Founded in 2018 by three entrepreneurs specialising in computer vision, the Swiss-based start-up company Assaia has created a unique AI software to solve visibility blind spots during turnarounds.
ApronAI has been designed to allow airlines, ground handlers and airports to have real-time information about ramp events to expedite turnaround times and enhance safety.
“Once they stumbled upon the issue of the turnaround, and found out that it is a blind spot for all the different stakeholders, they soon realised they were onto something — the positive reaction they’ve received from the market has been quite remarkable,” said Christiaan Hen, CEO of Assaia.
From those start-up years, Assaia has now developed into a global tech leader with at least 168 airlines and 20 airports globally implementing ApronAI to optimise turnaround operations.
ApronAI involves having strategically placed cameras located across aircraft stands that generates accurate timestamps for turnaround events in real-time. Leveraging machine-learning technology it enables accurate predictions and informed real-time decisions, alerting users to deviations to operations, such as catering truck delays or safety issues.
It has already proven to have enhanced on-time performance (OTP) and gate capacity at congested airports.
“If every turn during the day is a few minutes shorter, at the end of the day, they’ll be able to save up some of the gate capacity, allowing them to provide additional turns per gate per day,” said Hen.
“Gate planners know earlier if there is going to be any gate conflict, which gates are not going to be available when they need them, allowing them to make gate changes before that next flight arrives,” he said.
The AI system also reduces fuel costs for airlines. At Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, airlines saved as much as $1 million in kerosene costs per year. At the time of going to press, Assaia had just celebrated the 1,000,000th turnaround at the airport.
Alaska Airlines said that it has experienced a 17% increase in on-time performance at Seattle, spending an average of four minutes less on a turnaround.
Similarly, at Toronto Pearson International Airport, ApronAI has reduced ground delays by 3.4 minutes, equating to more than $343.40 cost savings per flight. It also cut average taxi-in times by 44%, saving 120 million kilograms of carbon emissions.
On the other side of the pond, Thomas Hoff Andersson, Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer, at Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER), said ApronAI has already made a significant difference to improving visibility during a turnaround.
He said: “Before working with Assaia, we struggled with visibility during turnarounds. Sharing real-time information between airlines, ground handlers, and the airport was impossible, negatively impacting on-time performance. Assaia is now deployed across most of our stands and has already enabled our process managers to resolve issues in real-time, such as catering or baggage delays. Results are improving every month — of nearly 7,000 arrivals in December, more than 98% of first bags were delivered within 30 minutes, with just seven taking over 60 minutes. These are the best baggage handling results we’ve ever achieved, ensuring an exceptional passenger experience.”
ApronAI can also enhance ramp safety by alerting customers to know whether FOD inspections have been carried out or not by ground crews.
“We’ve had customers where, according to their standard operating procedure (SOP), they needed to do a FOD walk before every turnaround. Unfortunately, it wasn't always happening. After we went live with the system, the ground handler would basically receive a call every time they didn’t follow that standing operating procedure,” said Hen.
“We saw a 60-70% increase in adherence to this type of SOP procedure just because we were monitoring it,” he added.
Monitoring APU usage
Lastly, ApronAI also monitors APU engine usage, alerting ramp crews where the APU is still on, leading to cost savings and environmental benefits.
“The APU engine is supposed to shut down after the ground power is connected,” explained Hen. “It’s normally around five minutes after arrival, but in practice, that doesn't always happen and it costs the airline money because of the kerosene that goes into the engine. It’s noise pollution, it’s carbon emissions, and again, it’s not something that was structurally monitored until now, but since we can start to measure that, we can alert individual cases where the APU is still on and find out why is that the case.”
When asked why companies should choose ApronAI, he said: “Technologically speaking we’re a safe choice for our customers. We’re not just delivering the technology or the product. A lot of hard work goes into the adoption and to changing workflows and the way people work. We’re not replacing an existing product with a new product, we’re bringing a new product altogether, it’s a collaborative platform that both airlines, airports and ground handlers can use in order to achieve those results, like shorter turnarounds and fewer safety incidents.”
Looking ahead at 2025, many exciting new products are coming down the line, like the creation of a Central Turn Management Solution and additional product development to optimise turnarounds further.
“We’re also seeing many inefficiencies further out on the apron. For example, there's, unfortunately, quite a lot of reports of ground incidents where aircraft are clipping their wings with other aircraft, or with equipment or with infrastructure, and these are all examples of a lack of visibility, again, because nobody intentionally makes an aircraft collide, it’s a symptom of a lack of visibility from the gate to the runway, so that’s another area where we can help,” he added.