Safety Line, A French Start-Up Tries To Seduce Boeing

Introduced to Boeing, the promising Innovative Company Safety Line offers its OptiClimb service and gives an opportunity for airlines to reduce their fuel consumptions.

Saturday 21 March 2015 – Seattle – USA, Safety Line founder and CEO, Pierre Jouniaux, met Boeing Technical Managers and decision-makers during the Boeing French Team Meeting that gathered all Boeing’s French providers from aviation industry, in order to present its solution which will enable every airline to significantly reduce fuel bills and CO2 emissions.

Supported by Starburst Accelerator, the first accelerator dedicated to the aviation industry, Safety Line also presented OptiClimb to Air Alaska and Virgin America. The airlines all expressed great interest in this innovation.

Every airline wants to reduce costs
Jet fuel accounts for 30% of airlines operational costs, being their second expense item. For this reason, the aviation industry is starting to take a serious interest in Safety Line’s optimization solution. OptiClimb has been designed to use the data from the black boxes in order to optimize the climb profile and reduce airliners consumptions. “By comparing the standard profile from the flight recorder with the ideal one that Safety Line calculated thanks to algorithms developed by Polytechnique and Inria, we identified a difference of 15% in fuel consumptions” explains Pierre Jouniaux.

This project is supported by Paris&Co, Ile-de-France Region and the European Commission through the Climate KIC program and has won the 2015 Paris challenge of Big Data Innovation in March.

Tests with Transavia
The OptiClimb procedure is integrated in the flight plan and permits to achieve substantial savings. “By following our procedure, a Boeing 737 can save 200 kg of fuel which corresponds to 150 000 to 200 000 USD saved per aircraft per year, underlines Pierre Jouniaux. For an airline like Air France operating a fleet of more than 200 aircrafts, the savings would represent 40 to 50 million USD. These savings, added to other savings achieved through “all electric” driving on the runway before take-off (green-taxi), new generation engines, lighter materials, etc… allow to meet the economic and environmental challenges in air transport.

Following conclusive tests, Safety Line signed a cooperation agreement with the low cost subsidiary of Air France-KLM, Transavia France, to launch the experimentation on commercial flights with a fleet of Boeing 737.

A huge potential market
Through the relations of Starburst Accelerator and its CEO François Chopard, Safety Line entered into discussions with Boeing. The American aircraft manufacturer could include OptiClimb in the flight preparation services. The ultimate objective would be to introduce the solution into the flight systems so that the aircraft automatically follows the ideal climb profile. Contacts have also been made with Airbus, a member of Starburst Accelerator Selection Committee. At the level of the global airline industry, the savings and reduction in carbon emissions are huge and this project is an important opportunity, especially considering the increase in aircraft delivery throughout the world.

About Safety Line:
Safety Line is a French start-up founded in 2010 and positioned on the market of data processing in aviation. Combining the expertise of data processing and flight data analysis Safety Line is in the position to propose an extensive range of product able to match the world’s issues and challenges in air transport. The young company is supported by Starburst Accelerator, the new incubator dedicated to aeronautics (Paris – 15).
The company started with the design of an information system SAFETY CUBE dedicated to operational risk management which is already used by several great names in aviation such as XL Airways, Air Mediterranée, the ASECNA, Air Caraïbes… In the near future, Safety Line will also propose other innovative projects using Big Data that aim for example at reducing risk of accidents thanks to flight data or improve airport operations with the use of RADAR data.