Excellence Simply Delivered! EDIfly turns 10

When Anders Dam Jensen, founder and Chief Technology Officer left CHAMP Cargo Systems to embark on the EDIfly adventure in 2010, he had a few fundamental things in mind: 1. Apply the boundless transmission capacity of the Internet to encrypted Aviation Messaging, 2. Dramatically reduce the cost in favor of the user community, and 3. Create a powerful integration platform to support any complex system environment within Airlines, Airports, Ground Handling, Governments, or System Suppliers.

Cargolux & LUG aircargo handling: The Trail Blazers for a new Technology
In 2011, Cargolux Airlines indeed became the launching customer of EDIfly, replacing costly exchanges through SITA or ARINC circuits with the likes of LUG, HACTL, SATS, Menzies, Swissport, Riege Software, etc. When Cargolux took its entire IT infrastructure in-house in 2019, EDIfly was expanded in its usage becoming a default exchange mechanism for the all-cargo carrier. Henrik Ambak, former VP Commercial IT and Ground Handling at Cargolux, commended EDIfly in 2012 as the “easiest IT implementation ever”, as no application or address changes are required when deploying this software.
EDIfly agnostic technology certainly did not stop in the cargo domain. Initially, the airline community was slow to adopt EDIfly’s innovation to reduce cost by up to 75% vs. legacy providers, alluding that it was “too good to be true”. Now EDIfly is used by international passenger airlines, from legacy carriers like China Airlines, TAP, or Alitalia, to leading low-cost airlines such as Air Asia, Lion Air, etc. Clients have saved 30 thousand dollars monthly in transmission costs with EDIfly.

Substantial Savings to Passenger & Cargo Airlines
Richard Stokes, the British CEO of EDIfly, and former Head of Passenger System Sales in SITA, confirms that the airline industry spends several hundred million U.S. dollars annually to send and receive legacy operational messages or manage associated bilateral connections. In contrast to networks for Type B communication (SITA or ARINC), EDIfly offers users a flat rate with a software license structure. “Participants don’t pay per usage; they are guaranteed unrestricted access and unlimited exchanges of messages when EDIfly is used.” In view of the dramatic cost burden of legacy services, EDIfly seems to be a “silver bullet” to addressing industry cost challenges post COVID-19. Some leading European network carriers manage several thousand direct connections with costly IBM infrastructures, which could easily be handled through EDIfly. EDIfly’s commercial team has developed a bespoke mechanism to enable new customers to roll out EDIfly during these times of distress and foster true community massaging for the industry.  

On Par with SITA and ARINC!
Recently, Amadeus, the leading Passenger Service System and Global Distribution System, created infrastructure with EDIfly that will enable all its clients to choose EDIfly as an alternate delivery mechanism to traditional network providers. SABRE has been using EDIfly as backbone technology since 2014, able to switch 70 million messages daily. EDIfly is future-proof and compatible with existing or future IATA standards.
Thanks to EDIfly’s end-to-end encryption capabilities, the team is eyeing the Advanced Passenger Information market. A cooperation with a leading European firm is said to start in January 2021. When I interviewed the founder Anders Jensen during the last Air Cargo Europe, he insisted that “the more, the merrier” is in the viral DNA of EDIfly as it automatically connects all users without any training for the staff.

The Indonesia Cluster – across all walks of life.
“From a small implementation with the leading independent ground handling company PT JAS in 2013, our team quickly moved on with a major project at Garuda Indonesia, where we replaced the costly internal message switch running on an IBM mainframe. From closing the tender to cutover took just 1 month using the robust EDIfly technology based on standard components. Great support when developing new connectivity options. Thanks to its flexible design, the majority of the large airlines in our country use EDIfly, as do all ground handling networks, several airports, and government agencies in immigration and customs. Lately, we have integrated with all-cargo airlines who do not use SITA at all. EDIfly’s no-nonsense approach helped our customers reach their commercial objectives. EDIfly offers more options and free transmission than any other industry solution – without a message lost since we started. 10 years is only the beginning!”

Tjutjuk Septiadi, CEO, PT Enterprise Solusi Indonesia, Jakarta.

Riege Software dropped costs considerably
“EDIfly not only reduces our SITA costs by automatically choosing the best message channel, it is also completely transparent for our backend systems. The reliability and stability together with the automatic detection of new partners in the EDIfly network, reduces the total Cost of Ownership to almost zero. The message switching options are the cherry on top. It is a mystery to me why not everybody uses EDIfly already.”

Martin Skopp, Senior Manager Airline Messaging, Riege Software