The OPTIMAL project, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy (BMWi) – later renamed the Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection (BMWK) – ran from 1 January 2018 to 31 December 2022 under grant number 20X1711K. It was part of the third call of the fifth national aviation research programme (LuFo V‑3) and was carried out by a consortium of thirteen partners, including Jeppesen GmbH, PACE Aerospace Engineering and Information Technology GmbH, Rolls‑Royce Deutschland Ltd & Co KG, MTU Aero Engines AG, INFORM Institut für Operations Research und Management GmbH, Diehl Aerospace GmbH, SAP SE, the German Aerospace Center (DLR), TWT GmbH Science & Innovation, Friedrich‑Alexander‑Universität Erlangen‑Nürnberg, Technische Universität Dresden, Fraunhofer‑Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung e.V., and the airline Deutsche Lufthansa AG as an associate partner. The Fraunhofer Institute for Communication, Information Processing and Ergonomics (FKIE) in Wachtberg led the subproject “Airline‑Decision Support and Optimization with securely integrated data,” delivering the technical core of the platform.
The technical objectives were to create a fully digital decision‑support environment that integrates trajectory, maintenance, and fleet‑turnover data, thereby enabling airline operators to analyse operational situations in real time and to optimise decisions with respect to cost, punctuality and passenger satisfaction. The platform was designed to minimise media breaks for users, presenting all relevant information in a single, coherent view. To achieve this, the project developed a data‑management layer that aggregates heterogeneous data sources, a local‑integration module that embeds the platform into existing airline systems, and an analysis‑and‑optimization engine that evaluates alternative actions and predicts their impact. Validation was performed using realistic scenarios, including weather‑induced delays, to demonstrate that the system can support operators in selecting optimal mitigation measures.
Key technical results include the successful integration of multiple data streams into a unified situational picture, the implementation of secure interfaces that comply with aviation data‑security standards, and the deployment of a holistic optimisation module that balances competing objectives. The overall platform was demonstrated in a live demo, showing that the system can ingest real‑time flight data, apply predictive models, and generate actionable recommendations within seconds. Performance metrics such as data ingestion latency, decision‑generation time, and accuracy of impact predictions were measured and showed significant improvements over baseline manual processes. The data‑security component ensured that all interfaces and data exchanges met the stringent requirements of the aviation industry, providing audit trails and encryption for sensitive information.
Collaboration across industry, academia, and research institutions was central to the project’s success. Each partner contributed domain expertise: Jeppesen and SAP supplied flight‑data integration capabilities, Rolls‑Royce and MTU Aero Engines provided maintenance‑data interfaces, INFORM and Diehl Aerospace contributed optimisation algorithms, while DLR and the universities supplied research on trajectory prediction and system modelling. Fraunhofer FKIE coordinated the development of the decision‑support framework, integrated the components, and conducted the validation studies. The associate partner Lufthansa supplied operational data and real‑world test cases, ensuring that the platform addressed practical airline needs. The consortium’s joint effort resulted in a robust, secure, and high‑performance decision‑support system that advances the digital transformation of airline operations.