Over the past five years, a series of events from 9/11 to Sars to surging oil prices have conspired to bring the airline industry to its knees.

Amid the turmoil, low-cost carrier models driven by operators such as Ryanair and EasyJet have emerged as a dominant force in the industry, especially in the short-haul market.

One common denominator underlying the transformation is the increased use of IT as a tool for cutting costs, improving customer services and making processes more efficient.

Domestic airline BMI recently established a business model to respond to the threat of low-cost carriers, with IT playing a key role in its transformation (Computing, 30 June).

The changes it is making are almost identical to the work done within British Airways (BA), which helped BA become the world’s most profitable airline last quarter (Computing, 19 May).

The two carriers are racing to replace paper tickets with electronic versions; motivate passengers to check themselves onto flights using self-service kiosks located in airports; and, increasingly, to check in online before arriving at the airport.

At BA,most of the work is contained in a project branded Customer-enabled BA, which has not only cut £100m from the airline’s costs, but transformed its web site into an ever-expanding portal where customers can book and manage their travel.

This is a feat that BMI is trying to emulate, with a programme called Blue Sky that is intended to cut costs by £100m by the end of 2006, while a separate project aims to e-enable a range of passenger services.

Introduced in 2003 as a three-year project, Blue Sky achieved savings of £34m in its first year.

‘Blue Sky has been about introducing simplicity in our work, reviewing our processes, using more technology to cut manpower costs and increase automation,’ said BMI group IT director Richard Dawson.

The e-enablement project will help the airline deliver on the promises of its new business model by helping to speed up the process of checking in.

‘In terms of our products and services, the changes mainly involve increasing the speed of passengers on the ground getting through the check-in process,’ said Dawson.

‘We want to process passengers faster and more efficiently than we do today, mainly by increasing self-service.’

The e-enablement project covers processes such as e-ticketing, self-service check-in and online check-in.

By the end of next year, BMI plans to have 100 per cent e-ticketing in place and about two-thirds of passengers using self-service check-in. It also plans to drive more sales online.

Part of this programme includes creation of the online check-in facility, which will go live on 1 January 2006.

For both BMI and BA, the web site is at the heart of all the activity. Dawson has long-term plans in place to make most of BMI’s services available via its web site. ‘It is an integral part of our e-strategy,’ he said.

But he concedes that BA has been the industry’s trailblazer, reshaping itself faster and more comprehensively than others in the sector, while also educating passengers about new ways to interact with the airline.

‘We have BA.com at the centre of our corporate advertising campaign, on television in the middle of Coronation Street and at Tottenham Court Road tube station,’ said BA chief information officer Paul Coby. ‘This absolutely shows that we are an online airline now.’

Dawson concedes that BA has done a ‘fantastic’ job of its online programme, but believes the whole airline industry will benefit from its efforts to tell people how travel is changing.

Coby believes the industry has to perform a similar culture change to the one that banks underwent with the introduction of ATMs.

‘We have to convince people about the use of the technology,’ he said.

Whichever airline gets there quicker, passengers should be winning all the way.