Honeywell provides safety avionics and mechanical products for Wizz Air
PHOENIX, 2 May 2009.Honeywell will provide a suite of its avionics safety and avionics navigation products and the 131-9A Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) for installation on 70 new Airbus A320 family aircraft to Wizz Air Hungary Ltd. The airline also finalized a long-term service agreement on the Honeywell APU.
The advanced avionics suite includes the IntuVue weather radar system, Honeywell's 3-D weather radar that allows pilots to better see and avoid weather, wind shear and turbulence, ensuring a safer and more comfortable ride for passengers. Wizz Air also selected Honeywell's 131-9A APU, which provides fuel efficiency and low cost of ownership.
"Honeywell was able to offer us the right combination of avionics products to improve the quality of operations while reducing operating costs," says Marc Weber, head of technical services at Wizz Air. "At the same time the Honeywell service agreement for the APUs provides us with a long term, high quality maintenance solution."
"This is a terrific example of an airline incorporating all of the energy efficiency savings Honeywell can provide, from making an individual aircraft more efficient with fuel saving APUs to helping the aircraft operate more efficiently in the air traffic system," says T.K. Kallenbach, Honeywell Aerospace vice president of marketing and product management.
Honeywell's 131-9A APU provides bleed air for main engine starting, plus electrical power for cockpit and cabin galley systems.
Other avionics products include: an enhanced ground proximity warning system (EGPWS), airborne collision avoidance system (ACAS II) with ADS-B and Mode S; Quantum line of communication and navigation equipment (CNS); air data inertial reference system (ADIRS); emergency locator transmitters (ELTs); and solid state flight data recorder (SSFDR) and solid state cockpit voice recorder (SSCVR) and the flight management system (FMS).
Honeywell's 3-D hazard detection and avoidance system, IntuVue, is the first fully automatic weather radar system certified to the FAA's Enhanced Turbulence Detection Minimum Operation Performance Standard (MOPS), improving pilots' ability to see and avoid weather, wind shears and turbulence sooner, Honeywell officials say. Turbulence related injuries cost the airline industry an estimated $100 million per year. An aircraft that encounters unexpected severe turbulence averages a loss of approximately $150,000 to the airline. IntuVue is the only commercial radar that displays storms in three-dimensions at as far as 320 nautical miles ahead of the aircraft and has key analysis tools that allow the flight crew to dissect and analyze weather and hazards vertically and horizontally.
EGPWS, invented by Honeywell, provides a terrain display and alerts the flight crew if the aircraft approaches too close to terrain. Honeywell's ACAS (aka TCAS - Traffic Collision Avoidance System) provides a display of surrounding aircraft and alerts the flight crew if another aircraft comes too close for safety and incorporates ADS-B functionality.
The contract is for 70 Airbus A320 family aircraft delivered between 2009 and 2014 with an optional 25 aircraft delivered between 2014 and 2016. All firm and optional aircraft will be equipped with Honeywell avionics and carry a long-term APU service agreement.
