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European on-demand regional airline flyvbird announced Thursday it had progressed with its flyvAI prototype. The prototype features flyvbird's proprietary algorithm and software architecture, which uses AI algorithms to construct custom-made flight networks on decentralized air transport routes and adjust the schedules based on passenger demand and operational restraints.
The prototype has been developed in collaboration with The Startup House of Poland, a customized software development company. The system will be fine-tuned over the next six to nine months. The algorithm works by using a range of travel demands from customers and marrying them with city pairs and routes. The passengers can then determine an itinerary based on specific constraints like whether there needs to be stops en-route to their destination, which will reduce the ticket price. The added itinerary flexibility allows flyvbird to distribute its price-sensitive model to customers.
"This is a significant milestone in our development," flyvbird CEO Anton Lutz said. "Using this proprietary software, we hope to deliver high standards in efficiency, convenience, and environmental sustainability for regional air mobility."RELATED STORIES:On-demand airline startup flyvbird using AI to map routesElectra reveals full-scale aircraft for eSTOL flight testingTecnam provides P2012 to help launch algorithm-based airline flyvbird
The company is dedicated to enhancing connectivity across rural Europe by using smaller and more accessible airports. The first aircraft will be a nine-seat Tecnam P2012 Traveller, which has short runway and rugged performance characteristics. Flyvbird's next aircraft will be the hybrid-electric Electra, once infrastructure supports next-gen aircraft. The company signed a Letter of Intent with the U.S. manufacturer for up to 100 aircraft in June 2023.
"We haven't determined our full future fleet yet, but we plan to keep loyal to the Tecnam Traveller P2012 for a long time," Lutz said. "It's right-sized, offers excellent performance with good economics and is perfect to get distributed in new networks and scale up. It's all about unit economics and technology."
In the beginning, flyvbird will focus on three aircraft and six initial airports.
"We ask the algorithm what it can do - to help us to generate 72 connections for example, considering passengers' needs flying on a route (including whether they will accept a stop)," he said. "Once fine-tuned we skip into the second year with seven aircraft, enabling 85 connections. And once that's happening, we can escalate and open all our airports in between, because then we will understand our customers, and fly non-stop flights."
"It's a little how (legendary) regional carrier Crossair did it (out of Basel Euroairport)," said managing director and cofounder Tomislav Lang. "We want to do it on a bigger scale, because we're aiming to operate more than 70 to 80 aircraft in the next five years. And we cannot solve operational positioning on paper anymore. You need this technology, the right fit aircraft, start operating on your own Air Operator Certificate and manage the system to become excellent in what you do."