Jeppesen ForeFlight unveiled the first artificial intelligence agents for its Airflow platform Tuesday, extending the company’s use of AI into airline operations. The first tools are aimed primarily at crew scheduling and operational disruptions rather than functions used directly by pilots.
Airline Operations First
The initial agents cover three areas. Trip Trading assists airline crews exchanging trips, Target Mastery helps planners build crew schedules and Augmented Ops Control evaluates possible responses when aircraft or crew disruptions occur. The company said the system can consider factors including fatigue, reserve coverage, cost and crew connections.
Jeppesen ForeFlight said Airflow provides the information and reasoning behind its recommendations rather than making operational decisions independently. Human operators remain responsible for acting on those recommendations, and the company says the system is intended to work within existing Safety Management System processes.
“Our industry is unique in terms of the safety, efficiency, comfort and global regulations required to fly passengers and cargo,” CEO Brad Surak said. “Jeppesen ForeFlight Airflow is an aviation-grade platform that every operator can adopt at their own pace and level of automation and with their own mix of agents or ours.”
The company plans to add Airflow agents for business and military aviation and is seeking commercial operators to participate in a development phase before a broader rollout expected early next year.
Company’s Broader AI Push
The announcement follows several earlier efforts to incorporate AI into ForeFlight products. Last year, Surak described artificial intelligence as the “north-star” of the company’s multi-year roadmap in a launch announcement following the company’s separation from Boeing.
ForeFlight has also introduced AI features directly into its pilot-facing products. In July, the company launched ClearNOTAMs to generate plain-language summaries of coded NOTAMs while retaining the original notices. Surak has also discussed AI-generated briefings and a “virtual dispatch” concept during a December discussion.
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