One program that GE Aviation expects will migrate from its commercial powerplant side to its business aircraft engine division is its myEngines offering. A series of digital smartphone applications aimed at helping operators better manage their engine fleets and improve productivity, the program was started in 2010 for commercial customers. Its engine monitoring function can send alerts from aircraft in flight, notifying maintenance departments of potential problems.

“We’ve got a lot of experience with diagnostics and the algorithms that are built around them to make sure that we can identify problems as they occur or even before they occur,” said Shawn O’Day, GE Aviation’s marketing leader for business and general aviation.

He said one difference between the commercial program and the business aviation program will likely be the information requested. Commercial customers with numerous engines indicated that they are interested primarily in receiving updates on their mobile devices as to a particular engine’s repair or overhaul shop status and when it would be available for use.

“On the business aviation side, our customers don’t see a lot of shop visits,” O’Day told AIN. “What we are hearing is they want to know more about “how the performance on my engines is doing, and is there some kind of a problem that I need to be aware of…before the VIP that I am flying on that aircraft even feels or hears it.”

“I think there is a lot of value in it in terms of monitoring health management, knowing exactly what the health is and also how the fuel consumption is,” said Dr. Laurent Rouard, GE Aviation’s chief marketing officer. “We don’t have any timeline for the launch of the application, but I would imagine that we’ll be launching something before the end of the year for business aviation.”