Osprey to provide Virgin Atlantic with risk assessment software
Courtesy Virgin Atlantic
The system will assist Virgin Atlantic with the ability to instantaneously risk assess each flight through their own flight planning tools by using advanced data gathering and analytics and machine learning to support and improve the speed and consistency of the analysis.
Airlines face a variety of security threats to their aircraft, passengers or crew, ranging from political unrest, physical threats and laser events. A huge amount of data is required for a thorough risk assessment and the traditional, manual risk assessment model process can be slow, unscalable, inconsistent and subjective
By integrating Osprey’s software into their flight planning system, Virgin’s security and flight operations teams can more quickly risk assess every flight, accessing high quality risk information. Osprey gathers data from over 200,000 sources in 60 different languages; each item is multi-source corroborated, categorised, date-correlated and geo-located before being submitted to our database of over 380,000 aviation security and safety incidents and events, comprised of over three million data points.
Osprey’s system operates 24/7, collecting, filtering and analysing the data and identifying patterns, giving an updated global picture of the aviation security environment. Artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities such as machine learning ensure the system is continuously improving and it can accept any information feed, manual or automated. Osprey provides a spectrum of feeds from rapid threat alerts, through live-time incident assessment to customisable reports.
Overflight risk assessment is a key functionality of Osprey: the globe is divided into blocks, which are each assigned a dynamic altitude dependent assessment, so the risk picture airlines receive is not constrained by country borders or Flight Information Region (FIR) boundaries. The system allows the overlay of other data sets, such as terrain altitude and population density, allowing the identification of hidden indicators and their impact so that airlines can conduct the most robust risk assessment of route options, and potentially save time, fuel and CO2 burn.
Nigel Williams, Head of Security at Virgin Atlantic said: “Virgin Atlantic Airways is committed to maintaining the highest standards in aviation security and delighted to be using Osprey’s innovative technologies to enhance our risk-based security management system. Their data-led analysis is the future of risk management for the aviation industry and is now a key element of our security and risk decision making.”
Andrew Nicholson, CEO at Osprey Flight Solutions, commented: “Osprey is delighted to have a major UK Commercial Operator and industry leader like Virgin Atlantic onboard. We believe our solution is unique in aviation in the detail and speed at which it provides risk assessors with the information they need and we look forward to continuing to support improving standards of risk management in the industry.”
