Airlines may not replace pilots with artificial intelligence anytime soon, but aviation industry experts say the new technology is already revolutionizing the way they do business.
“Data and AI are fantastic levers for the aviation sector,” said Julie Pozzi, head of data science and AI at Air France-KLM, ahead of the 80th meeting of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) in Dubai.
Airlines executives will gather at the influential annual global aviation summit in the United Arab Emirates on Monday for discussions on the latest industry news, including upcoming AI projects.
Airlines, long accustomed to thin profit margins, see AI as the latest way to increase productivity and gain a competitive advantage.
AI is “undoubtedly a new frontier because it is an extraordinary acceleration of technology and capabilities,” said Geoffrey Weston, chief advisor for the aerospace industry at US firm Bain & Company.
“When you have a lot of uncertainty… what AI is really useful for is massively accelerating getting the right information to the right people as quickly as possible,” he said.
Air France-KLM is doing this, with “more than 40 projects using generative artificial intelligence,” which, like the now famous ChatGPT, should improve as it is used.
One of the plans of the French-Dutch company is that a tool that responds to customers in 85 different languages will be installed on the tablets of Air France agents and is expected to be used at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris in 2025.
– ‘Supported Intelligence –
The airport’s operator, Groupe ADP, has also launched several AI initiatives in partnership with startups – including Allobrain, which uses voice recognition to answer airport calls.
It has “reduced the number of unanswered calls from 50 percent to 10 percent,” said Alban Negret, head of ADP’s innovation department. The airport operator hopes to streamline drop-off areas and shuttle rotations with the help of another subcontractor, Wintics, which specializes in extracting data from real-time surveillance footage.
As air traffic grows, reducing wait times is one of the key challenges facing the sector, according to aerospace expert Jerome Bouchard.
“We have more and more passengers in increasingly cramped spaces, and we’re still traveling like we did in the 1970s,” says the consultant from Oliver Wyman’s Transportation and Services practice.
“There is room for improvement,” he added, referring to the potential of using facial recognition in airport security.
“But all this requires enormous coordination and data synchronization,” which according to Bouchard is still lacking.
Modern aircraft, with their advanced self-diagnosis and control systems, are data factories that can be harnessed with AI, the experts say.
But when it comes to actually flying the plane, they say there’s no question about leaving it to algorithms.
Ultimately, it is “up to humans to take responsibility for decision-making,” Thales CEO Patrice Caine said in March.
“Instead of artificial intelligence, I would speak of assisted intelligence, an intelligence that helps people.”
