The social network for pilots, to make flying safer and cheaper

Project Information

AVIAZE

Grant agreement ID: 887490

DOI

10.3030/887490

Project closed

EC signature date 3 December 2019

Start date 1 January 2020

End date 30 April 2020

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Innovation In SMEs

Total cost

€ 71 429,00

EU contribution

€ 50 000,00

Coordinated by

STARMAN AVIATION SOCIEDAD LIMITADA
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - AVIAZE (The social network for pilots, to make flying safer and cheaper)

Reporting period: 2020-01-01 to 2020-04-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Only in Europe, 150 people lose their lives every year on light aircraft accidents. Flying is not a dangerous activity itself but the technology and regulations binominal is not optimal for this type of aviation.

A lot can be done to improve safety margins. Over the years, aviation technology introduced in commercial aviation has led to a dramatic reduction of accidents. Tremendous investments in innovation brought traffic avoidance systems, flight data recorders, aircraft tracking... cutting edge tech that unfortunately cannot be transferred to light aviation straight away, just because of one single reason: high costs. Flying clubs and flight schools are usually low margin businesses, not to mention leisure flying... Commercial aviation equipment costs are too high and regulators, aware of that, cannot impose them as mandatory. However, they are calling for tailored solutions to save lives while maintaining light aviation financially viable.

But the challenge we face in the near future goes way beyond that. Drones are just emerging today and their operation is increasing exponentially. In a few years we will have millions of drones flying in the lower airspace. That needs to be manageable from a safety point of view. Avoiding collisions among them and ensuring coexistence with light aviation is AVIAZE's ultimate goal. And for that AVIAZE is being developed as a scalable platform to manage air operations.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Despite the COVID19 and its impact in aviation worldwide, a lot has been done at AVIAZE in the last four months.

On the technical side we have released new safety features for our iOS users. To do that, we’ve carried out many interviews to users worldwide, we have involved our pilots to understand our successes and errors in conception and we have iterated fast. Also, we have developed, tested and released successfully a full-featured Android version to the same level as the iOS one. That was a real challenge due to the complexity of working with many different manufacturers.

On the B2B line, we have launched the SaaS, as forecasted, “AVIAZE For Business” https://www.aviaze.com/business/ and the module for aviation organizations (flying clubs, flight schools, aircraft operators…). The COVID19 pandemic has had a direct impact on the testing with B2B customers, though. Since most of the flight training activity was banned worldwide, customers decided to postpone the trials on AVIAZE. We are working hard to get them back onboard, but the C19 impact is translated in unavoidable delays in the relationship with out SaaS customers.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Although COVID19 has brought unexpected circumstances, not everything was negative. We had time to broaden our network via videocalls. On the institutional side, for instance, we have achieved beyond expectations and set the grounds with the European Aviation Safety Agency (dependent on the European Commission) to become one of their “Safety Partners”. And on the commercial side, we have worked hard, opened new social media such as TikTok, started our Linkedin activity and increased exponentially our presence on Instagram, where in 4 months we’ve jumped from 450 to 4500 followers and growing. With exclusive content aviation and safety related.

And results speak from themselves, we have pilots flying safer today with AVIAZE in New Zealand, Canada, USA, South Africa, Brazil, Argentina, Malasia, Iran, UK, Germany, France, Spain, Norway, Poland, Italy and more.

SaaS

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