Ian and I were invited to attend the joint aviation and weather information conference in Washington USA. Ian gave a presentation on our involvement in the OWS6 test bed (testbeds are part of OGC's interoperability programme) which went down a storm because we did the testbed with our COTS products and he had some great pictures (check it out on our Website). Anyway, whilst Ian was giving his presentation, I was left wondering why aviation and weather has a problem? After all planes fly and the weather happens, however, it turns out that both processes are not as joined up as you may think. Flight information to help pilots avoid problems is currently issued on paper before the plane takes off! Of course new events occur after take off and in some cases those events close an airport where a plane would like to land. Now, paper isn't a great medium to update at 35,000 feet, so the pilot is updated over the radio and the plane is diverted to a suitable airport nearby.
So timely up to date information is very important, not only for safety reasons but also commercial ones. If airlines could cut aircraft taxi times on the ground by 10% they would save $millions, so up to date information on ground conditions and where to taxi is just as important. Enter the OWS6 testbed and a way forward to deliver real time information (what, where and when) directly into the plane cockpit.
The answer ... Data eXchange and luckily enough Snowflake does just that, we're a data exchange company. We've been enabling Data eXchange for 8 years, our solutions have been well received in other markets and are very mature for doing the job. The Aviation world wants to solve data exchange through standards based electronic data transfer, with no loss of information, on-time and direct to the pilot. They have the problem and Snowflake has the answer, well part of the answer because the pilot still needs client devices (avionics) to display the data, but we have the answer together. This was what Ian's presentation was all about. We know we can make a difference to both the Aviation and Metrological authorities because we've proven our ability in other markets for some time. We facilitate Data eXchange from existing databases without the need to build new ones. Now there's a change. Not a lot people know that!
With our presentation done, solution demo's complete and customer contacts obtained we left the conference feeling pretty good and looking for a bar (with food) to wind down. Our problem was where to find one and looking in the back of the paper conference guide we found a list of restaurants, the only problem, where are they? It seems joined up data exchange is everywhere not just in aviation, even food and beer needs to be join up with my stomach! Hail taxi, which I think is a metaphor for Data eXchange.
We were very pleased with our time in Washington at the conference and we are very confident that Snowflake can help the Aviation and Metrological markets with data eXchange now and in the future. Check us out to see if you agree.
