Why fuel and cost management?
It’s now imperative that airlines tightly control costs, carefully manage fuel,
and accurately track emissions.
How good is your airline at fuel and cost management?
In our experience, many carriers have an incomplete or inaccurate picture of their direct operating costs, including their fuel usage and expenditure.
A key part of the problem is the volume and complexity of flight charges, which are often processed by disconnected teams, using outdated and fragmented systems and inefficient processes. For instance, each flight can have over 50 different charges, which often get recorded manually by multiple teams using multiple tools. Data accuracy suffers and teams get swamped with admin. Does this sound like your airline?
These problems can make effective fuel and cost management a real challenge and drain an airline’s resources. However, Skymetrix has worked with over 100 airlines to overcome these fuel and cost management pitfalls so they can achieve greater efficiencies, streamline operations and reduce their costs.
Improve profitability
Since the Covid-19 pandemic, the key priorities for most carriers have become reducing costs, paying back debt and returning to profitability and growth, albeit in a more sustainable way.
Direct operating costs (DOCs) make up 40%-60% of an airline’s cost base so if you are looking to reduce costs, this is the obvious place to start. The key DOCs are:
- fuel (by far the biggest cost)
- navigation or overflight
- airport, and
- ground handling costs.
Improve efficiency and sustainability
As well as needing to recover from Covid, airlines are also facing increasing pressure to reduce carbon emissions and contribute to the industry’s journey towards Net Zero Carbon.
Good fuel management is key to this because it involves buying the right amount of fuel at the right price, using it or storing it efficiently, and accurately tracking and reporting flight emissions. Effective fuel management should therefore reduce unnecessary consumption and wastage, increasing your airline’s efficiency and sustainability.
Here are our four essential elements for best-practice fuel and cost management:
1. Consolidate your fuel and cost data into one platform
Effective fuel and cost management relies on different business areas in the airline working well together to forecast, monitor, verify and analyze costs. To do this, teams need access to one accurate source of flight, fuel and cost data, which includes information from planning, finance and accounts, procurement, audit and compliance, and operations.
Operating one system to manage all costs is considered best practice for cost management and was adopted by other sectors years ago. The aviation sector needs to follow this example and catch up.
2. Automate data collection and routine tasks
Routine tasks like data capture, and data consolidation and cleansing, are resource-intensive when performed manually, as well as being prone to error. By automating as many of these tasks as possible, you improve data accuracy and create more time for activities that add real value.
3. Implement robust, consistent and automated processes
The complexity of airline’s fuel and cost management processes and the number of teams involved, make them difficult to control. Yet airlines must do this to ensure the information they are acting on is accurate, and to ensure they are compliant with internal and external policies.
Fuel and cost management software that has standardized, compliant processes built-in, gives you control over how critical activities (such as invoice payment approval) are performed and by whom. This then allows you to optimize these processes and where possible, automate them for ultimate efficiency.
4. Use cloud-based software that best fits your needs
This sounds obvious but far too many times, we’ve seen airlines struggling with legacy systems that aren’t fit-for-purpose, or generic ERP systems that haven’t been built for the unique characteristics of the aviation industry.
To meet your fuel and cost management needs today, cloud-based, software-as-a-service solutions are your best option. They have several advantages over the traditional on-premises setup, including:
- They can be accessed 24/7 from any device with an internet connection (which supports remote or home-working)
- In-house IT expertise and hardware isn’t required
- You can subscribe to just the features you need and pay only for these
- You can scale your subscription up or down as required and turn new features on easily
- Software upgrades are more regular so issues get fixed quicker and you can get new features faster.
Why Skymetrix?
Skymetrix solutions are used by over 100 of the world’s leading aviation businesses,
from innovative low-cost carriers to established, global brands.
Here’s why:
Our technology
We offer a cloud-based, next-generation platform that provides one accurate view of your key direct operating costs, including Fuel, Airport, Navigation and Ground Handling.
It allows you to hyper-automate processes and easily gain insights from granular data using advanced analytics. Our platform is built to integrate easily with other systems and uses IATA’s industry standards for fuel data, so you will never be locked in.
Our expertise
Equally important as the technology is our team’s expertise in fuel and cost management best practice. Skymetrix has been formed following the merger of two leading businesses in this sector — Airpas and FuelPlus — and so our team has a solid 20+ year track record.
Our commitment to customer collaboration
Since 2001, we have continuously worked with our customers and industry partners — including IATA — to develop new functionality that addresses industry challenges and requirements; functionality such as automated invoice checking, route profitability, data analytics, and emissions tracking and reporting. Our platform has therefore been built by the industry, for the industry.
We work closely with customers to understand their specific requirements, share our experiences, and shape a solution to fit perfectly.
It’s this commitment to customer collaboration and shared learning that makes us stand out.
Skymetrix Savings Calculator
Use our quick, online tool to see how much you could save when you use Skymetrix.
“Skymetrix makes it quicker and easier for your airline to manage fuel and other direct operating costs. Our platform will improve transparency, drive efficiency, reduce administration and increase the time available for higher value tasks.”
Immo Zech
Chief Information Officer
