Intro: What does the cloud mean to the aircraft? Well, other way around — what does the aircraft mean to the cloud? The aircraft is just one part of the cloud. The airline will have an ecosystem in the cloud where the aircraft is just one edge node of this entire system. And all the data should be centralized. Decision making should be centralized, ideally on the ground — because the aircraft is connected and the devices can leverage the data. It sounds like a big shift. You have seatback, crew applications, IoT devices. You have personal devices. All of them connect to cloud. And you have the cloud infrastructure. So you build your data lake, you build your authentication layer, you build your analytics and so on. So it has a lot of implications on different systems. How do you move forward? Do you build first your monster API gateway layer in the cloud to be able to connect whatever you have on board? Or do you just cut out and use, like, one use case?

Ralph Wagner: Welcome to LOADED — Talking Software for Connected Aircraft. Today with me Stefanie Schuster. I am Ralph Wagner. And we are discussing today how a customer journey looks like. Let's start with how it looked in the past — and maybe we start from the ground. So Stefi, what are your thoughts on the passenger journey?

Stefanie Schuster: Well, the passenger journey, or the customer journey, is right now a topic coming up more strongly in discussions. It's typically not yet implemented at airlines, but I think in the last few years airlines did a lot of improvements preflight — on-ground systems, around booking, around loyalty, also merging not the systems but the identity. Because when we talk about customer journey, one crucial topic we need to look into is passenger identity — how to match that. And on the ground, we saw developments in the direction of centralizing, for example, the booking identity and the loyalty identity. We saw that with Lufthansa, for example, the Lufthansa Group and Travel ID; we also see it with other airlines. So there is already a lot of development going on.

Ralph Wagner: Yeah. And other airlines have it even simplified — that you can basically only book as a guest or with your loyalty credentials. It's a centralized way to look at your passenger and to understand your passenger, and also to be able to follow the actions of the passenger. What else do you see on the ground that is supporting this one identity, this one journey?

Stefanie Schuster: A challenge we see there is, of course, still different systems and a lot of data which is not yet matched to use cases. So the first step is collecting data. Airlines have much more data than they had in the past. Now mapping that and thinking about how to actually use it to engage the passenger — preparing for the flight, preparing for whatever is coming up — this mapping is not yet there so much.

Ralph Wagner: Okay, but we can see that airlines start to collect the data, to centralize the data around the passenger before your journey. I think an important point is also disruption management — understanding when flights delay, when flights change, when gates change, and so on. So there is a lot taking place in this regard. Now let's move to the cabin…

Stefanie Schuster: Yes — but wait, we stay on the ground. What happens post-flight?

Ralph Wagner: Okay. In view of post-flight, there are two things. The one thing is basically how do you get me, for example, to pick up my luggage, etc. But actually, often post-flight is a combination of post-flight and preflight — when I get my connecting flight. It's different to get me to the airport and through my journey through the gate, versus when I'm at the airport and now you need to get me from one aircraft to another, with maybe the lounge in between. There is a lot around how to get to my new gate. When is my connecting flight departing? Is there a problem with it? Can I have an upgrade before I enter the aircraft? So I think post-flight and preflight to some extent are similar. Other things are for sure different — what happens with my journey, do I get an Uber, what is with the hotel, what is with destination information? Especially when you look at travel for vacation, you probably can also offer more information to your passenger who travels, let's say, the first time to a destination.

Stefanie Schuster: I think what is maybe a little bit not yet well presented after the flight is all around loyalty — taking more into account how to book the next flight, how to use some points you gathered from the last flight to book the new flight, to get updates on rates. And you're right, post-flight can also mean the in-between connection. Okay, then let's move to on board.

Ralph Wagner: Yes, let's move to on board. We have a new situation on board — we have the connectivity. So what does the connectivity change?

Stefanie Schuster: Well, the connectivity changes the situation for basically any device on board of the aircraft. When we talk connectivity we often talk about the passenger devices, obviously. But we also have the seat screen, the crew devices, the server. And connectivity changes the situation for all of that. Let's start with the server. What changes there?

Ralph Wagner: So the connection on board — the real-time connection on board. What it changes, in my opinion, is that with the latency you have and with the bandwidth you have, looking at new ways how to connect the aircraft, there is a totally new way how you actually have the cloud included. And this supports the airline idea to centralize the collecting of data. You have the possibility to collect much more data on board. You have the possibility to move this data to the ground. You have the possibility to use real-time connections. When you look at data collection, it's about getting everything a passenger is doing, understanding what he does on board, and moving this in real time to the cloud. And the second thing is real-time interactions like authentication. I believe that authentication is the most crucial thing you need to look at when you have a real-time connection, when you have low latency — because with authentication you can now think about transactions, ordering, changing your seat, authenticating with your seatback. The crew knows you, knows that you are authenticated. So you have a new way to interact with your passenger while he's using your product on board. And I think this changes today's view on the passenger — because today there is no real easy way to understand what your passenger does during the flight. This will dramatically change the possibilities of an airline, how they can actually interact with the passenger when he's flying.

Stefanie Schuster: When we say we need the passenger identity, we need to ideally have the passenger logged in at any point in time. Whatever he's doing, he needs to be known and logged in. The personal devices passengers are carrying — they already know the passenger identity. How can we use that on board?

Ralph Wagner: I think it's the central piece — the passenger device and the possibility that you can log in. You have your airline app. When you look at a scenario where you would like to let the crew or the seatback know who you are, I think the easiest way to do that is using your phone. Looking at connectivity today, you get a very nice connection and you can use your internet when you are authenticating with the loyalty program. There is already a move in the direction that the airline would like to know who you are so that you get elevated services. There's not so much a question about what the force behind that is — the service is good enough that people are doing it, and if you increase the service with authentication, people will do it. So if I have my seatback screen and I can pair it with my phone — there have been such attempts in the past where you could do that, but there was a real connection between the seatback screen and your phone. I don't think that is the smart part. The smart part is that my phone is connected to the ground. I'm authenticated in my app. If I generate a QR code on my seatback screen and I pair it, I don't pair it with a server on board — I pair it with the ground. I really do true authentication, and the seatback screen really knows who I am. It's similar to when you have Netflix on your TV at home — you're not typing in your password with your remote control. You get a QR code, you take out your phone, you open the Netflix app, and it authenticates you against the TV. With this, first of all, you have the data centralized. You can use this data from a full journey — preflight, post-flight. And you can really put something on the screen in front of me that actually is more than entertainment, that handles my flight, handles the situation I'm in. So what could you do if you really know on the seatback screen, if you have an authenticated user there? I know today's systems where you type in your birthday and so on to get some kind of authentication. But this would really mean you are authenticated — the system really knows who you are. There are a lot of possibilities of what you could do with that.

Stefanie Schuster: So if the central authentication is ideally via the passenger device, because that anyway carries my identity, then you connect to the cloud and you have all other screens using data and being basically context-aware. The seatback knows who I am, but the seatback also knows what is happening right now. The seatback would know about disruptions, would know about my preferences. It might know about what it could offer me. You said if the services are good enough, the passengers are willing to log in. I agree. And I think it even goes — for operational purposes, probably definitely, because you want to know what's going on and you want to get the service which is available. But I would say even for commercial purposes, to some extent, passengers are also willing to authenticate. If I had to purchase an upgrade when I'm already on a long flight, or I had a missed connection, or I have a flight during the night, I might be willing to pay more — so I might be willing to authenticate, to log in, and to have those services directly on the seatback.

Ralph Wagner: And you are in the situation to do that — you are relaxed, you sit there. It's not like you leave the aircraft and now you get an upgrade offer while you're walking to the gate with your phone in your hand. Everybody knows how that works then — you're going to your account, and… No, you're sitting, you're relaxed, and then you get an upgrade offer. And in the past, when you were thinking about how do you charge the credit card, how much can you charge it — you couldn't verify it because you don't have the ground included. But in this scenario, yes, you can easily book something for 500 bucks. That works. You can do this on board of the aircraft. Because you are connected to the ground, and because you have your payment device with you, and you can also use payment gateways on the ground, you're not forced to use a payment gateway or to have equipment with you on board to actually run a transaction. You can run the transaction on the ground. If you have your seatback screen connected to your phone, you can have on the seatback screen everything that lets you nicely choose maybe your seat or whatever you want to purchase. So you can have everything in front of you. And when you click on payment, you basically use your phone, make your face authentication, pay. That's it. It goes to the ground. The ground informs the crew. If the crew needs to bring you something — something ordered to the seat, for example — that happens; if not, then the transaction is just done and the seatback screen can just inform you about it. I think this is a real new way to run transactions and authentications. And we forgot the crew — the crew knows about you as well.

Stefanie Schuster: For the crew devices, for operational purposes, it's probably the biggest shift even. When they are connected to the cloud and they get data from the server, from the passenger devices, from the seatback, from the cloud databases, they have all the visibility they need to support the passengers in an ideal way — to make decisions in real time, in the context where they are right now.

Ralph Wagner: What does it mean for the cloud? Or, the other way around — what does the cloud mean to the aircraft?

Stefanie Schuster: Well, other way around: what does the aircraft mean to the cloud? The aircraft is just one part of the cloud. The airline will have an ecosystem in the cloud where the aircraft is just one edge node of this entire system. And all the data should be centralized. Decision making should be centralized, ideally on the ground — because the aircraft is connected and the devices can leverage the data. We also need to talk about challenges like a mixed fleet, like interruptions of connectivity. Of course, we also have such cases. But when we take a look at the future setup, it's one ecosystem.

Ralph Wagner: How should airlines approach that? Because it sounds like a big shift. You have seatback, crew applications, IoT devices, personal devices — all of them connect to cloud. And you have the cloud infrastructure: you build your data lake, you build your authentication layer, you build your analytics and so on. So it has a lot of implications on different systems. How do you move forward? Do you build first your monster API gateway layer in the cloud to be able to connect whatever you have on board? Or do you just cut out and use, like, one use case?

Stefanie Schuster: I typically like building a foundation first, but in this case I think it helps to have one or two specific use cases — just because the topic is so complex, so big. It involves different teams, different systems, completely different contexts. So I think it helps to specify what you actually need if you have one or two use cases in mind and just think them through.

Ralph Wagner: Would it be the example use case?

Stefanie Schuster: Well, I would pick one operational, one commercial use case. Operational — what we talked about: missing the connection. I think disruption management, even simple things like “I'm on a long-haul flight, my connecting flight, I won't reach it because I'm late.” What happens? What can the airline do to own this disruption and not make it my problem, and support me through that and make it just smooth…

Ralph Wagner: …while you sit in your seat?

Stefanie Schuster: Yes, while I'm sitting. Such an operational use case. And maybe a commercial use case — we had the seat upgrades. I would think this is a nice use case to think through because it's also related to comfort. It's something which mostly benefits the airline — well, it really benefits both. And it's something where passengers appreciate if you can offer something targeted. So I would take such one or two use cases and think it through: how is it today, and how could it be if I leverage the connectivity I have and if I think in centralized data, centralized passenger identity?

Ralph Wagner: Okay. I'm not sure about that, because I think it's a valid point to look at it holistically. To really look at it from a standpoint of: what do you need actually on the server on board to change? What do you need to change on so-called IFE infrastructure — which from my perspective is not an IFE infrastructure in the future, it's just devices. That's it. And you need to think about how you connect these devices. If it's a display panel, if it's a seatback screen, if it's a server on board — all of this is for me just devices, IoT, whatever is connected; and the cloud on the ground. I would think about it if an airline has the opportunity to look at it in a more generic way — to think about how you connect the cloud with on-board infrastructure and devices. How do you authenticate them? How do you understand which device the cloud is connecting to? And then you think about what you operate on these devices and what you operate on the server. How do you use avionics data? How do you use IoT data? How do you use a seatback screen — that is then the second question. The first question is how do you connect them, how do you build a platform where you basically know which devices are in the cabin and how you get to them. And then you think about what you build on these devices. What do you build on a seatback screen? Do you enable a seatback screen to directly communicate with the cloud, for example, to get more content from the cloud — in combination with getting content from the server on board, in combination with your personal device to authenticate your user? I think even if it's not possible to do it in the first place, it's important to have this picture. How should your cabin actually look? What is a device within the cabin?

Stefanie Schuster: Are you saying, even if it's not possible — if you would want to do it? I would say that's the much more technical approach: if you don't go for use cases first, but you go for the foundation. Which competencies would an airline need? I mean, it's cross-teams, it's cross-use-cases, it's a rather technology-driven approach.

Ralph Wagner: In the end, it's still about what we are talking today about — the passenger. So it's still about you having a focus on the passenger; you have to have authentication; you need to think about how transactions work; you need to think about which kind of data for the passenger you display on which device; what you tell about your passenger to the crew; what you offer on the seatback screen; what you offer on the personal device. Even on IoT — if I'm in my business class seat and I have a certain setting of my business class seat, you inform basically the IoT equipment about my preferences, which is also something connected to my authentication, that you know me. And you can look at that, if you wish, as a use case — a pure technical use case. It's a use case about authentication of a passenger and understanding where the passenger is, what he's doing, and what you can offer him in your product. And with that, you can approach the infrastructure. I think that would be the right way to do it. So it's still passenger-centric. It's not about a pure technical…

Stefanie Schuster: …but still it's very technically driven. And it would definitely be — if you think in roles and competencies — an architect in the lead, probably. It's cloud people, DevOps people, data analysts. Like, you have a rather technical team driving such an initiative.

Ralph Wagner: Absolutely. I mean, in the end we are talking software for connected aircraft.

Stefanie Schuster: Yeah. Still on different levels. We touched shortly on the topic of mixed fleets, which can be a challenge in different occasions. There are airlines rolling out LEO satcom and it just takes some time, so you're dealing with a mixed fleet temporarily. There are also airlines deciding for different connectivity options on different parts of the fleet, where it's rather long-term, mid-term, not just temporarily. How to deal with such setups when we talk customer journey?

Ralph Wagner: I think a mixed fleet will always be the case. I believe today it feels a little bit like the disruption looks massive from one to the other. But what changes in the future, we don't know — what kind of disruption you will see in three years from now, you don't know. I think you need to prepare naturally in this industry to always have a mixed environment. This is a challenge I think this industry knows how to deal with, and there are different approaches to it — to keep the experience always in a similar way, or to basically have products that are just premium. There are different ways to handle that. In general, from a software perspective, you do need to still think within the cabin about how you treat the devices, how you treat your screens, your server, your IoT, your personal devices, your crew applications. How do you set them up? I don't think that this changes when you look at it from a LEO or from a disconnected cabin. You do not have the advantages in a disconnected cabin that you have when you have LEO, and when you have the cloud as the brain.

Stefanie Schuster: I am also not sure if we can mix here, LEO and disconnected — maybe rather different connected options. Because completely disconnected is then still…

Ralph Wagner: …completely disconnected. Also, in a completely disconnected aircraft, you can still have a server, you can still have the clients, you can still have the crew applications. You can still think about how you actually distribute your software, how you update the software, how you update content, how you make the system aware of a passenger manifest. There are ways, even today, that this is done. While you are on the ground you're syncing the passenger manifest, or you have devices that can bring the data to the infrastructure. I think there are still solutions to that. And I also believe in an open way — when you do have the real possibility to update software on board, to update content on board also over a cellular network while you are on the ground, to update your seatbacks, to update your user interfaces; also to share authentication credentials with your phone — you connect your phone over Wi-Fi only with the server, without the ground infrastructure. This is also valuable to think about how you do this in an open way. And absolutely, there is no question that you need that if you have a LEO connectivity. I don't think it's about keeping the disconnected aircraft just somewhere and doing nothing, and just doing the stuff on your LEO fleet. I don't think that this is the only way. You can do it like that, but this is not the only way you can do it. Updating your cabin infrastructure makes sense even if you only have a cellular connection.

Stefanie Schuster: And still seeing it as one infrastructure, one architecture concept, which just considers different scenarios.

Ralph Wagner: Yes.

Stefanie Schuster: Connected / disconnected, LEO / GEO. Absolutely. Different parts of the fleet.

Ralph Wagner: And as soon as you get your connectivity, you are also much better prepared in such a way — because what we see today as well is, you get the connectivity, the connectivity comes into the aircraft, and now the question is, okay, my passengers can watch Netflix now. Okay, but what do I do with this now? How do I actually really have a benefit for the airline? And I have the feeling for many it's a surprise — it's about, okay, we first need to learn what we do. So be prepared for this. Which means equip also your aircraft with a modern infrastructure when you do not have the connectivity in place yet.

Stefanie Schuster: Okay. So what's your conclusion about the cabin as part of the customer journey?

Ralph Wagner: I think it finally closes — it closes the loop. It brings the possibility to do true authentication. And the cloud — I think the cloud is the brain that controls, like you said, your nodes. So that would be my conclusion of the customer journey.

Stefanie Schuster: Okay then. Thanks, and see you for the next episode.

Ralph Wagner: Talk to you soon.