Why auto-validation is essential for aviation fuel management

The aviation industry continues to face numerous challenges. Fluctuating fuel prices, increased environmental regulations, and global competition has meant that effective, accurate fuel management is more critical than ever. With fuel accounting for 20-30% of airlines’ total operating costs, implementing an efficient and reliable fuel management system is crucial for optimising fuel consumption and reducing costs.

Fuel management systems can monitor, control, and record fuel storage, distribution, and consumption via ground operations. They can also help airlines comply with safety and environmental regulations by ensuring accurate reporting of fuel usage and emissions data. However, with continuing advancements in technology and data analytics, fuel management systems have evolved significantly over the years. As systems become more powerful and innovative, choosing one that assures data accuracy is now a must-have feature.

Automatic fuel data validation is a game-changing innovation and a critical requirement for any into-plane provider. This feature allows users to ‘close out’ their data on a daily basis, by cross-referencing, reconciling, and validating fuel data from multiple sources to ensure its accuracy and reliability.

As you can imagine, this provides some much needed benefits for aviation businesses and their stakeholders, such as improved data integrity, enhanced operational efficiency, reduced fuel costs, better regulatory compliance, and more accurate environmental impact reporting.

Let’s break down and look into these advantages in more detail.

Advantage 1 - Data is cross-referenced from multiple sources

Advanced fuel management systems collect data and perform validation checks across  various sources, such as fuel suppliers, airline systems, ground providers, and airports. By cross-referencing this data, the system can detect inconsistencies and discrepancies, which can be further investigated and resolved to ensure data accuracy.

Advantage 2 - Daily reconciliation and validation

Automatic fuel data validation often includes reconciliation processes that compare and match fuel transactions, consumption records, and invoices. Again, this identifies any inaccuracies or discrepancies in the data, ensuring that only reliable information is used for decision-making and reporting. Additionally, validation algorithms can be employed to check the consistency of data, such as verifying fuel density values or identifying outliers in fuel consumption patterns.

Advantage 3 - Minimises human error

As we all know, manual data entry and processing is prone to human error, which leads to inaccurate information and negatively impacts decision-making. Automated fuel management and validation minimises this risk by automatically capturing, processing, and validating fuel data. This reduction in manual processes not only improves data accuracy but also saves valuable time and resources.

Advantage 4 - Automated integrity checks and alerts

Automatic validation of fuel data should include built-in data integrity checks and alerts that notify relevant personnel of any potential issues, such as missing data, data discrepancies, or unusual fuel meter movements. These alerts enable timely detection and resolution of issues, maintaining high data integrity and trust.

Ultimately, implementing a fuel management system is a wise decision - but implementing one with automatic fuel data validation can also result in substantial cost savings for airlines, into-plane providers, and other stakeholders. Access to real time data - and the validation of the accuracy of that data - allows companies to reduce costs by reducing the need for back office staff, error correction, manual report and invoice generation, and more. 

With all this in mind, the return on investment often makes implementing a system which includes data validation a no-brainer. Typical ROI figures include a 90% reduction in back-office data entry and post-refuel transaction checks. That’s on top of the ROI advantages you would expect to see with an advanced fuel management system, such as:

• 40% reduction in supervisors' flight preparation & scheduling
• 40% reduction in refueling ticket purchasing and storing
• 30% reduction in driver, dispatch, and admin costs
• 20% reduction in maintenance & reporting
• 15% reduction in refueling time & vehicle utilisation

At i6, we believe the most effective option is to digitalise the entire airport fuel supply chain. Our fuel management technology seamlessly connects the fuel supplier, into-plane operator, and airline to track end-to-end fuel movements. This provides key airlines, airports, and into-plane operators with detailed and real-time information with greater operational control and efficiency - including essential data validation features.

Fusion⁶, is our fully integrated, end-to-end refuelling management platform built from the ground up to be a secure and reliable, fully hosted application to address the unique requirements and integration needs of the aviation refuelling industry. Fusion6, together with the full range of solutions in our Biosphere, provides airlines and suppliers with accurate real-time data, allowing users to realise multiple benefits that lead to increased efficiency. Our solutions provide access to AI-based dynamic scheduling, powerful reporting, robust inventory management, complete financial control, data validation, and more. 

Get in touch for more information about how you can digitalise your fuelling operations and ensure data accuracy.