Fiji Airways uses RFID technology to improve emergency equipment management
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Fiji Airways will use RFID technology to facilitate faster and more efficient emergency equipment inspections in 15 aircraft. The company installed RFID systems on more than 4,000 emergency equipment this year, reducing inspection time to a few minutes.
Marco Andreacchio, senior project manager of EAM RFID solutions, said that the system can not only help inspectors increase speed and reduce errors, but also prevent flight delays caused by delays in emergency equipment inspections. The solution attaches tags to emergency equipment, uses handheld card readers to query these equipment, and uses software provided by EAM for data analysis and management. In the long run, airlines intend to use this technology to realize automatic inspections and analyze historical data.
Fiji Airways is an international airline based in Nadi, flying to 10 countries including the United States. The airline checks the status of emergency equipment weekly and monthly. Before installing the RFID system, the inspection of small aircraft would take 90 minutes, and the inspection of large aircraft would take 8 hours.
Beginning last year, Fiji Airways began investigating RFID technology as part of its Air Management Oversight System (AMOS) program. In the middle of the year, the airline started working with EAM Worldwide to develop a solution in the EAM Dubai office. Since 2009, EAM Worldwide has provided RFID life jackets for Fiji Airways.
In January of this year, the airline began to trial the technology and spent a week training 60 employees. Most devices need to be marked with labels. Fiji Airways uses UHF RFID tags provided by William Frick and Co. that comply with the AS5678A specification. The labeling of life jackets is carried out at the factory.
This project uses single-record and double-record tags, both of which conform to the ATA Spec2000 Ch9-5 standard. All tags have a unique ID number and are associated with the item information in the EAM Worldwide TagControl software. TagControl uses WebApp, DesktopApp, MobileApp to manage and share data on computers and mobile devices. Fiji Airways uses Alien Technology’s UHF RFID handheld reader to read tags.
When the inspector is working on the aircraft, he only needs to open the TagControl application on the card reader to perform the inspection. The card reader reads the tag ID through RFID, and then transmits the data to TagControl via the cellular network. If the system detects that the item is missing, expired, or needs repair, the system will alert the inspector.
So far, the company has applied more than 4,000 tags to life rafts, oxygen cylinders, generators, extended seat belts, earmuffs, flashlights, fire extinguishers and survival kits. These equipment are used in the company’s A330, 737, ATR and Twin Otter aircraft.
In the next step, Fiji Airways will use RFID technology to track seat covers. Airlines will regularly clean the seat cover, and RFID technology will provide information on the cleaning and replacement of the seat cover. “Andreacchio said: “The goal of the system is to track the number of washes and confirm whether the seat cover is installed in the correct place. “
Fiji Airways is still confirming the possible application of labeling of spare parts. In the long run, the company hopes that suppliers can bring their own RFID tags before they leave the factory. Andreakio said: “Modifying tags is a thing of the past, and RFID tags will be delivered with products in the future.”
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