The largest regional airline in Scandinavia, Widerøe Airlines, has selected Universal Avionics to equip its fleet of Dash 8-400 aircraft with Connected Flight Management Systems (FMS).

The solution will assist pilots by streamlining workflows, allowing them to focus on departure and arrival tasks.

Universal Avionics says the fleet upgrade package increases efficiency and safety with newly developed supplementary iPad applications.

Ole Støre, chief pilot of Widerøe Airlines’ Dash 8 fleet, said: “The solution from Universal will help us streamline pilot workflows from briefing to reporting post flight across our diverse flight and maintenance ops, enabling seamless information exchange between our back-office operations and the flight management system on the aircraft.

“This will alleviate pilot workload by reducing data entry requirements such as flight plans and aircraft performance.

“In addition to benefits derived from flight data reporting, it will increase safety by allowing them to focus on departure and arrival tasks.”

The solution enhances interactions between flight operations and the flight management system before, during, and post-flight.

The FlightPartner tablet app supports Electronic Flight Bag (EFB) functions and smart flight planning through two-way data exchanges with avionics systems.

FlightReview delivers flight performance and safety event reporting as well as end-of-flight analytics drive by FMS and flight recorder data. They are combined with Universal Avionics’ cloud-based, cyber-secure platform to deliver avionics-centric solutions and support services, including seamless FMS database delivery and third-party applications and content when needed.

Dror Yahav, chief executive of Universal Avionics, said: “We are pleased to provide Widerøe with a package that will connect their operation to the information they need, when they need it.

“We are helping regional airlines like Widerøe increase efficiency with our connected aircraft technologies.”

Canard Aerospace is providing Widerøe Airlines with the installation kit and Supplemental Type Certificate (STC) to enable the installation of Universal Avionics’ equipment into their aircraft.

The STC is currently in progress and it is expected to be complete by Q3 2024.