Digital automation has proven to be an effective tool in business aviation flight operations, but there is still a way to go to make it an even more efficient system for operators, according to a panel of experts during an EBACE Connect session on Thursday.

Bernhard Fragner, CEO and founder of European charter operator GlobeAir, noted that automated systems are largely focused at the operator level, connecting sales, dispatch, and flight crews but no one outside a given organization, such as ATC, airports, FBOs, fuelers, caterers, maintenance providers, and even regulators. They are an integral part of a flight operation, yet unlike the operator and customer they are not a part of the digital automation process.

“Right now, I think the operators…focus on solving a company’s problem by getting automation in there, but I think now we have to go to the next step,” he said. “There are so many stakeholders, and we need to connect them all. We need the data and automation within the entire ecosystem. I think this is a key element—how we can share data. The amount of double work, manual double work, our industry does is insane. These are man-hours we can save by sharing data.” That includes sharing passenger data between charter providers.

“We need to have a much more collaborative approach,” agreed Robert Fisch, Luxaviation president of aviation services. In the instance of Luxaviation, it is “a pretty large customer of GlobeAir,” yet transferring a client’s information between the two operators—such as passport information, food allergies, and other preferences—requires additional manual inputs on the part of the receiving operator. From a surface view, these automated systems may appear high-tech and new, but, Fisch said, “once you open the door and go look at the back office it’s quite surprising. Look at the flight plan that we’re still using in 2021. This is a flight plan out of the 1970s. It’s an embarrassment.”

Implementation of the Single European Sky initiative would also go a long way toward updating and improving digital automation for operators by removing a hodge-podge of control over European airspace by a number of different countries to a single entity. “We have to remove this thinking in national borders,” Fisch said. “Aviation is an international business, and we don’t need national borders—this authority does this oversight and this authority does this oversight, and so on. We never can be competitive and efficient if we keep all these borders.”