U.S. airline JetBlue and Binter Canarias plan to adopt Embraer's Beacon maintenance coordination platform, powered by market accelerator EmbraerX. The airlines have already embarked on trial partnerships to use the software suite, Embraer said at the Farnborough Airshow on Wednesday.
“We are excited about bringing our teams into a new digital era with Beacon,” said Alvaro Espinoza, director of maintenance at JetBlue. “We have long been waiting for a solution that accelerates aircraft return-to-service by helping our workforce to be even more coordinated and reducing the complexity and pressure they are dealing with as we enhance the knowledge management of the operation.”
JetBlue will initially integrate the system at its bases in New York and Boston, and expand to other airports and routes, Beacon officials said. Binter will begin the program in September with the five E195-E2 jets in its fleet, although the software also works with other aircraft types.
Peter Glowa, Beacon's head of business strategy, told AIN the program was originally launched for commercial airlines, then the company added business jet operations. He said that military operators can also use Beacon.
“We look forward to getting started and seeing how our daily operations will be impacted by Beacon’s use,” said Binter director of operations Javier Bretón. “It is a promising concept, and expectations are extremely high to improve not only the fleet availability but also the airline’s human resources.”
Embraer officials said Aeroméxico Connect and U.S. regional airline Republic Airways were early adopters of the Beacon technology.
“We are increasing participants in the platform and measuring results to share success with other operators,” said Marco Cesarino, head of Beacon. “It is all about keeping passengers flying. We want to focus on customers who fly in environments with distributed teams because this highlights the power of Beacon. Where connectivity was limited before, they can now be on Beacon, powered by technology.”