Zurich, Switzerland – 7 August 2012 – Thomas Cook Airlines Belgium has achieved fuel savings of 2.1% in the past 1.5 years. Aviaso software has been supporting Thomas Cook Airlines Belgium in its fuel efficiency improvement program since early 2011. The fuel efficiency software developed by Aviaso provides a full range of data analysis, reporting, and monitoring tools. This helps the Belgian airline to really understand how its fuel is used, to define improvement initiatives, and to monitor the progress of its fuel savings initiatives. 

“Thomas Cook Airlines Belgium had already significantly improved its fuel efficiency in the years before 2011, and if you are on a good level it is not easy to get additional fuel savings. However, in the current economic environment it is key to further reduce fuel costs and at the same time lower the environmental footprint”, says Lode Ketele, general manager of Thomas Cook Airlines Belgium. 

Captain Carl-Philippe Combes, Fuel Specialist at Thomas Cook Airlines Belgium adds: “We realized that we need two things to get our fuel efficiency improvement program to the next level. On the one side we need reliable information on how we really use our fuel, and on the other side, we need to be able to quickly track the progress of our improvement program.” Carl-Philippe Combes continues, “We are very satisfied with the Aviaso software. It gives us the required transparency and it helps us to monitor our fuel conservation initiatives. Additionally, to ‘complete the loop’ so to speak, the software allows us to provide feedback to our crews and ground personnel, which has a strong motivating effect. Already shortly after we had started the implementation in early 2011, we had the software up and running. Now, a good year later, we have improved our fuel efficiency by 2.1%. The Aviaso software supports us with several key performance indicators (KPI) to track the fuel efficiency. The main KPI we use is fuel burn per 100 RPK, which actually improved by a total of 4.5% in the past 1.5 years. In that timeframe, Thomas Cook Airlines Belgium did also adjustments in the network and improved the seat-load factor, which also had a positive effect on the KPI. With the Aviaso software we can analyze the different factors influencing the fuel efficiency and we can clearly allocate which improvements are due to our fuel efficiency program and which are due to other reasons (see attached chart).” 

Rudolf Christen, CEO of Aviaso says: “We are not going to blindly promise 5% or more improvements to an airline. Such improvements are possible, but they depend on the level where an airline starts from. However, our experience with several airlines shows, that it is possible to achieve significant savings even if an airline already starts at a high level.” Rudolf Christen adds: “Nowadays, many airlines have already ‘picked the low-hanging fruit’ and have implemented the obvious initiatives. The key to further savings is to really understand the factors influencing the fuel consumption. This means being smart with your fuel-relevant data. Typically, the data required for the fuel efficiency program is available somewhere in the different IT systems of an airline. The challenge is to identify in which IT system the data is stored and how to retrieve it.”

About Thomas Cook Airlines Belgium
Thomas Cook Airlines Belgium (www.thomascookairlines.com) is part of Thomas Cook Belgium. It flies with a modern fleet of Airbus A319 and A320 aircraft to over 60 short-haul and medium-haul destinations. Thomas Cook Airlines Belgium is an IOSA certified airline and operates from Brussels Airport, Ostend and Liège Airport.

About Aviaso
Aviaso (www.aviaso.com) is an international software company developing products exclusively for the aviation industry. The focus of Aviaso is on complex, operational aviation topics such as Fuel Efficiency, EU-ETS, Aviation Reporting, and Crew Communication. Additionally, Aviaso has a long experience in integrating aviation IT systems and also develops the Aviation Portal – a leading intranet solution for aviation companies.

Contacts

Aviaso Inc.
Roumen Jordanov
+41 55 422 0000
roumen.jordanov@aviaso.com

Thomas Cook Airlines Belgium
Baptiste van Outryve
+32 478 88 32 86