ARINC's additions give borders the edge on analysis

Created 11 years ago, ARINC International is now the fastest growing part of ARINC Inc, accounting for 30% of profits compared with single percentage contributions five years ago.

As well as engaging on a major electronic flight bag (EFB) integration programme with Cathay Pacific, its airports sector has seen more than a dozen key wins, supported by ARINC’s investment in new services and products tailored to the international market.

The expansion of ARINC’s GLOBALinkSM/VHF data link network has been accelerated in 2011, focusing on improving coverage in Asia, particularly India and Pakistan, the Middle East and Africa, as well as reinforcing European coverage in VDL Mode 2.

It also launched three new modules to enhance its APIX system for border control agencies at AvSec World, Amsterdam in October.

The new additions are APIX +PNR providing advanced passenger information (API) messaging with passenger name recognition (PNR) verification; APIX+iAPI providing interactive messaging; and APIX Infinity, an entry-level passenger data analysis tool.

PNR data is a rich source of traveller intelligence and enables border control agents to build a threat assessment on a traveller before departure or at the point of booking.

It has also introduced AviSec as a new flat-rate pricing concept to help airlines manage their costs for transferring API to destination governments. Secure delivery is essential for airlines, which must transmit API in the form of batch flight manifests to border control agencies in the destination country. Any failure by an airline to comply incurs a significant fine.

ARINC Direct has also continued to enhance its flight planning solutions, giving companies compliance with the risk assessment pillar of their safety management system (SMS).

The SMS risk factor form, as recommended by the US FAA and ICAO, allows a user to assign a specific numerical value for any given risk – resulting in a total risk score for a flight. Integrating this feature was a critical initial step to support clients’ risk assessment needs. ARINC Direct has now entered into a partnership with FlightRisk (www.flightrisk.com) to provide additional safety risk assessment services and enhanced pre-flight risk awareness.

ARINC has also launched its new Cabin Connect Suite of products – targeted at commercial carriers who want to offer on-board WiFi to passengers and cabin crew using Inmarsat’s SwiftBroadband satcomms service.

With Cabin Connect, airline passengers can access the internet directly from their personal electronic device (PED), smartphone, tablet (iPad/Playbook), gaming devices (DSi/PSP) or laptop. Passengers simply log on to the on-board hotspot, similar to how they would on the ground in an internet café or hotel.

Airline operators can choose whether to provide the service free or as a potential revenue generator, charging passengers directly with a new flat-fee structure (per hour, per flight, per month).

AirCrew Connect (part of the Cabin Connect Suite) gives additional value to an airline by making it easy to respond to a customer service issue while in the air via a direct link back to the airline’s headquarters or ground operations department.

Cabin crew can book on-board transfers, track lost baggage, find a hotel room and more. It also enables real time fault finding – any problem with on-board systems can be remedied in flight or engineers can be booked so they can be on hand for the aircraft’s arrival, reducing the amount of downtime the airframe requires.

ARINC also launched a new iPad cockpit app at NBAA, Las Vegas in October.

The free app, which features on the Apple iTunes web store, gives pilots access to their flight plans, weather, NOTAMS and charts on their ARINC account. It had been in beta testing for the last few months with several large corporate and pilot-owner operators.