American Airlines Prevents Cancellations With HEAT

Photo by Ross Sokolovski on Unsplash

Summer brings the heat, and American Airlines is bringing the HEAT to stop flight cancellations. American Airlines has been making some noise with its new HEAT system, which uses Big Data to keep as many planes, crews, and passengers on schedule as possible.

HEAT is an acronym for the Hub Efficiency Analytics Tool, which was developed by American Airlines. The HEAT system looks at a wide variety of data points, including weather, number of passengers per flight, open gates, air traffic control info, and more.

The algorithms are fed to American Airlines’ Integrated Operating Center (IOC). The staff at the IOC then use the data to determine scheduling and potential flight delays. According to American Airlines, the HEAT system itself can dynamically move around schedules when weather threatens a disruption.

The goal is to reduce as many cancellations as possible, and American claims that HEAT has prevented almost 1,000 cancellations since it has began use one year ago.

Timothy Niznik, American Airlines director of IOC Analytics, commented that the HEAT system will continue to improve as long as American Airlines continues to use it: “Each time we run HEAT, we analyze the results, and incorporate those findings so we can continue to improve the strategies and technology that help keep our operation moving."