When most people think about flight delays, they picture queues on the runway or missed slots at the gate. But behind the scenes, there’s another critical factor that can make or break on-time performance: aircraft towing.
At a complex hub like London Heathrow, aircraft often need to be repositioned across the airfield, from engineering hangars to terminals or from one stand to another.
It’s a behind-the-scenes operation that requires precise timing, smooth coordination, and situational awareness of the entire airside operation. In a space as congested and dynamic as an international airport, even minor delays or miscommunications during towing can have a ripple effect across the entire day’s schedule.
British Airways is meeting this challenge head-on, using Emu Analytics' real-time digital twin software to transform how it manages towing across its Heathrow operations to ensure aircraft are where they need to be at the exact moment they are expected to be there.
From complexity to clarity: BA's Mission Control
At the heart of this initiative is Mission Control, British Airways’ operational decision support platform, underpinned by Emu Analytics’ digital twin software.
“One of the big challenges we have is moving aircraft around the airport,” explains Richard Anderson, BA’s Director of Global Operations.
“We've got our customer operation at the west end of Heathrow, and our engineering operation at the east end. Mission Control has given us the ability to track every single aircraft movement by the second.”
With Mission Control, British Airways can:
This data-led approach means each towing movement is strategically optimised to ensure the operation runs on time, every time.
“We can now perform retrospective analysis on how long these activities will take, see where the pinch points are, where the delays are, get trend analysis, and then feed that back into the future planning of our towing operation at Heathrow”, says Anderson.
What this means for the passenger’s travel experience
Efficient towing isn’t just about moving aircraft, it directly supports punctual departures, smoother gate handovers, and better resource allocation across the airport. In other words: passengers may never see this part of the operation, but they certainly feel the benefit when it’s a smooth-running operation and their flight runs on time.
Want to see Emu Analytics’ software solution in action or learn more about how digital twins are reshaping ground operations globally? Contact us today for a demonstration.
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