Turning Airline Data into Actionable Fuel Efficiency Gains : How independent data analytics helped two large network airlines identify fuel efficiency improvement opportunities—revealing why analytical autonomy, data alignment, and pilot engagement are now critical levers for sustainable operational performance.
Background
Over the past months, GH Aviation Consulting has supported two large network airlines in South America as part of comprehensive fuel efficiency assessments conducted with our partner.
In both missions, our role focused on advanced data analytics: consolidating operational data, building robust performance indicators, and quantifying the fuel and cost impacts of improvement opportunities across flight operations, dispatch, maintenance, and ground operations.
Although both airlines operated in similar markets and with comparable fleet structures, their data maturity and analytical setups differed significantly, offering valuable cross-case insights.
Challenges
Across both assignments, three recurring challenges emerged:
- Data fragmentation: operational data spread across multiple systems, sometimes with overlapping or inconsistent business logic.
- Limited autonomy in performance assessment: in some cases, airlines relied heavily on external solution providers to quantify savings, creating potential blind spots.
- Difficulty translating data into action: even when large volumes of data were available, turning analytics into operational engagement—especially at pilot level—remained complex.
These challenges are common in the industry and can materially limit the effectiveness of fuel efficiency programs if not addressed holistically.
Our Approach
GH Aviation Consulting acted as an independent analytical layer within the assessment teams. Our work focused on four pillars:
- Data validation and reconciliation
- Cross-checking multiple data sources (flight data, fuel reports, planning data, weight & balance, maintenance data,…)
- Identifying inconsistencies and ensuring calculations were fully traceable
- Development of transparent analytical methods
- Building reproducible models to quantify fuel efficiency gaps
- Ensuring savings estimates were independent from any single technology or vendor
- Performance segmentation
- Breaking down results by fleet, route type, airport, and operational practice
- Identifying structural versus behavioral drivers of fuel consumption
- Action-oriented analytics
- Translating statistical findings into concrete, implementable levers
- Supporting prioritisation based on impact, complexity, and lead time
This approach ensured that decision-makers could fully understand where savings came from—and why.
Key Findings & Impact
Case 1 – Rebuilding analytical autonomy
One airline had largely outsourced its fuel efficiency analytics to solution providers. While tools were in place, the airline had limited internal visibility on how savings were calculated or validated.
Our work highlighted the importance of retaining in-house analytical capability, particularly when evaluating the effectiveness of third-party solutions. Independent analytics reduced the risk of over- or under-estimating benefits and enabled more informed strategic decisions.
Case 2 – Optimising an advanced analytics ecosystem
The second airline demonstrated a very high level of internal data expertise, with multiple advanced platforms and in-house analytics teams. However, the coexistence of several systems sometimes led to duplicated analyses and under-utilisation of certain capabilities.
Our analysis showed that the challenge was no longer access to data, but rather alignment: ensuring each tool served a clear purpose and that insights were consistently translated into operational engagement. Pilot performance monitoring and feedback mechanisms emerged as key levers for further improvement.
Results & Takeaways
Across both missions, a clear conclusion emerged: Fuel efficiency gains increasingly depend not on more data, but on better governance, independence, and use of existing data.
Key takeaways include:
- Airlines benefit from independent analytics to objectively assess performance and supplier claims
- A “single source of truth” is critical, but so is clarity on ownership of business logic
- Advanced analytics unlock their full value only when combined with human engagement, particularly with pilots and frontline teams
GH Aviation Consulting brings a unique combination of operational expertise and data analytics, helping airlines move from raw data to credible, actionable, and defensible efficiency improvements.
