Smart use of technology is central to British Airways’ second highest annual profits, says the company’s chief information officer Paul Coby.
The airline last week announced operating profits of £705m for the past financial year, more than 25 per cent up on the previous 12 months.
‘IT is at the heart of these results,’ Coby told Computing.
One example is BA’s short haul business, which has made £7m profits compared with losses in 1999 of £310m.
‘Short haul has made a profit for the first time in 10 years, and the BA.com web site is a key part of that,’ said Coby.
One third of UK sales are now generated through the site, almost 90 per cent of tickets are etickets, and last month more than 70 per cent of domestic travellers at the five leading UK airports used either self-service kiosks or online check-in, he says.
‘Use of technology is fundamental to the airline’s fightback, and you can see that in the short haul turnaround,’ said Coby.
Increasing the use of BA.com is good for both the airline and its customers, says Coby.
‘The web site makes it easier to deal with BA and puts the customer in control,’ he said.
‘It is also very cost-effective, which is vital to compete with the no-frills carriers, for example. And what people don’t really see is it also drives simplification into the airline’s processes,’ he said.
BA chief executive Willie Walsh has set challenging targets. Within two years, 50 per cent of all global sales will be online and 40 per cent of passengers passing through Heathrow’s new Terminal 5 will be using online check-in.
BA spends about £15m a year on its web site and surrounding systems, from its IT budget of about £90m. In the next two years the technology budget will be held at its current level, against a target to increase productivity by 35 per cent.
‘We will our reduce our cycle time for delivering projects by 20 per cent and increase the amount of projects,’ said Coby.
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