Understanding world-wide flight tracking data

A picture of an airline's engine — ©MTU Aero Engines

Sponsored by: MTU Aero Engines
Scientific Lead: M.Sc. Matthias Berger
Project Lead: Dr. Ricardo Acevedo Cabra
Term: Summer semester 2018

Modern aircraft are equipped with ADS-B transmitters and allow the pursuit of the fleet around the world. The understanding of fleet movement has a major impact on the performance of aircraft engine maintenance. AOG (aircraft on ground) is a big cost driver for airlines and manufacturer of aircaft engines. Identification and prediction of these events can bring a great benefit for the optimization of operation. Further optimization potential lies in determining when to schedule shop visits for engines in order to reduce overall costs, improve planning of spare parts and create more sophisticated cost models of maintenance. At MTU Aero Engines, there are various data sources available such as worldwide flight tracking, in-flight sensor measurements and detailed shop visit report data.

The results of this project are explained in detail in the final documentation.