Software for disseminating real-time operational information is helping United Airlines save $46 million this year by letting the airline react more quickly to unplanned events such as inclement weather, mechanical delays and crew shortages.

To improve its responsiveness, the airline built an operations data store using infrastructure software called Real-Time Event Processing System, from software maker TimesTen. United's data store provides continuous visibility into operations, including the status of United's 3,300 daily flights.

TimesTen's Real-Time Event Processing System is an in-memory database, which stores information locally in RAM, rather than on a disk drive, to enable faster information retrieval and dissemination. It's an alternative to application-specific data caches, aimed at transaction-heavy users such as financial services firms and telecom companies that depend on real-time updates, says Jim Groff, CEO of TimesTen. "The common denominator is systems that need to process thousands or tens of thousands of events per second," Groff says.

United's TimesTen-powered data store serves as a single source for collecting, storing and distributing event data to multiple enterprise applications - including flight status, crew scheduling and gate information displays - that require accurate and timely operational data. Notification features inform users when relevant changes occur, such as immediately alerting catering staff to airport gate changes.

In addition, United uses the system to analyze available aircraft and crew resources and project what the rest of the day, or the next day, is going to look like, says John Byrne, director of applications development at United. "Whenever there's an irregular operation, we have to be able to predict what's going to happen and come up with models that suggest solutions to recover the airline more quickly," Byrne says. "That's really where we've gotten a lot of value from this solution."

The airline estimates it will save $17.4 million in 2003 through hard, quantifiable savings such as more-efficient crew scheduling and fuel usage. Better scheduling means "fewer pilots and flight attendants sitting in the wings, waiting for an assignment," Byrne says. "And we've seen some good increases in our fuel efficiency as a result of being able to more accurately predict arrival times. Consequently, pilots don't load extra fuel on the aircraft."

United - whose parent company, UAL Corp., is in the midst of corporate restructuring after filing for bankruptcy protection one year ago - attributes the remainder of this year's $46 million savings to soft cost savings achieved by reducing flight delays. Better on-time performance yields greater customer satisfaction and increases the airline's repeat business, for example.

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