The "AIDX" initiative as defined by International Air Transport Association, Air Transport Association and Airports Council International (IATA/ATA/ACI) is an international effort to standardize the format of the data provided by airlines and other flight data providers. These formats have traditionally been defined by individual data providers. "AIDX" replaced the prior "FIMS" acronym in early 2008 to avoid conflicts with another "FIMS" meaning.
Why a standard
With each airline providing data in a variety of formats the cost of maintaining and developing enhancements to those formats for multiple data partners, vendors and systems can become costly as well as technically unwieldy. Few, if any, "de jure" standards exist to define the data format for flight data exchanges. The IATA RP 1785, "Public Information Systems and Standards" addresses only the rudimentary aspects of display standards. The costs to airlines, airports and vendors for maintaining these unique data feeds and formats comes into question in this age of focusing on "Simplifying The Business" by lowering costs and improving efficiencies for all parties.
Who
The Air Transport Association (ATA) and Airports Council International (ACI) identified the need for such a standard at the "Seattle Summit" in 2003. It established the FIMS (Flight Information Management System) Subcommittee (now AIDX) to define a new multi-purpose flight data interface specification. The committee consisted of airlines, airport service providers, government agencies and airport departments. The "FIMS" meetings were held over a period of 18 to 24 months and included all of these stakeholders.
What was created
By 2005 the group had identified the content and structure for a multi-purposed data interface renamed AIDX in 2008 utilizing the open Internet "XML" format. The resulting definition file identified 103 elements specific to flight data and another 34 elements for ground statistics. This new standard embodied the hope that one standard would ultimately exist for all IATA/ATA/ACI stakeholders. The AIDX standard has also been referenced in the CUPPS standards documents. Several CUPPS conference calls and meetings have touched on the need for and benefits of the AIDX standard.
During 2008 the AIDX initiative developed a Business Requirements Document (BRD) which was presented to the IATA XML Working Group (XMLWG) for approval of the new XML schema. This generated months of discussion by representatives from over 80 airlines, airports and vendors and resulted in a new 8.1 version of the XML schema proposed to PADIS in October, 2008.
Also in 2008 a Recommended Practice (RP) document has been added to the AIDX initiative to help others understand its purpose and role in the larger CUPPS Working Group of IATA.
For additional information
Contact participating IATA/ATA/ACI "AIDX" members, any of the CUPPS leadership team or Jim Miller, ACI-NA AIDX Committee Chairman, Passenger Information Systems Manager at Denver International Airport (jim.miller@flydenver.com). More information is also available on the IATA Extranet site.