An airline is a complex operation. There is more than boarding and flying!

Sadly enough, there are just too many processes, still heavy with pen and paper, or with excels/emails in the Airline industry, that it makes it a perfect sector for Hyper-automation to intervene. Is it necessary for Airlines to revamp with automation personalized to their respective challenges- a definite Yes! But are the Airlines, doing enough in this regard- probably No-as the speed of change matters, for reviving the pre-covid revenue numbers?

Similar to an airport, an Airline is a complex business enterprise with layers that go unnoticed by a passenger, like you and me. While as a passenger we can see and acknowledge ‘above the wing’ functions like Crew, Baggage, Cleaning, Gate Staff, Ticket Sales, Customer care, membership and loyalty, etc., WE CANNOT comprehend, the “below the wing” activities that enable each flight. While players like SITA, Sabre, Amadeus, Travelport, Oracle, SAP, and others cater with their off-the-shelf typical Core Supporting Applications/Systems to support the Airlines' functions, most of the non-core processes in the Airlines are still in the elementary stages of working.

Be it Landside operations or passenger processing or financial or procurement processes, there are a multitude of tasks that are still dependent on Excel if not, a pen.

-?????????Reporting tool for time to open counters & Reporting tool for time to spend on customers

-?????????Maintenance Reserve reporting

-?????????Breath Analyzer & reporting

- Permit-related process/reporting (Temporary Cargo Entry Permit, Temporary Airport Entry Permit, Airport /Cargo Entry Permit, Airport/ Cargo Vehicle Permit, etc.)

-?????????Incident Mngt. and Tracking tool (IT and other)

-?????????Customer feedback management and analysis

-?????????Auditing tools for Terminal, Landside cleanliness & Safety, and F&B

-?????????CAPEX & OPEX approval processes

-?????????Vendor invoice management processes & Vendor life cycle management processes

-?????????Document Management System (massive documentation across Purchase, Finance, Operations, BCAS, MoCA, AAI, etc.

These are just a few scenarios, we have discussed, that need immediate attention from some of the leading Airlines, in the country, such as Zvolv. Not surprisingly, these issues resonated with some of the leading Asian Airlines as well.

Last year, while discussing a platform deal, one of the burning issues that surfaced with an Airline was how to automate their call center (CC) operations. Major challenges occurred during winter and monsoon seasons when flights are running delayed or getting canceled. The Airline CC complained of getting overworked tackling concerns coming from airline staff, passengers, transport managers, cab drivers, and other stakeholders. Most of the tasks were such that could be handled with a chatbot and rest with some automation bots that could fetch data in real-time and deliver desired information. They estimated that only 20-30% of the queries raised during peak hours needed human intervention.

As a Hyper-automation enablement player, we as Zvolv, were quick to propose an application that could cover the following:

-?????????Map different stakeholders, with their schedules (through integration between the internal and external systems of records)

-?????????Address Q&A with the help of an AI/ML-built model (based on historical data)

-?????????Human-agent in brought into action only for relevant situations

Intended Impact: ?The airline not only plans to bring efficacy into this entire process of issue management and resolution, thereby building a contact center but also aims to reduce the number of CC agents and utilize them in different processes.

Frontier Airlines recently announced its digitalization plans and that it is discontinuing its service helpline. Travelers no longer can call or speak with an agent, instead, they will have to chat with a representative online or via email. While they believe this transition is in response to their customer-centricity, the company might risk removing empathy from their customer experience. “A digital or automated interaction can only take the customer so far before there is a need to transition them to a live agent. And although automating many use cases within the contact center may boost productivity, quickly moving from one issue to the next isn’t necessarily the best indicator of customer satisfaction. Moreover, switching to a totally digital or heavily automated experience can alienate a substantial portion of the customer base, typically Gen Xers and Baby Boomers. Indeed, older travelers might not be comfortable navigating online chats or social media apps; international travelers will also struggle with weak internet service”.

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Hence, a re-emphasis on the fact that Airlines need to assess the automation needs their organization has. A simple copy and paste of what others in the industry are doing might end up doing more harm than help. As I alluded to HFS research (CLICK) in my first blog, every organization needs to tread its own independent digital transformation journey. While reviewing the best practices from the market would help, the journey has to be independent. A lot of advancements are happening globally on the lines of Contactless technology & a touchless experience, Biometrics & digital identity, Sustainability, and E-commerce but when an Airline crystalizes its plans, they need to do an assessment of what its stakeholders need the most- both the internal and external stakeholders.?