ARINC and SITA form industry work group to define ‘Type X’ business class messaging

ARINC Incorporated and SITA have formed an Industry technical work group to define the next generation of business to business messaging for the Air Transport Industry (ATI). The work group will formalize standards to complement industry Type B messaging with a new approach using XML technology and Service Oriented Architecture for communications.

The work group membership has already grown to include Northwest Airlines, British Airways, Worldspan, Amadeus, Lufthansa Systems, Sabre, Galileo and Mercator – reflecting strong industry support for the initiative by both airlines and application providers.

The ATI is one of the most highly integrated industries in the world, requiring millions of messages per day for reservations, passenger processing, and general operations – even the equivalent of “email” to airplanes. An estimated 40 million Type B messages per day are processed by ARINC and SITA and delivered across vast extranets to a wide variety of industry participants. Today the industry uses a broad range of modern and legacy protocols – a heritage that dates back to teletype. The move to define an XML based approach addresses the growing demand to enable secure and robust communications using what has become the technology of choice for modern applications.

Standardizing on an approach is particularly challenging in the ATI due to the substantial population of legacy applications and the high levels of reliability and security demanded for mission critical and highly automated operational applications. The work group will address issues of backward compatibility for legacy applications, interoperability, reliability, and security – all of which pose unique challenges for the current XML based communications frameworks. The work group will also grapple with competing frameworks such as Web Services and ebXML, drawing from standards being guided by Internet standards groups such as W3C and OASIS. By focusing on communications infrastructure for operational messaging, the Type X work group will complement efforts in the industry underway through the Open Travel Alliance (OTA) and IATA’s XML Task Force (XMLTF).

“We see a tremendous benefit to the industry of migrating to XML technology and Internet based communications” said Ruth Hough, Vice President of ARINC Network Solutions. “Adoption will lower the cost of business for the airlines and application providers, and increase flexibility. Most airlines already use the technology internally, so removing the legacy layer and using a framework like Web Services for business to business communications is a natural next step.”

“SITA and ARINC are in a unique position in the aviation industry to sustain support of business critical communications through development of XML-based standards”, stated Brijdeep Sahi, Vice President of Marketing for SITA SC. “As with past technology transitions, industry specific standards and communications technology expertise are needed to guide the industry through the complex transition to a Service Oriented Architecture and take full advantage of the benefits of XML.”

The TypeX work group has rapidly moved to formalize industry messaging requirements and is well into analyzing the competing frameworks against these requirements to identify gaps. By the end of second quarter 2006, the work group plans to have established specifications and execute targeted live demonstration projects by the end of next year.

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