SITA acquires Safety Line to support sustainable aviation

SITA, the global IT provider for the air transport industry, today announced the acquisition of Safety Line S.A.S., the Paris based start-up specializing in digital solutions for aviation safety and efficiency.

This acquisition will strengthen SITA’s Digital Day of Operations portfolio, helping airlines drive more efficiencies and fuel savings around the aircraft while taking immediate and sustainable steps to reduce their carbon footprint.

With air transport accounting for about 3% of the worldwide carbon emissions, there is growing pressure on airlines to reduce their overall emissions. At the same time the COVID-19 pandemic requires airlines to make their aircraft operations leaner, in particular reducing costly fuel burn. Safety Line has successfully applied predictive analytics to deliver significant improvements to aircraft operations, strongly complementing SITA’s existing portfolio. With this acquisition, SITA will accelerate the development of sustainable solutions that can be integrated with its existing suite of airline and airport solutions.   

Reducing aircraft CO₂ emissions in-flight and at airports

The acquisition comes as a logical follow-up to the commercial partnership signed between the two companies in September 2020, focused on helping airlines reduce their CO₂ emissions with OptiFlight, the only predictive in-flight fuel efficiency solution leveraging machine learning performance models for each aircraft to optimize all flight phases including climb-out, cruise and descent. OptiFlight is already fully integrated with existing applications in SITA’s Digital Day of Operations portfolio, and current joint customers include Air France, Transavia Airlines, Aerologic and Condor.

On the ground, Safety Line’s AirsideWatch will allow SITA to expand its airports offering to airside operations, using surface movement radar data to better understand, analyze and optimize the ground traffic of aircraft between gates and runways with an aim to reduce unnecessary emissions.

Using data to improve safety and risk management

With safety being a key pillar in aviation alongside efficiency, the acquisition also covers SafetyCube, a solution that enables aviation stakeholders to pro-actively manage their safety and compliance. Key customers include large airports such as Paris-CDG and Paris-Orly or OEMs such as Airbus Helicopters, as well as airlines and ATM providers, all of which also compose SITA’s main customer base. SITA will, therefore, be able to expand its offering to include safety-enhancing services to existing customers.

Co-Innovating with airline and airport customers

Sébastien Fabre, CEO of SITA FOR AIRCRAFT said: “We were impressed with the way Safety Line have been able to transform the research from their data science team into real-life applications thanks to innovation partnerships with strategic airline customers such as  Transavia or Air France or airports such as Group ADP. Through our existing partnership, we have already delivered real value to our customers and this acquisition fits perfectly with SITA’s approach of partnering and co-innovating with our customers to increase efficiency and reduce emissions. We are excited to welcome the Safety Line team to SITA.”

Pierre Jouniaux, Founder & CEO of Safety Line said: ‘We are delighted to join the SITA family, which should accelerate the global growth of our innovative solutions, for the benefit of more efficient and greener aviation operations.”