Sheltair Aviation has announced that it has adopted the IBM Environmental Intelligence Suite to support its FBO operations networkwide, bringing weather and climate insights to the nation’s largest privately-owned aviation network.
This addition provides the power of artificial intelligence to help improve responsiveness to critical weather and changing environmental conditions, helping Sheltair support safety and service for the company’s employees, guests, and on-site aircraft.
The environmental data, alerting and forecasting capabilities offered by IBM’s AI powered technology can help Sheltair provide its employees and customers with insight into what weather is coming their way, and how conditions such as wind or lightning might affect departure and arrival times, grip and ramp movements, towing, and more.
The company, which has earned ISBAH and NATA Safety First certifications at all of its bases, continues to make strides to maximize safe environments to support its operations while implementing processes to serve the company’s guests proactively.
“Safety is more than a practice at Sheltair; it’s who we are,” said Bobby Cavetti, Sheltair’s Director of Safety and Training.
“Implementing the capabilities of the IBM Environmental Intelligence Suite allows us to better prepare and mitigate climate related risks, minimize aircraft movements, and further enable our operational resiliency.”
The IBM Environmental Intelligence Suite (EIS) leverages weather data from IBM, advanced geospatial analytics, and innovations from IBM Research. Sheltair can use this technology to help proactively plan for potential disruptive environmental conditions, flooding, and even air quality, while also receiving alerts when detected.
The alerting capabilities from EIS can be used by Sheltair employees ranging from customer service, ramp line personnel, FBO Managers and Safety Managers.
For example, the system can alert teams on ramp lightning when detected, helping them decide when to stop fueling and when to resume operations.
Additionally, forecasts and alerts on severe weather conditions could help Sheltair employees prevent damage to aircraft on the tarmac by alerting flight operators of approaching inclement weather ahead of time.
This technology can also provide insights into weather conditions that can potentially cause operational changes and disruptions while prioritizing mitigation and response efforts via APIs, dashboards, maps, and alerts.
“Weather and climate insights are crucial in the aviation industry, and the adoption of AI-powered technology can help advance Sheltair’s commitment to safety and service even further,” said Joe Berti, Vice President, IBM AI Applications.
“The capabilities of IBM’s Environmental Intelligence Suite can allow Sheltair to provide employees and customers with improved decision-making during flight planning, on the ramp and in the cockpit.”