Aviation Operations Management System

BACKGROUND The UN Aviation Programme consists of a fleet of nearly 200 aircraft on commercial and military contracts (wet lease equivalents), assigned globally and more specifically to 16 Peace Operations. There currently exists no fully functional system—either at the mission level—or globally—to capture aircraft operations via a consolidated database and operational scheduling and reporting system. While this does exist with individual operators on contract, the UN has no consolidated system that allows for seamless planning, scheduling for data extraction for reporting / payments. DESCRIPTION OF REQUIREMENTS In line with the recommendations of the IATA consultation – there is an Organizational need for the procurement and implementation of an Aviation Operations Management System. The consultation revealed not only the continuing need for such a system, it identified specific requirements of such a system matched against the UN operational and reporting environment. The study provided a compelling argument against further development of AIMS. It also strongly recommended that the UN does not pursue another in-house solution, i.e., of the type AIMS had been initiated. Thus, the Department of Operational Support is seeking a new system that can address a range of issues related to aviation management.  The future process flow should be standardised across all Missions and integrated with other UN systems and databases as much as possible but the primary database will be the new airline management system.. Thus any new system will require the following characteristics:  Flexible databases for Airports, Crew, Aircraft, Contracts and User data, capable of handling the large volumes of data required by the UN and of processing automated data feeds from existing UN data sources.  A sophisticated schedule planning process able to handle anything from scheduled troop movements (perhaps planned a year in advance) to short term Mission planning, ad-hoc flights such as Medevacs, drone deployments and both military and civilian aircraft.  Automated flight tracking and recording of aircraft usage data, using a tablet or smartphone based electronic flight log wherever possible to ensure high levels of accuracy.  Automated production of Aircraft Usage Reports (AURs) and monthly EMAR reports with automated feeds into UN data analysis tools such as Power BI. The purpose here would be to provide a standard set of dashboards, using verified data, to meet the needs of all UN Headquarters departments, Operations Control and Mission Aviation Chiefs.  The system must use the latest technology to provide a simple GUI (graphical user interface) requiring a minimal level of specialist training. It must be able to provide rapid and reliable response times in the UN’s most challenging Mission environments and be able to ‘fail safe’ and recover quickly from network disruptions. A graphical of any system would have the following characteristics: SETTINGS > PLANNING > TRACKING > REPORTING With Settings consisting of the following: - Airports - Crew - Aircraft - Contracts - Users - The Reporting aspect is critical for: (1) management of the fleet (aircraft) within a mission; (2) Payments for services rendered; (3) Overall fleet metrics for purposes of ensuring the right fit [e.g., does the operational use match the planning data used for procurement / generation?]; (4) data for solicitation exercises; (5) and data for reporting to legislative bodies on use of the fleet (Mission-by-mission, aircraft type, mission type, etc and of course for overall UN-wide metrics on usage) - The UN is open to a range of options to be provided by the market. That said, initial analysis reveals that perhaps Business Aviation systems may be most compatible to the operational requirements of the United Nations. This is due to the following noted characteristics: 1. Flexibility of systems that are likely able to be configured to UN processes 2. Cloud based 3. The Secretariat maintains military aircraft and these systems have been understood as being adopted by some military operators 4. Adaptability to Special Flight Request (SFR) model for military and commercial assets / services 5. Simple to implement / minimal training Any future statement of work for a formal solicaiton is expected to reflect the following areas: 1. Settings / Configuration 2. Reservations (ticketing)/ Planning / Fleet Scheduling 3. Tracking/ Interoperability between the platform and UN aircraft real time tracking system 4. Management of contracted aircraft including aircraft utilization, fuel records and maintenance tracking 5. Ground Handling 6. Crew Management 7. Crew APP 8. Integrations 9. Reporting/ Performance measurement of efficiency and cost effectiveness of fleet/ routes 10. Miscellaneous 11. Implementation 12. Ongoing support 13. Financial management