Alitalia Group opts for Lufthansa Systems navigation charts

Alitalia Group, including Alitalia, Alitalia Express, AirOne, AirOne Cityliner and Volare, has decided to take the navigations charts from Lufthansa Systems on board. They recently signed a five-year contract over the use of Lido/RouteManual. With the innovative solution the airlines can optimize their flight operations and benefit from the high quality of the navigation charts. Alitalia Group also opted for the electronic version of the charts and will implement Lido/eRouteManual in two phases – initially on the pilot’s laptops and later on EFBs in the cockpits.

The first flights with Lido/RouteManual on board already took-off. Giancarlo Schisano, Chief Operating Officer at Alitalia comments: “The new solution fully meets our requirements in terms of quality and user-friendliness. Our pilots very much appreciate the easy legibility and the clear structure of the individual charts. This reduces their workload in the cockpit, especially during key flight situations such as take-off and landing.”

Lufthansa Systems produces around 1.4 million charts for the first delivery and will equip the 155 aircraft with new ship manuals until mid of October 2009. During the implementation more than 3,800 binders will be replaced in the cockpits. The navigation charts Lido/RouteManual provide cockpit crews with the most up-to-date geographical and aeronautical information. They include graphical representations of take-off and landing procedures as well as true-to-scale geographic information such as terrain features and rivers. The navigation charts are generated directly from Lido navigation database.

The layout, colors and symbols are identical in the paper-based Lido/RouteManual and the electronic Lido/eRouteManual, which will make it easier for pilots to switch to the electronic navigation charts. One benefit of Lido/eRouteManual is that its charts can be updated more quickly and easily than paper charts, since updated charts no longer need to be printed out and distributed to each cockpit. In addition, cockpit crews can determine the level of detail presented by the charts. Depending on the chosen zoom step, information can be shown either in detail or reduced to key aspects.

“Alitalia Group has been optimizing their flight operations with our IT solutions for many years. I am very pleased that the airlines have decided to expand our cooperation and have joined the growing Lido/RouteManual community. This agreement strengthens our position as the leading provider for airline operations solutions in Italy,” said Stefan Auerbach, Senior Vice President Sales EMEA at Lufthansa Systems.