Ian Ryder, vice president strategy management, Air Travel Solutions, SITA, gives three examples of promising developments all centered around technology-enabled collaboration.

We all know that the air transportation industry’s complex ecosystem is built on collaboration. Without its many stakeholders working in unison, we’d simply not be able to travel and fly the way we do. Emerging technologies now promise to enable collaboration in new and increasingly effective ways.

With the plethora of systems, applications and high data volumes involved in making the journey happen, technology already underpins air travel. Whether that’s to create a more seamless journey for the passenger, or to ensure efficient interaction between industry players, technology lies at the core of our industry.

It’s estimated that at least 20 stakeholder organizations can be involved in making the journey happen. Turning around an aircraft, for example, requires close teamwork and IT systems across airport operations, aircraft operations and air traffic control. Working with them are many other stakeholders, all coordinating with crew on the aircraft, the crew handling baggage and cargo, and the teams involved in the aircraft’s replenishment, engineering and technology processes.

A growing industry, a growing IT dependence
It will be essential for technology-enabled collaboration to bring vital changes to our industry’s processes if we’re going to cope with double the volume of air travel by 2037, as well as new business models for airlines and airports and ever higher passenger expectations. Let me give you three examples of promising developments all centered around collaboration.

1. At the airport: shared awareness and coordinated action
The first is at the airport. One way we can achieve shared awareness and coordinated action among airline and airport stakeholders is through a concept called ‘digital twins.’

This is where real-time industry data harvested from sensors on the aircraft and on the ground are combined with other industry data sources to enable a digital model of the real world at the airport to be created. This holistic digital airport model is powered by artificial intelligence (AI). Across the airport, stakeholders can interact with visual representations of the model using devices appropriate to their needs, such as a HoloLens to explore the airport overall, or a wrist device for workers on the ramp.

Thanks to AI, the model can highlight what issues need addressing right now and predict what’s coming in terms of queue lengths, passenger movements, aircraft turnarounds and so on. This will enable quick and effective collaborative decision making. Digital twins could eventually become the universal interface and ‘collaboration space’ for stakeholders working together to keep the airport operating at maximum efficiency, or responding to incidents in real time.

2. For the aircraft: getting data into the right hands
Then there’s the potential for better collaboration around the ‘digital aircraft’. Of the 43,000 commercial aircraft flying in 2034, 85% will be new generation, churning out high volumes of telemetry and data that needs to be understood. Such an aircraft today might generate at least 500GB of data during a flight, but in the future, we’ll be counting in terabytes.

With the arrival of the IoT and intelligent digital devices, aircraft data will be available to feed new analytics and services. These will reduce costs, drive efficiencies, increase aircraft utilization and improve services for passengers, giving them confidence in schedules.

For original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), this growing stream of data is vital in helping them to improve the performance of their aircraft. The challenge is getting the right data to OEMs so they can create value from it. It needs to come from many different types of aircraft; it must be collected, aggregated, cleansed, and then appropriately shared.

This is the rationale behind SITAOnAir’s e-Aircraft DataHub. Focusing on data accuracy, timing and simplification, this service acts as a trusted industry data brokerage to enable better collaboration around the aircraft and its processes.

3. Data sharing: we need a single version of the truth
My third example concerns the accuracy and consistency of shared data, be it airport operational data, passenger or baggage data. The problem is, multiple versions of the truth may exist. An airline might estimate when a flight will arrive; an airport may do the same. Having determined the times separately, those times may differ. When the aircraft actually arrives, multiple parties may again register that event slightly differently. This means duplication of effort, inconsistency and inaccuracy and it impacts both operational efficiency and the quality of service provided to passengers.

As demonstrated by SITA Lab with its FlightChain project, blockchain looks set to play a critical role. Using smart contracts with blockchain, stakeholders can determine who’s allowed to update the blockchain, which enables a sharable single version of the truth. IAG provided a real-world use case, using blockchain and working with SITA to provide authoritative shared flight status information. IAG’s Harvey Tate refers to ‘many sources’ and ‘filter failure’ in determining usable information. He believes that with accuracy around flight status or flight arrival times, for example, there are valuable use cases based on that information, such as rebooking services and providing directions to passengers.

Better collaboration is the key to air travel’s future
Examples like these illustrate how better collaboration can be achieved so we can cope with industry growth. Technology will be an enabler, but we need to work together to identify and exploit the use cases that will be critical to our progress. In doing this, we must keep an eye on Gartner’s Hype Cycle, as we want to base our use cases on stable and deployable technology. And we must remember that all of the collaboration discussed here feeds off one thing – data. Collaboration is about trusted sharing of data.

A final word of advice: if you want to embark a project involving technology-enabled collaboration, work with your stakeholders, and with an experienced IT provider. Start by identifying where collaboration is critical in your organization, focus initially on areas where change is easiest and involve a small number of actively engaged stakeholders, talk to the players involved, and brainstorm how you can improve.

Marijuana legalization means you can get high — really high — with your cannabis.

Once the target of drug-sniffing dogs, cannabis is now allowed in both checked and carry-on luggage for air travellers.

But, as with many other allowed items, there are limits.

Christine Langlois, spokesperson for Canadian Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA), was in Regina on Wednesday to provide a reminder about security rules, given the upcoming school break often leads to increased air travel.

“Keep in mind that it remains illegal to cross international borders with cannabis,” she said. “Whether you go out of Canada or you come in, it’s illegal to cross international borders. If you want to fly domestically, it’s allowed. You’re allowed to have up to 30 grams of recreational cannabis. It’s roughly the size of a sandwich bag, a clear sandwich bag. And if it’s medical, then you’re allowed to have up to 150 (grams), however make sure you have your medical documentation with you.”

Langlois reminded would-be travellers that it’s up to them to ensure they are obeying provincial legislation in relation to cannabis prior to reaching the airport.

“I think it’s the responsibility of people to know what are the rules exactly in the province they’re in,” she said. “For us, what we’re concerned about is that when you come (to) the airport, those are the limits, the legal limits. But what we really want people to remember about cannabis is to not cross international borders with it.”

As cannabis is considered an allowed item, there is no specific way to pack it. Langlois said it does not need to be in its original packaging; a sandwich bag will suffice.

And while security officials are unlikely to weigh each bag of cannabis, travellers are advised to ensure they are at or under the allowed amount.

“If it looks to be possibly more than the legal limit then, yes, we would call the police as per procedure,” she said.

So far, she said CATSA has not noted a significant impact on operations since the legalization of cannabis in October.

Regulations on other items remain in place. While larger amounts are allowed in checked baggage, liquids, gels and inorganic powders (salts, bath salts, and even hand warmers) must be within specified limits to be taken in carry-on bags. For liquids and gels, that’s 100 millilitres or less per container, with all fitting together inside a small, clear plastic bag. For inorganic powders, the limit is 350 ml, the approximate equivalent of a soda can.

CATSA has additional information available on its website or on its app. Langlois said the app also contains information about wait times at security checkpoints at 14 Canadian airports, including Regina.

Despite all its best efforts at educating the public on what not to bring, some travellers continue to push the limits. Just last week in Regina, security seized numerous items, including what’s known as a credit card knife (a blade concealed within a credit card-sized case) and a trio of throwing stars. Langlois said the throwing stars will be handed over to police.

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Let Democrats have their way, U.S. President Donald Trump suggested, and the United States will become a country without border security, airplanes or cows.

Trump warned of a variety of dire consequences from the Democratic playbook as he rallied Monday night in the border city of El Paso, Texas, in a hall where banners proclaimed “Finish the Wall” even though he barely has a start on the one he promised.

READ MORE: Trump on Virginia governor’s blackface controversy, ‘I like him, keeps us out of the papers’

Both at the White House and in El Paso, he presented the border wall as a work in progress, hailing the start of a “big, big portion” with much more coming soon. It was a hefty exaggeration from a president who has yet to see an extra mile of barrier completed since he took office.

With another government shutdown looming — a tentative agreement reached by lawmakers Monday could avert it — and illegal immigration still at the heart of the budget dispute, Trump is pulling out the stops to portray his proposed wall as an answer to crime and drugs. As he’s done repeatedly, Trump also defied the record in claiming that the wall that Congress has refused to pay for is rapidly coming together anyway.

In the course of the evening, he also took a swipe at the Green New Deal, a sweeping plan put forward by a group of Democrats last week to transform the U.S. economy to combat climate change and create thousands of jobs in renewable energy. This is where gaseous cows come into it.

WATCH: Trump criticizes Virginia governor for blackface incident, stance on abortion

A look at his remarks:

TRUMP, on the effects of the Green New Deal: “You’re not allowed to own cows anymore.” He added that the plan would “shut down American energy” and “a little thing called air travel.”

THE FACTS: The Democratic plan would do none of those things. Trump chose to ignore the actual provisions of the plan, which calls for a drastic drop in emissions from methane-generating cows, air travel and more but would not ban cattle ownership or flights.

WATCH: Democrats outline ‘Green New Deal’ to tackle climate change, create renewable energy jobs

Instead, Trump took his cue from a FAQ that was distributed by the office of Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York last week, then clumsily disavowed by her and replaced with a more accurate summary of the plan.

The first version described measures beyond those contained in the plan and made the impolitic statement: “We set a goal to get to net-zero, rather than zero emissions, in 10 years because we aren’t sure that we’ll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes that fast.”

TRUMP, on the effect of a border wall on crime in El Paso: “When that wall went up, it’s a whole different ball game. … I don’t care whether a mayor is a Republican or a Democrat. They’re full of crap when they say it hasn’t made a big difference. I heard the same thing from the fake news. They said, ‘Oh crime, it actually stayed the same.’ It didn’t stay the same. It went way down. … Thanks to a powerful border wall in El Paso, Texas, it’s one of America’s safest cities now.”

THE FACT: Trump falsely suggests a dramatic drop in crime in

READ MORE:
U.S. lawmakers to revive talks on border security as 2nd shutdown looms

El Paso due to a border wall. In fact, the city’s murder rate was less than half the national average in 2005, the year before the start of its border fence. It’s true that the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report shows that El Paso’s annual number of reported violent crimes dropped from nearly 5,000 in 1995 to around 2,700 in 2016. But that corresponded with similar declines in violent crime nationwide and included periods when the city’s crime rates increased year over year, despite new fencing and walls.

Before the wall project started, El Paso had been rated one of the three safest major U.S. cities going back to 1997.

TRUMP, on his proposed wall: “We’ve built a lot of it.”

TRUMP: “We’ve actually started a big, big portion of the wall today at a very important location, and it’s going to go up pretty quickly over the next nine months. That whole area will be finished. It’s fully funded … and we’re going to have a lot of wall being built over the next period of time.”

THE FACTS: There’s less going on here than his words convey. Construction is getting started on merely 23 kilometres of an extended barrier, approved by Congress about a year ago in an appropriation that also authorized money to renovate and strengthen some existing fencing. The extension will be in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley. That’s not a “big, big portion” of the grand project he promised in his campaign and countless times since — a wall that, combined with existing fencing and natural barriers, would seal the nearly 3,200-kilometre border with Mexico.

WATCH: Trump supporters stage a ‘human wall’ at U.S.-Mexico border

The recent fight with Democrats in Congress has been over his demand for a $5.7 billion down payment on the wall. That money would pay for a little over 320 kilometres of new barrier. Democrats have refused to approve anything close to that for extended barrier construction.

Trump also promised in the campaign that he would make Mexico pay for the wall, which it refused to do.

He inherited over 1,050 kilometres of border barrier from previous administrations.

TRUMP, on preparations for his rally: “We have a line that is very long already. I mean, you see what’s going on. And I understand our competitor’s got a line, too, but it’s a tiny little line.”

THE FACTS: That’s not true. His comment came about four hours before his El Paso rally and a competing one nearby, led by Beto O’Rourke, a prospective Democratic presidential contender. The gathering for both events was small at the time. People were standing around in a dusty wind, not so much lined up.

TRUMP, addressing El Paso rally: “He has 200 people, 300 people, not too good. … That may be the end of his presidential bid.”

THE FACTS: That’s not true, either. O’Rourke’s march and rally drew thousands. Police did not give an estimate, but his crowd filled up nearly all of a baseball field from the stage at the infield to the edge of outfield and was tightly packed.

WATCH: Trump says Beto O’Rourke ‘suffered a great defeat’

TRUMP: “Drugs pouring through the border kills tens of thousands of innocent Americans a year, including heroin, meth, cocaine, fentanyl, so many others — they come through the southern border. We have a drug problem over the last 6, 7, 10 years like we have never had before. We can have such a big cut in the numbers, the percentages if we get the wall built.”

THE FACTS: His assertion that a wall would stop most drugs from “pouring” into the U.S. runs counter to his government’s findings on how the illegal substances get in. Most of it is smuggled through official border crossings, not remote stretches of the border.

FACT CHECK: Findings dispute Trump’s claim border wall will prevent drug smuggling

The Drug Enforcement Administration says “only a small percentage” of heroin seized by U.S. authorities comes across on territory between ports of entry. The same is true of drugs generally, with the exception of marijuana.

In a 2018 report, the agency said the most common trafficking technique by transnational criminal organizations is to hide drugs in passenger vehicles or tractor-trailers as they drive into the U.S. through entry ports, where they are stopped and subject to inspection. They also employ buses, cargo trains and tunnels, the report says, citing other smuggling methods that also would not be choked off by a border wall.

TRUMP: “Illegal immigration hurts all Americans, including millions of legal immigrants, by driving down wages, draining public resources and claiming countless innocent lives.”

THE FACTS: These assertions are unsupported by research, which Trump appeared to acknowledge obliquely by making a crack about “phoney stats.”

The weight of research on wages suggests that immigrants have not suppressed them, although it’s not cut and dried. What’s clear is that macro forces that go beyond immigration are at work in the sluggishness of wage growth: the decline in unionization, an intensified push to maximize corporate profits, growing health insurance costs that supplant wages and the rise of a lower-wage global labour force that in an intertwined worldwide economy can hinder pay growth for Americans.

WATCH: Trump claims border wall only way to prevent illegal immigration

On public resources, the National Academy of Sciences concluded: “An immigrant and a native-born person with similar characteristics will likely have the same fiscal impact.” The academy found that because state and local governments supply most of the money for public schools, immigrants often receive more in benefits than they pay in taxes. But education produces children who grow into adults who get jobs, buy cars, buy houses and pay taxes and thereby contribute to economic growth. And succeeding generations of immigrant families become net contributors to government budgets, according to the study.

On the loss of lives, plenty of research challenges the assumption that people in the country illegally drive up violent crime. In one such study, sociologists Michael Light and Ty Miller reviewed crime in every state and the District of Columbia from 1990 to 2014. They found that a rising number of immigrants in the country illegally corresponded with a drop, not a rise, in reported crime.

TRUMP: “We’re going to El Paso. … We’re going there to keep our country safe, and we don’t want murderers and drug dealers and gang members, MS-13, and some of the worst people in the world coming into our country. … We need a wall.”

READ MORE:
Trump claims to have ‘liberated towns’ in Long Island from MS-13 gangs

THE FACTS: Trump suggests that weak border enforcement is contributing to vicious crime committed by MS-13, a gang held responsible for murders in cities across the U.S. But sealing the border completely would not eliminate the gang. It was founded in the U.S. in the 1980s by Salvadoran immigrants and has sunk roots in the country. Some of its members are U.S. citizens and not subject to deportation or border enforcement.

The government has not said recently how many members it thinks are citizens and immigrants. In notable raids on MS-13 in 2015 and 2016, most of the people caught were found to be U.S. citizens.

Date created : 13/02/2019 – 10:09

Since Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez first introduced it, the Green New Deal has drawn interest from skeptics, critics, supporters, and more. The proposal, which seeks to aggressively combat climate change while also addressing economic inequality, does offer a number of progressive solutions for its goals. So if you’re wondering whether the Green New Deal eliminates air travel, don’t worry too much.

Within the official outline for the Green New Deal, which was released on Feb. 7, the 10-year goal to move America towards 100% renewable energy is explained in detail. And yes, one of those details is the reduction of air travel — but the outline doesn’t exactly say it wants to get of air travel. Rather, it outlines a plan to reach a point where air travel “stops becoming necessary” as a means of transportation, and it aims to achieve this in a number of ways.

The outline reads in part,

[We aim to] totally overhaul transportation by massively expanding electric vehicle manufacturing, build charging stations everywhere, build out highspeed rail at a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary, create affordable public transit available to all, with goal to replace every combustion-engine vehicle

At another point in the outline, the authors explain that the 10-year goal aims for “net zero” emissions, rather than “zero” emissions, because “we aren’t sure that we’ll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes that fast.”

What’s more, at still another point in the outline, the authors explain why such drastic steps are needed for industries as valuable as the transportation industry: “Simply put, we don’t need to just stop doing some things we are doing (like using fossil fuels for energy needs); we also need to start doing new things (like overhauling whole industries or retrofitting all buildings to be energy efficient).”

It’s not surprising, necessarily, that a climate change proposal would address air travel: transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the nation, according to a report by the Rhodium Group as released by Vox. Vox further noted that a full re-haul of the rail system in the United States wouldn’t be that unheard of, given that many countries offer extensive high-speed train offerings instead of flights, in countries like Japan, South Korea, and Italy, where trains travel as fast as 200 miles per hour.

Vox also reports that shifting transportation needs from airplanes to trains will definitely decrease greenhouse gas emissions in a dramatic way — but only if those high-speed trains run on electricity, not on coal power.

To the publication, Yonah Freemark, a doctoral candidate studying the politics of transportation at MIT, said, “Outside of the US, Canada, and Australia, every developed country has invested quite considerably in high-speed rail transportation systems.”

He added, “I think there is no reason to think that the United States is any different [in its transportation potential] than any other country.”

As of Feb. 12, five presidential candidates have cosponsored the New Green Deal.