Every aircraft has a wealth of information on its flight data recorders of interest to airlines monitoring the efficiency of their fleets. To date, such data has been inaccessible mid-flight.
AMS intends to change all that using a combination of data collection, satellite and Internet technology, which is in the final stages of being patented.
This private company promises to provide efficiencies for large airlines when they need them more than ever. Even the federal government could save millions on weather balloons, for example, since weather data can be collected in near-real time using this same infrastructure – by airplanes that are aloft anyway.
With three years of R&D and successful testing, and big firms such as IBM, AT&T and Bombardier supporting their systems, AMS president Darryl E. Jacobs says initial customers should be announced shortly.
The aviation business might be in the doldrums, but that’s all the more reason to be optimistic about AMS’s chances.
The company will use the Internet to save money and headaches – and that’s welcome news for an industry battling dramatically escalating costs.
* Year Founded: 1998
* Address: 3016 21 St. N.E., Calgary
* Phone: (403) 250-9956
* Website: www.amscanada.com
