flybe., Europe’s third largest low cost airline, is the first passenger airline in the world to introduce the Avionica secureLINK system to its fleet of planes.

The secureLINK wireless router enables flybe. to securely transfer FDM (FOQA) data stored on the aircraft's quick-access recorder (miniQARs from Avionica) to the airline's wireless network without human intervention.

The secureLINK system was certified on November 18th 2004 and is now fully incorporated into flybe.’s growing Q400 fleet. Stylian Cocalides, Vice President of Avionica, states "We are very please with the successful deployment of secureLINK onboard the flybe. fleet, and proud to be associated with all the fine personnel whose dedication and commitment made it possible".

flybe.’s home base, Exeter, was the first main operational base to install wireless access points. All five bases have now been outfitted.

As every aircraft passes through at least one of these bases in a 24 hour period, all of flybe.’s fleet benefits from the new system. Data is transferred in three minutes, and is immediately fed to flybe.’s operational safety analysis team.

Mike Wood, Flight Operations Director, flybe., comments: “This latest technological advancement on board our aircraft is a fundamental development for flybe., enabling us to constantly monitor the performance of each of our aircraft. The data transfer is transparent to the crew and engineers and provides us with the ability to monitor the flight data in our Flight Operations Quality Assurance (FOQA) programme, which will lead to continuing safety benefits. Spare W-LAN capacity will also be used to enhance the operational product, which will further improve the service which we offer to our passengers.”

flybe. operates a fleet of 36 aircraft in a network encompassing 99 routes and 40 airports across 7 countries. The single largest airline from Birmingham, Southampton, Exeter and the Channel Islands recently added Norwich International and Liverpool John Lennon airport to its regional operations bases

Avionica, Inc. specializes in complete flight data management solutions. Products include secureLINK, the airborne wireless Ethernet router, the miniQAR, the world’s first miniature quick access flight data recorder, the RSU, a handheld flight-data recorder monitoring and download tool, and AVSCAN.flight, a commercial and military flight data analysis tool.