Qatar Airways has implemented a new fleet management system called TOPS that allows the airline to optimally schedule aircraft and better manage flights, ultimately driving a more efficient and effective airline for its passengers.

TOPS, which stands for Total Operations System, integrates data from multiple sources and produces a holistic view of the airline’s operation, from the global scale to the individual flight level, in order to anticipate and notify operations staff of any potential issue and provide solution options.

Specific tasks that can now be carried out due to this integration include, but are not limited to: tail assignment optimiser, whereby aircraft are assigned to specific lines of flying with respect to the operational needs of the route, based on the specific aircraft’s capabilities; NOTAM manager, where Notice to Airmen are immediately communicated to the specific dispatchers and operations staff for more perfect situational awareness; and Flight Watch, which consolidates all flight data into a single graphical source for ease of tracking, communicating with and managing the airline’s more than 500 daily flights to more than 150 destinations in six continents, said a statement.

Qatar Airways group chief executive Akbar Al Baker said: “Qatar Airways started developing an all-encompassing tool for fleet management in 2014, knowing that our growth trajectory would require us to utilise technology in order to scale our ability to command and control the operation. We elected to develop the technology internally, taking advantage of our world-class IT team. Our system, called TOPS, has undergone a number of iterations, and today is second to none in its ability to serve the needs of our flight dispatchers, operations control staff and others.”

TOPS’ Flight Watch, launched in 2015, offers operations personnel multiple filters, such as weather patterns, flight path routing, and restricted or prohibited air space so that the team of professionals in the airline’s Integrated Operations Centre have near-perfect awareness of each airborne flight, and the ability to quickly communicate with the flight deck.

The airline is also developing a maintenance planning optimiser to help schedule around aircraft scheduled out of service time, which is expected to go live by the end of the year.

Qatar Airways’ chief operations officer, Captain Helmut Weixler, said: “TOPS is a system designed by technology experts to assist airline professionals run the operation more efficiently and effectively. It is also a system designed to evolve with the airline’s needs, including managing crew resources. This system has delivered far more benefits than we originally expected and we are sure that it will continue to add even more value to our airline operations going forward.”

“TOPS was developed in-house by Qatar Airways staff partnering with Wipro, a global IT services provider in a co-funded and co-development model that has proven successful in the past,” said Srinivasan A T, Qatar Airways’ chief information officer. “Our next iteration will incorporate crew management optimisation tools, which, when complete, will contribute to the total operations system we originally envisioned. We will not stop here and will continue to invest in the system to ensure that our airline operations, enabled by TOPS, always continue to be the best-in-class.”

Qatar Airways and Wipro developed an advanced cargo management system, under the same innovative co-funded model, and released it last September.  - TradeArabia News Service