easyJet plans to introduce drones to inspect fleet

7th May 2014 18:43

Budget airline easyJet is developing unmanned drone aircraft to inspect its fleet faster and more accurately.Inspections, which can take more than a day when conducted by humans, could be limited to "a couple of hours" using the drones, easyJet said.The Luton-based group said on Wednesday it was in the middle of conducting trials and was looking at introducing drone technology as early as 2015 to help engineers check for faults on its Airbus A319 and A320 planes.The drones will be programmed to report back to engineers any damage that required further inspection or maintenance work.EasyJet has teamed up with companies Coptercraft and Measurement Solutions as well as the Bristol Robotics Laboratory in order to adapt and combine existing drone and monitoring technology.EasyJet's engineering head, Ian Davies, said: "Drone technology could be used extremely effectively to help us perform aircraft checks. Checks that would usually take more than a day could be performed in a couple of hours and potentially with greater accuracy."Using smart navigation and computer vision, drones can get accurate data from very awkward places, which makes them ideal for aircraft inspections.The FTSE 250 group is also looking to introduce apps that pilots and engineers will access via tablet computers to complete key tasks and make its flights paperless by eradicating paper logbooks.OH