Airlines are increasingly applying AI, shifting its focus from passenger-facing applications to operational improvements. Southeast Asia has seen another example of a "platform + engineering" combination in this area. According to an official press release from FPT Software and a report by Agence France-Presse (AFP) on November 4, 2026, Vietnam Airlines, Skywise, a fully-owned digital services company under Airbus, and FPT, a Vietnamese technology company, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) at the Vietnam Aviation and Aerospace Forum (VAF) held in Hanoi. The three parties will jointly explore artificial intelligence services for airline operations, with the initial focus on three key areas: fleet reliability, technical operations, and abnormal operations management.
According to an FPT press release, the core idea behind this collaboration is to combine the strengths of all three parties: Vietnam Airlines will provide operational experience and data, Skywise will contribute platform insights, and FPT will provide aviation technology, system integration, and AI engineering capabilities. Together, they will identify and implement AI use cases to improve operational performance, enhance resilience, and support decision-making. According to The Fund, citing a Yahoo Finance report, the three parties plan to identify up to four potential use cases. Publicly available information shows that Skywise is an Airbus company that provides aviation data platform services to airlines worldwide. It is headquartered in Toulouse, France, and has approximately 750 employees. FPT's collaboration with Airbus began in 2017, when it participated in the promotion of Skywise in the Asia-Pacific region, and in 2025, it became Airbus's global strategic IT partner.
According to an FPT press release, the initial phase of the project will focus on fleet reliability, technical operations, and abnormal event management. This involves linking Skywise's platform insights with maintenance plans, material availability, and flight schedules, exploring AI applications that can improve aircraft availability, and supporting faster, data-driven decision-making when operations are disrupted. This will help airlines evaluate various recovery options and minimize the impact on flights and passengers. This "data-driven" approach contrasts with the past, which relied on manual information aggregation for operational control. Marc Lemeilleur, CEO of Skywise, stated that the platform's value lies in its continuous enhancement through collaboration with airlines and technology partners. Vietnam Airlines provides operational insights, while FPT contributes its AI engineering capabilities.
As planned, the three parties will also establish a joint Aviation AI Lab, bringing together experts in engineering, maintenance, IT, and data to identify priority use cases. According to The Fund, the next step will be to hold a workshop at Vietnam Airlines to clarify priority areas and establish performance metrics. In other words, this memorandum of understanding not only outlines a direction but also includes an organizational structure and a timeline.
This collaboration is noteworthy due to its relatively concrete implementation plan: it has a clear direction (reliability, technical operations, and interruption management), quantifiable goals (a maximum of four use cases), and a mechanism for progress (a joint laboratory combined with on-site workshops). From a global perspective, airlines are increasingly using AI, shifting from passenger-facing areas like customer service and ticketing to more specialized areas like aircraft maintenance and operations control. Vietnam Airlines is leveraging the Skywise platform's data and combining it with external engineering capabilities to enter the latter area, aligning with the digitalization strategies of several airlines in recent years. For Vietnam Airlines, using real-world operational data from a national airline to create AI use cases is a practical way to enhance its operational reputation in the international market. Of course, whether this memorandum of understanding can be translated into actual deployment and demonstrable results still depends on the selection and validation of the use cases, making it a collaboration worth monitoring.