SWISS: Making air travel more sustainable and improving operational quality with Google Cloud

Ever look up to the sky, wishing you were in one of the planes soaring overhead? At any given moment, there are many thousands to choose from. This web of movement above our heads is a testament to the marvels of global air travel, whose success hinges upon the coordination of multiple stakeholders and processes. That includes airports, ground handlers, air-traffic controllers, travel agents, and, of course, airlines.

One of those airlines, Swiss International Airlines, or simply SWISS, is trying to make the complex machine of global air travel even more seamless for its customers. For SWISS, that’s par for the course: part of the Lufthansa Group, the national airline of Switzerland is a pioneer. Due to its advanced core systems in operations, SWISS frequently develops innovations that are later rolled out across the Lufthansa family and beyond.

Among these innovations is the Operations Decision Support Suite (OPSD), a modular data platform that considers all available information on conditions and resources to drive optimal decisions across the air travel ecosystem. Christian Most, OPSD’s Head of Project, explains: “At Lufthansa Group, we have certain core systems supporting certain processes. But what was missing was a joint data repository containing crew, passenger, rotation, and technical information, as a basis to help us optimize our entire flight operations with automated decision support. We teamed up with Google Cloud to develop it.”

Taking off with Google Cloud

Due to the scope and importance of the OPSD project, Most and his team only considered major technology partners that could deliver on stability and expertise. According to Most, Google Cloud came out on top by combining both, with solutions and support to match: “We selected Google Cloud because it had the most mature and extensive Operations Research tools on the market. From the first pitches, no vendor brought more dedication or know-how in this space than Google Cloud. And that’s something we feel to this day.”

After an initial kick-off in February 2020, COVID-19 and its impact on the travel industry slightly changed the course and timelines of the OPSD project. Most and his team decided to split the overarching project into multiple smaller use cases and divided up the responsibilities between the teams. In an agile setup, people from OPSD and Google Cloud act as colleagues, and Google Cloud employees join all meetings and have dedicated roles in SWISS’s OPSD teams.

"The way we collaborate is fully integrated and cross-functional to a degree I’ve never experienced with another vendor," says Most. "There’s a transparency and openness to our partnership that enabled us to incorporate Google’s philosophy of high-performing teams into our business as well."

Less fuel, more profit

Rather than ‘cloudifying’ its core systems, SWISS is using Google Cloud as an additional layer above existing data tools and silos, replicating the state of the airline’s operations with minute-to-minute precision with BigQuery in the cloud. With all the relevant data in one place, SWISS uses Google Cloud AI and ML solutions to manage scenarios and find ways to optimize across the different operational dimensions. Based on factors such as cost or customer value, OPSD then suggests an optimal scenario to operations controllers, who can review and execute it in just two clicks. Instead of spending their limited time searching for routine optimizations, they can focus on more complex, unique problems that haven’t yet been solved by AI.

OPSD’s first use cases focused on two areas: rotation planning, which covers the optimal allocation and switching of aircraft, and passenger management, which includes managing missed connections and paid hotel accommodations for passengers. "We can increase efficiency by replacing a larger plane with a smaller one if possible, or enable more bookings on one flight by switching to a larger plane," says Most. "Those are some of several use cases making us more fuel-efficient, sustainable, and profitable, powered by Google Cloud and OPSD."

A million in savings in 14 weeks

In its first 14 weeks, the rotation optimization feature has delivered significant savings for SWISS. By rotating planes, the airline uses less fuel and avoids charges, such as noise charges from airports: "If you send an Airbus A320neo to London Heathrow, it’s quieter than an Airbus A320ceo," explains Martin Apsel-von zur Gathen, Head of Operations Planning & Steering at SWISS. "Because these noise charges impact the overall calculation of each flight, we want to send the A320neo whenever possible. With our Google Cloud-powered OPSD system, we can automate these and other calibrations across our entire fleet, taking into account counter effects too. In three and a half months, this has generated more than a million Swiss Francs in savings. Going forward, we estimate we could save double digit millions for the rotation optimization alone."

These savings stem from many minor and major optimizations across the SWISS fleet. "So far, OPSD has optimized around 50% of all flights in the SWISS network," says Apsel-von zur Gathen. To come into effect, these changes have to be approved by the operations controllers, and approval rates have surpassed even SWISS’s optimistic expectations: "We wanted to have seven out of ten optimization runs accepted by the users. We’ve achieved nine, meaning that users really appreciate what the solution is doing."

Besides cost savings themselves, OPSD has also brought new transparency into the monetary management of SWISS’s operative decision-making process. "For the first time, we have a centralized overview of what these variable costs, such as noise charges, air traffic charges or lease engine costs, mean cost-wise on a larger scale," says Apsel-von zur Gathen. "This helps us to better quantify decisions and will lead to even more savings in the future."

Leading the way in sustainability and passenger comfort

In air travel, saving on fuel isn’t just good business, it also helps to reduce an airline’s carbon footprint. "SWISS has set itself ambitious targets for reducing CO₂: the goal being to halve the CO₂ balance by 2030 and ensure it is neutral by 2050," says Most. "OPSD is one of the tools to reach this target and become more sustainable."

Passengers are environmentally conscious, but they also want to fly comfortably. With data collected on OPSD, SWISS puts passenger care front and center, considering individual passenger needs in large-scale decision-making scenarios. "With OPSD, we can control flight plans much more resiliently, enabling us to avoid multiple kinds of irregularities for our customers, such as miconnections," explains Most. "We can also provide more and better information on factors such as transfer times, making each trip smoother and more predictable."

Propelling a new era of air travel

Predictability is key for an industry that’s been grappling with fundamental changes even before COVID-19. Between the long-term effects of the pandemic, the digitalization of the travel experience, and a growing focus on sustainability, aviation faces many challenges — and one airline can’t do it alone. Air travel only works if multiple stakeholders join forces effectively, and cloud technology has opened up a way for SWISS and Lufthansa Group to make this collaboration even more seamless.

"It’s not about optimizing an airline, an airport, or air-traffic control," explains Most. "It’s about creating a platform to share data that adds value to all stakeholders, and optimizes the entire ecosystem."

In the end, success is best when shared, and SWISS’s OPSD project is shaping up to make travel better for everyone, says Most: "Airlines are just one part of the travel chain. Our OPSD platform is already helping us save money, optimize operations, and fly more sustainably. By opening it up to our partners, we can share these benefits with everyone, while improving the passenger experience. That’s the future we’re building with Google Cloud."