The International Air Transport Association (IATA) on Tuesday launched its latest analytics tool, IATA FuellS. IATA is the representative body for the global airline industry, and the launch took place at its AGM in Dubai.

IATA FuellS is, in the association’s words, “an advanced analytics solution to optimise airline fuel consumption, using aggregated and anonymised flight and fuel data”. Fuel is one of the biggest expenses an airline has, accounting for some 33% of any airline’s operational costs.

“IATA FuellS is a robust analytical tool for airlines to make both strategic and operational decisions to optimise fuel consumption, reduce fuel costs, and improve environmental performance,” stated IATA senior VP operations, safety and security Nick Careen. “By enabling airlines to benchmark their fuel performance against aggregated industry data, airlines can understand where they excel and where they need to take action.”

The tool made use of data from the IATA Global Aviation Data Management system, sourced from the Flight Data eXchange (FDX) programme. FDX now contains data from 215 airlines from around the world, which is a big enough base to assure the maximum level of accuracy in the insights derived from it.

One of the key features of IATA FuellS is the Fleet Fuel Efficiency Assessment. This allows the analysis of the fuel efficiency of a range of aircraft types, for different regions and times, through the comparison of fuel expenditure, per operational tonne-kilometre, with industry averages.

Another key feature is the Airport Benchmarking Analysis. “Fuel quantity at landing can be measured for aircraft,” explained IATA. “This can be benchmarked against the aggregated fuel quantities of all other airlines landing at the same airport.”

A third key feature is that aircraft and engine manufacturers can use the tool, to establish the fuel efficiency of their aircraft or engines, against averages for the industry. This will give them important insights into individual markets, countries, regions and fleet types, through the use of real operational data. This will help their customers employ their products more effectively.

IATA has, since 2005, been helping airlines identify opportunities for fuel savings. IATA FuellS is the latest step in this programme.