Airlines may not replace pilots with artificial intelligence anytime soon, but aviation industry insiders believe the new technology is already transforming how they do business.
“Data and AI are fantastic levers for the aviation sector,” said Julie Pozzi, Air France-KLM’s head of data science and AI, ahead of the IATA’s 80th convention in Dubai.
Airline executives will meet at the key annual global airline conference in the United Arab Emirates to discuss the latest industry developments, including planned AI projects.
Aviation firms, which have long faced low-profit margins, see AI as the next approach to increase productivity and gain a competitive advantage.
AI is “undoubtedly a new frontier, in that it’s an extraordinary acceleration of technology and capabilities,” according to Geoffrey Weston, chief consultant on the aviation business at Bain & Company in the United States.
Air France-KLM is achieving this with “more than 40 projects using generative artificial intelligence,” including the now-famous ChatGPT, which is designed to improve as it is used.
One of the French-Dutch company’s objectives is to put a technology that answers to clients in 85 different languages on Air France agents’ tablets, which will be used in 2025 at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport.
Groupe ADP, the airport’s operator, has also launched many AI initiatives in collaboration with startups, like Allobrain, which utilizes voice recognition to answer phone calls at the airport. It has reduced “the number of unanswered phone calls from 50 percent to 10 percent,” according to Alban Negret, president of ADP’s innovation section.
The airport operator intends to streamline drop-off zones and shuttle rotations with the assistance of another subcontractor, Wintics, which specializes in data extraction from real-time surveillance photos.
According to aerospace expert Jerome Bouchard, one of the most crucial problems for the industry as air travel grows is minimizing wait times.
