Expert viewpoint Jul 09. 2024
"Power and versatility" - Key factors that make the Thales FMS200 Flight Management System a world leader
Business Air Arabia invests in FMS innovations Air Arabia invests in FMS innovations
Thales has drawn on a series of innovative new functionalities to win a major contract with Air Arabia.
The UAE company has chosen to equip its 44 new A320 aircraft with Thales’s Flight Management System
(FMS) and its Traffic, Terrain and Transponder Collision Avoidance System (T3CAS).
This latest contract is a boost to Thales’s growing presence in the Middle East, and represents a show of
confidence by an existing client in its new, cutting-edge technology.
According to current estimates for 2010, some 60 per cent of all A320, A330 and A340 planes will be delivered with the Thales FMS – and the Middle East has contributed significantly to this success. As well as Air Arabia, other clients to have chosen Thales as their principal supplier on these aircraft include Qatar Airways (using Thales on all its A320 and A340 orders), Saudi Arabian Airlines, Gulf Air, Bahrain Air, Al Jaber, and the Kuwaiti company Wataniya.
Technical innovations
In choosing Thales, Air Arabia has chosen some of the most innovative technology on the market. The new T3CAS offers three fully integrated functions in the same box: TCAS (Traffic and Collision Avoidance System), TAWS (Terrain Awareness and Warning System), and Transponders (for communicating with other planes). By combining these functions in a single unit, T3CAS provides significant advantages in terms of weight, power consumption and cost.
Furthermore, T3CAS features innovative new ATSAW (Airborne Traffic Situational Awareness) functionalities that empower the pilot to make better-informed decisions – and thus help optimise safety and economise fuel consumption.
Evolving in the future
For Air Arabia, these technical advantages were the principal reason for choosing Thales, in addition to the system’s significant capacity to evolve in the future. Features such as the FMS landing system, which helps reduce pilot training time, can be activated at any time in the future. This flexibility is another major benefit of Thales’s unique FMS – and another reason for its growing success among Middle Eastern airlines.
