Women making a difference in aviation for the Baltics

During the last few years, several airlines in the Baltics have flourished, and they have brought in a new generation of young and innovative talent to the region’s aviation industry.

This is frequently being supplied by young women, who are coming through the ranks to take up senior positions and are gaining authority to drive change.

Often this is environmentally friendly change, with an emphasis on reducing waste and adopting efficient airline paperless operations.

From Left to Right: Vera Bankina (now Project Manager at Conduce)

Anna Ivanova (now Cabin standards and fleet transition engineer at SmartLynx)

& Irina Lupane (now eTechLog8 and OASES Administrator at SmartLynx)

This is being demonstrated at SmartLynx Airlines, where several initiatives have been pushed through.

In 2015 Smartlynx directors encouraged Vera Bankina to take on the challenge of eliminating the cockpit paper log books. This was ultimately achieved by implementing eTechLog8 the Conduce Electronic Log Book (ELB).

Vera was aided and abetted by Irina Lupane, who at the time was in Technical Records and operating the Maintenance Information System (MIS), Commsoft OASES. Both Vera and Irina had previously worked together at Air Baltic where they had learned the ropes in Technical Records by using Commsoft OASES.

Four years later and Vera is the Senior Project Manager at Conduce, introducing the now well established ELB system, eTechLog8, with various airlines around the world. Vera currently has 5 successful ELB implementation projects under her belt, all achieving paperless log book airline operations.

In the meantime, Irina has also come through the ranks and is now in charge of Technical Records and is the Administrator for Commsoft OASES at SmartLynx. Irina is also the Smartlynx eTechLog8 system Manager and is affectionately known within SmartLynx as eTechLog8 mama!

During the last 12 months Vera and Irina have been working together again, but this time to integrate eTechLog8 with Commsoft OASES.

They have brought together the three companies to stream the data flow from Conduce eTechLog8 in the cockpit electronically into OASES, without the need for paper or clerical intervention.

SmartLynx are now recognized as the pioneers of paperless technology in the Baltic states, adopting cutting edge solutions and enabling the airline to harvest the benefits of the digital age. 2016 at the introduction of A320 YL-LCO

Did you know an average airliner can use half a tree per year, just for logbook pages?!

Source: The Tree Calculator (by TreeHouse)

On the achievement, CEO of SmartLynx Airlines, Zygimantas Surintas said:

“This is another big development step for SmartLynx to increase fleet control and passenger safety. We see increased access to information, transparency, time saving and reduced risk of human error. We have become the first airline in the Baltic States to introduce these processes, that will ultimately become the generally accepted aviation industry standard. We now observe that other Baltic airlines are also considering abandoning the old, time-consuming, paper-based log books.”

Founded in 1992. SmartLynx is the second largest Latvia-based airline, providing charter flights and ACMI (Aircraft, Crew, Maintenance and Insurance) services. Its fleet in 2019 is planned to be 26 Airbus A32X aircraft operated daily by more than 600 employees worldwide. In 2018 SmartLynx Airlines had a turnover of €171.9 million representing a 30.72% increase compared to 2017. In 2018 more than 3 million passengers were serviced on the flights provided by the company.

With offices in the UK and Australia, Conduce provide robust mobile solutions such as eTechLog8 for the worlds airline industry. eTechLog8 is the leading ELB solution to replace paper technical log books and is now certified by 10 NAA’s. Full integration with most MIS/MRO back office airline systems is standard. (www.conduce.net)

Communications Software (Airline Systems) Ltd. has produced cutting edge software for aviation maintenance and engineering for over 35 years. Commsoft produces a market- leading product, which is utilized in around 50 airlines and maintenance organisations throughout the world.