ITT Exelis and Metron Aviation Partner to Integrate Air Traffic Management Technologies for Airports and Airlines

Joint product offering will enhance operational efficiency for customers in North America

HERNDON, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--ITT Exelis (NYSE: XLS) and Metron Aviation are collaborating to develop a joint product offering, Symphony® OpsVue™ with Harmony. This product will provide airport and airline customers with a comprehensive view of their operations in the air and on the ground.

“We are excited to combine Metron’s heritage of innovation in air traffic flow management with extensive system integration capability provided by Exelis. We will deliver a truly outstanding solution to the aviation community. This product partnership will optimize efficiency, lower emissions and bring immense savings to all stakeholders.”

Under the partnership, the product will incorporate the flexible flight data visualizations of Exelis Symphony® OpsVue™ with Metron Harmony’s flow management and Collaborative Decision Making capabilities to track aircraft and vehicle movement gate-to-gate.

Symphony OpsVue is a web-hosted application that provides visualization of all flights in the National Airspace System and operational monitoring and alerting for diversion management, irregular operations, and compliance with passenger bill of rights requirements. Symphony OpsVue leverages the most comprehensive and complete aircraft surveillance data available, including data from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) NextGen surveillance system. Metron Harmony is a web-based application that allows airline and airport users to predict congestion on the airport surface and en route. Metron Harmony includes decision support tools that allow proactive management of congestion, advanced slot substitution capabilities and efficient collaboration with the FAA’s national traffic flow management system.

“The strategic integration of the air traffic management tools of Exelis and Metron Aviation provide unprecedented capability for airline and airport operators. It will allow them to effectively manage their operations for maximum system throughput and efficiency,” said Ted Carniol, principal for commercial services at ITT Exelis Information Systems. “The centrally hosted applications, combined with sophisticated monitoring and support, allows customers to bring a reliable capability to their operation without the need for establishing physical IT infrastructure and system support staffing.”

Of the partnership, Metron Aviation’s President and Chief Executive Officer Jim Gaughan said, “We are excited to combine Metron’s heritage of innovation in air traffic flow management with extensive system integration capability provided by Exelis. We will deliver a truly outstanding solution to the aviation community. This product partnership will optimize efficiency, lower emissions and bring immense savings to all stakeholders.”

About Metron Aviation

Founded in 1995, Metron Aviation, a subsidiary of Airbus Americas and member of the Airbus ProSky Group, pioneered the advancement of Air Traffic Flow Management (ATFM), working with the FAA to develop the industry's first Collaborative Decision Making (CDM) platform for optimizing system-wide traffic flow. Metron Aviation provides concept engineering, advanced research, software development, traffic flow management, surface operations management, airspace design and environmental analysis solutions to the global aviation industry. Metron Aviation fuses advanced science and mathematics with unparalleled subject-matter expertise to turn groundbreaking Air Traffic Management (ATM) research concepts into next-generation operational capabilities. Metron Harmony, Metron Aviation's commercial product, provides integrated ATFM and CDM capabilities for the world's leading Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs), airlines and airports. Metron Aviation customers include the FAA, NAV CANADA, NASA, ATNS, FedEx, Air Canada, Memphis International Airport, Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines, American Airlines, Airservices Australia and many more. For more information, please visit www.metronaviation.com.

About ITT Exelis

ITT Exelis is a diversified, top-tier global aerospace, defense and information solutions company with strong positions in enduring and emerging global markets. Exelis is a leader in networked communications, sensing and surveillance, electronic warfare, navigation, air traffic solutions and information systems with growing positions in cyber security, composite aerostructures, logistics and technical services. The company has a 50-year legacy of innovation and technology expertise, partnering with customers worldwide to deliver affordable, mission-critical products and services for managing global threats, conflicts and complexities. Headquartered in McLean, Va., the company employs about 20,500 people and generated 2011 sales of $5.8 billion. www.exelisinc.com