Digitising air travel in-flight for a major transatlantic airline

Digitising Air Travel in Flight

A major transatlantic airline needed to digitise services being used by customers, call centre and check-in, seat reservations, to complaint handling. Arrk Group, alongside strategic partner KCOM, worked collaboratively with the airline to deliver a digital shared services architecture and to develop key additional reusable service components.

Situation

The airline has enjoyed strong growth which has meant that its existing digital platforms have been evolved designed and built strategically to cater for its current business operations. As a result, the airline has digital systems which are complex to maintain and integrate, while implementing change is expensive and time consuming.

In the face of an increasingly competitive business landscape and the increasing costs to support and maintain its existing digital platforms, the airline made the decision to develop the Shared Service Platform (SSP) which was an enabler for rapid digital transformation across the organisation.

Digital systems which are complex to maintain and integrate

Implementing change is expensive and time consuming

Increasing competitive landscape and costs to support and maintain the existing digital platform

In need of a high performing solution capable of coping with increased demand

Solution

Built on brand new service-oriented architecture, the Shared Service Platform provides a consistent integration point across multiple diverse legacy systems as well as seamlessly interacting with the organisation’s trading partners.

The level of abstraction that the new platform brings to the airline has enabled it to significantly reduce the time to market for change and greatly simplify any change to core legacy platforms, something that previously would have been time and cost prohibitive.

The transatlantic airline chose the strategic partnership of Arrk Group and KCOM to deliver the platform who, working closely and collaboratively with the airline, over a 24 month period developed and deployed a well designed shared service platform for use across the organisation’s digital landscape; enabling its customers to receive the exemplary experience expected from one of the world’s leading airlines. The solution was also able to deal effectively with the increase in traffic volumes, as demand for the airline’s services increased.

The shared service platform was delivered using Agile/Kanban software development frameworks and built using enterprise technologies such as Microsoft Biztalk, SQLServer, Oracle, XML and HP.

Development of the Shared Service Platform

Technology included: Microsoft Biztalk, SQLServer, Oracle, XML and HP

An Agile/Kanban working practices ensured collaborative and effective working procedures

Project delivered against an aggressive timeline

Outcomes

A key factor for the success of the project was the collaborative manner in which Arrk Group worked to rapidly understand what was required to deliver the programme and to quickly put a brand new team in place working effectively and efficiently with strategic partner KCOM and the customer almost from day one.

An Agile/Kanban-style ‘just in time’ working practice helped to ensure that the right tasks were worked on at the right time.

The new platform enabled airline customers to self-service for the first time, using the website to allocate seats, book meal preference and other services which historically had been only available through calling the airline’s call centre.

New platform enabled airline customers to self-service for the first time

Ability to use website to allocate seats, book meal preference and other services

Reduce reliance on call centre

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