed to empower users and enhance efficiency.”

multiple persons communicating, executing and reacting to planned and unplanned events autonomously and yet somehow in coordination. Flight Ops software tools are essential to computing an optimized and robust plan, and then maintaining operational-control and situational-awareness during the execution of the plan while also mitigating disruptions. However, the reality is that most of the current flight ops software solutions on the market are at least 10-15 years behind what is technologically possible. At NAVBLUE we want to change that, we believe that Airline Flight Operations deserves a new generation of smarter data-driven solutions designed to empower users and enhance efficiency.

Aircraft IT: What is the guiding business principle that drives NAVBLUE?

AF: At its core, NAVBLUE is about strategic innovation and disruptive transformation of the Flight Operations domain. We strive to be the trusted partner for our customers to support safe and sustainable flight operations. We work with our customers in product definition and design, and work closely with them to identify possible evolutions for the future.

Aircraft IT: What has NAVBLUE’s greatest business achievement been to date, and why?

AF: At the end of last year, NAVBLUE launched Mission+, a next generation pilot’s electronic flight bag (EFB). Mission+ provides pilots with the right information at the right time in the context of the operational scenario they are dealing with. The first two modules of Mission+ cover flight briefing and an aircraft moving map with live weather and charts. Two more modules that cover pilot documentation and aircraft performance will soon follow. Additionally, next spring NAVBLUE will launch our manage-by-exception HUB that empowers Operations Control Center users with contextual information at-a-glance with manage-by-exception alerting in a single user-centric interface. These two achievements mark NAVBLUE’s transition away from siloed monolithic products designed to solve only one specific problem towards a seamless usercentric approach.

Our vision is to deliver seamless contextualcollaboration and enhanced situational awareness within a harmonized user-centric Flight Operations Platform. This simply means that, rather than multiple systems that a user has to conform to, this platform is designed around the user, proactively presenting information contextual to their role and contextual to the operational scenario they are dealing with, while also enhancing collaboration across flight ops users onboard and on the ground.

It represents a fundamental shift from siloed products towards a flight ops platform built on service-oriented architecture designed to leverage the advantages of cloud-computing. This also lays the foundation for us to leverage data analytics, using machine learning and other forms of artificial intelligence to make our systems smarter. Our goal is to first deliver smarter alerting, then predictive insights and finally preemptive decision support to users of our systems.

Aircraft IT: What have been your disappointments and what have you learned from them?

AF: This is the sixth year since NAVBLUE was formed. The unfortunate recent pandemic has been disruptive to our ambitions and even now recovery is slow for airlines, airports and the entire flight operations ecosystem. We had hoped to be much farther along in terms of our vision and strategy, and yet we feel we are more resilient and better positioned to deliver our vision.

Aircraft IT: In a sentence, how would you summarize what NAVBLUE does for aircraft operations customers?

AF: By combining agile software development with unique OEM expertise, our passionate and “These two achievements mark NAVBLUE’s transition away from siloed monolithic products designed to solve only one specific problem towards a seamless user-centric approach.”

customer-focused team develops flight operations solutions to support the safe and sustainable growth of our customers and the industry.

Aircraft IT: What do you feel will be the next big thing in operations Aviation IT?

AF: As mentioned earlier, we really believe that leveraging data to enhance the optimization of flight operations is an essential strategic step. But it is not simply about post flight operational data analytics. Yes, we do need to close the data loop, draw on the data to understand our operations better. However, the real value is when we can embed the insights from data models within the workflow of flight operations users, to provide them with smarter digital assistance, to leverage machine learning and other forms of artificial intelligence to predict and even preempt disruptions.

Aircraft IT: What do you want your customers to say about NAVBLUE

AF: NAVBLUE is our trusted partner in flight operations, their innovative solutions improve safety, optimize efficiency, and allow us to operate sustainably.