Porter Say New Digital Winglets Will Save Fuel, Time & Emissions
by Bruce Parkinson
Porter is offering 25% more sun capacity this winter.
Porter Airlines says it will cut fuel consumption by 2-3% through the deployment of ‘Digital Winglets,’ a flight path optimization product. Digital Winglets will be deployed across Porter’s North American fleet of Embraer E195-E2 aircraft.
Created by Seattle-based APiJET, Digital Winglets is a flight path optimization (FPO) solution that builds on NASA’s Traffic Aware Strategic Aircrew Requests (TASAR) technology.
NASA’s TASAR, along with APiJET’s proprietary algorithms, mapping technologies and live aircraft state data solutions, enable air carriers worldwide to make deconflicted, route-specific flight optimization decisions to save fuel, improve schedule reliability and on-time performance, and reduce carbon emissions.
Porter Airlines operates the world’s largest fleet of Embraer E195-E2 aircraft, and it says the deployment of Digital Winglets will allow it to save 2-3% fuel and 1-2 minutes per optimized flight, while reducing delays network-wide and cutting emissions.
“Digital Winglets provides a powerful suite of tools that allow us to optimize flights in real-time for the most fuel-efficient routing, which improves on-time performance and helps us deliver the elevated passenger experience that Porter is known for,” said Kent Woodside, executive vice president and COO at Porter Airlines.
“The time and cost of introducing new technology across a fleet can be challenging. Deploying Digital Winglets was seamless, and APiJET provided a personal level of hands-on support throughout the process. Our continuing fleet expansion means that each new aircraft is seamlessly added to the platform immediately.”
Digital Winglets is architected with a unique combination of online and ground-based technologies which allowed Porter to deploy it quickly and seamlessly into their fleet of 46 Embraer E195-E2, with no hardware or software to install. As Porter continues its planned expansion of up to 100 Embraer E195-E2s, the benefits of Digital Winglets™ will be immediately available with no additional work.
