This article is published in Aviation Week & Space Technology and is free to read until May 09, 2025. If you want to read more articles from this publication, please click the link to subscribe.
(L to R) Andrew Coleman, president and general manager of GE Aerospace; Claude Houver, head of Digital Solutions for Airbus; Nicole White, VP and general manager of Connected Aviation at Collins Aerospace; Joel Cadaux, director of Business and Services for Liebherr; and David Thompson, VP of Engineering, Quality, Planning and Support for Delta TechOps.
ATLANTA—Collins Aerospace has become the fifth member of the Digital Alliance for Aviation, a group jointly developing digital solutions for airline operations powered by the Airbus Skywise platform.
Further partners are expected to come later in 2025, as the alliance considers expanding its services to non-Airbus aircraft. It is looking widely at a portfolio of suppliers as it evaluates additional partners. Existing alliance members comprise Airbus, Delta TechOps, GE Aerospace and Liebherr, partners that bring expertise in airline and MRO operations, data analytics and predictive models, and component design and repair.
By uniting industry players with complimentary capabilities, the Airbus initiative develops predictive maintenance solutions, to offer “nose to tail” aftermarket monitoring across every Airbus aircraft family.
“In this fifth year of the Digital Alliance, and welcoming the fifth member, Collins Aerospace, we look forward to working on reinforcing our existing product portfolio,” said Claude Houver, Airbus VP of Innovation and Digital Solution. “We are also assessing expanding our services for non-Airbus aircraft for customers with mixed fleets to further accelerate the deployment of predictive maintenance in the industry, starting with health-monitoring solutions.”
For Collins, the partnership represents an opportunity to push the industry forward in the space of data analytics and data transformation. Its own expertise for predictive maintenance solutions covers a wide range of components and aircraft types. “Collins complements the predictive value proposition of the Digital Alliance by providing significant analytics for Airbus and non-Airbus fleets,” the Alliance says of its newest member. “This includes air conditioning supplemental cooling, electrical power distribution center, hydraulic power or engine bleed air supply.”
Pulling different models and pieces of partner ecosystems together to pool strengths can ultimately drive better value for operators and their fleets, explained Nicole White, VP and general manager of Connected Aviation at Collins Aerospace, at the signing ceremony.
“I think we’re really uniquely positioned to add some value to this alliance as we think about having one of the largest product and service portfolios in all of aerospace,” White said. “We’re excited to bring that capability and expertise ... to this alliance to really drive forward the system reliability and data analytics that we believe can be true of the Alliance.”
Airbus created the Digital Alliance in 2019 with Delta Tech Ops as a founding member; prior to Collins it most recently added Liebherr in a signing ceremony at Aviation Week Network’s MRO Europe in 2024.
“We’re really excited just about the industry and where it’s transforming,” White added. “We feel that the partnership we can have with Airbus and the rest of the members is something that will continue to just drive evolution to better data insight and ultimately, action for our airline customers.”
Related Content
