Artificial intelligence and machine learning have long been part of our everyday life in one form or another. But also, and especially on a large scale, they can help to make the world a better place. This is shown, for example, by the start-up Airspace Intelligence from Seattle. Many of us today use smart map applications while driving, which can get us to our destination most effectively and quickly by incorporating live traffic data and other information.
The Startup Airspace Intelligence supported by Google does something very similar or at least comparable. The Airspace Intelligence software helps flight planners to calculate better routes for their machines. Among other things, aircraft and bad weather are dynamically recorded in order to avoid them as far as possible in the future. As GeekWire reports, Alaska Airlines is already relying on the small start-up’s solution, and with great success.
Because the US airline, which is based in Seattle, was able to save flight time and kerosene thanks to these optimizations, thereby significantly reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Specifically, Alaska Airlines said it was able to save an average of 2.7 minutes of flight time per flight this year, for example through optimized course corrections during the flight.
At first glance, that doesn’t sound like much, but together it means a saving of 6866 tons of CO₂. Converted to cars, this means around 27 million kilometers for a combustion vehicle. According to Alaska Airlines, which has set itself ambitious climate goals, this is one of the steps it wants to take to get there: “Alaska has a bold – shall we say aggressive – climate goal.
One of the means of achieving this goal is operational efficiency, which means doing what we did yesterday a little bit better today,” explains Alaska Manager Pasha Saleh. The reason why this hasn’t been standard for a long time can be explained relatively easily: The aviation industry also relies on the tried and tested for safety reasons: After all, according to Saleh, you can’t “execute Control-Alt-Delete” at 30,000 feet.
So it’s no surprise that the UN-backed International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) recently concluded that the software used by airlines around the world was, until recently, less advanced than consumer navigation applications like Google Maps or Waze.
Research Snipers is currently covering all technology news including Google, Apple, Android, Xiaomi, Huawei, Samsung News, and More. Research Snipers has decade of experience in breaking technology news, covering latest trends in tech news, and recent developments.
