BA turns to IT to fight airline slump

British Airways is planning a raft of new IT measures to help it recover from the worst slump ever to hit the airline industry.

In an exclusive interview with vnunet.com's sister title Computing the airline detailed its new programme, called Customer Enabled BA.

New initiatives include:

• Plans to achieve 100 per cent electronic ticketing by the end of 2004
• A multimillion-pound deal with IBM to provide 164 new self-service kiosks
• Redeveloping the software that supports booking and checking-in

"Technology is at the heart of the airline's fight back," said BA chief information officer Paul Coby. "We don't see these changes as IT projects; they're business projects."

Part of the strategy is to rebuild the entire booking and check-in process, so that a single software application handles all transactions, by telephone, online or through a travel agent.

"We saw the chance to transform the booking process as an enormous opportunity to re-engineer our business process and dramatically simplify a big chunk of the business," said Coby.

BA is taking the right approach to recovering from a downturn, maintained Martin Atherton, lead analyst at Datamonitor.

"It's commendable that a large UK company not typically seen as innovative is taking the bull by the horns to address these areas," he said.Last week, BA was forced to reduce the number of flights to Hong Kong because of the Sars virus outbreak, adding to pressures created by the war in Iraq.

The airline had previously announced plans to axe 13,000 staff, and a further £450m cut in overall spending.

Coby stated that IT is behind almost everything the company has planned.

"Customer Enabled BA is our plan to transform how customers deal with us, while taking costs out of the business," he said.