Fiji Airways uses RFID technology to improve emergency equipment management

Fiji Airways will use RFID technology to help conduct faster and more efficient emergency equipment inspections across 15 aircraft. The company this year installed RFID systems on more than 4,000 of its emergency equipment, which can reduce inspection time to minutes.

Marco Andreacchio, senior project manager of EAM RFID solutions, said that the system can not only help inspectors increase speed and reduce errors, but also prevent flight delays caused by delays in emergency equipment inspections. The solution attaches tags to emergency equipment, uses a handheld card reader to query these devices, and uses software provided by EAM for data analysis and management. In the long term, airlines intend to use the technology to automate inspections while also analyzing historical data.

Fiji Airways is an international airline based in Nadi, flying to 10 countries including the United States. The airline conducts weekly and monthly checks on the status of emergency equipment. Before the RFID system was installed, inspection of small aircraft took 90 minutes and inspection of large aircraft took 8 hours.

Beginning last year, Fiji Airways began investigating RFID technology as part of its Air Management Oversight System (AMOS) program. In mid-year, the airline began working with EAM Worldwide to develop a solution at EAM's Dubai office. EAM Worldwide has supplied Fiji Airways with RFID life jackets since 2009.

In January this year, the airline began trialling the technology and spent a week training 60 employees. Most equipment requires labeling. Fiji Airways uses UHF RFID tags provided by William Frick and Co. that comply with the AS5678A specification. Life jacket tags are marked at the factory.

This project uses single-record and dual-record tags, both of which comply with the ATA Spec2000 Ch9-5 standard. All tags have unique ID numbers and are associated with item information in EAM Worldwide TagControl software. TagControl uses names called WebApp, DesktopApp, and MobileApp to manage and share data on computers and mobile devices. Fiji Airways uses Alien Technology's UHF RFID handheld readers to read tags.

When the inspector is working on the aircraft, he only needs to open the TagControl application on the card reader to conduct the inspection. The reader reads the tag ID via RFID and then transmits the data to the TagControl via the cellular network. If the system detects that an item is missing, expired, or needs repair, the system will alert the inspector.

To date, the company has placed more than 4,000 tags on life rafts, oxygen bottles, generators, seat belt extensions, earmuffs, flashlights, fire extinguishers and survival kits. The equipment is used on the company's A330, 737, ATR and Twin Otter aircraft.

As a next step, Fiji Airways will use RFID technology to track seat covers. Airlines regularly clean seat covers, and RFID technology will provide information on seat cover cleaning and replacement. "The goal of the system is to track the number of washes and confirm that the seat cover is installed in the correct place," Andreacchio said. "

Fiji Airways is also confirming the possible application of label marking for spare items. In the long term, the company hopes that suppliers will bring their own RFID tags before leaving the factory. Andreakio said: "Retrofitting tags is a thing of the past, and in the future RFID tags will be delivered with the product."