BA technology strategy holds the key at Heathrow's Terminal 5
Airline's impending move poses a massive IT challenge, writes Dave Friedlos
The move to Heathrow Terminal 5 will be chief among British Airways’ (BA) IT priorities in the coming year, according to chief executive Willie Walsh.
Speaking at the airline’s sixth annual IT Fair, Walsh outlined the company’s strategy and said increased customer and employee self-service, an improved web site and simplified technology processes are all on BA’s agenda.
Walsh says technology is critical to plans to increase productivity across the business by 35 per cent and to cut costs by £450m over the next two years.
‘IT has been a key enabler to business change and critical to our success, and we will continue to capitalise on technology,’ he said.
BA’s information management department last week won the Outstanding Contribution to UK IT category at the Computing Awards 2006 – see page 45 – for the role technology has played in helping the airline recover from the downturn in travel after 11 September.
It plans to continue using IT to cut costs, like other airlines such as BMI which recently turned a three-year programme to use IT to reduce overheads by £100m into a continuous model of improvement.
Chief information officer Paul Coby says BA is installing a new IT system every two weeks at Terminal 5 and aims to have 160 systems to underpin its operations in place by April 2007.
He says the installation must be completed by then to allow six months for testing and six months to settle in before Terminal 5 opens in March 2008.
‘We will have installed 160 systems, 9,000 connected devices, 2,000 desktops, 1,600 IP telephones and 600km of network cabling,’ he said. ‘This is as big as any project our IT department has been involved in. There is an enormous amount of business change and it is a massive integration challenge.’
Coby says the goal is to use technology to eliminate queues and improve the customer experience after the airline moves into the new terminal.
‘When people think of airports, they think of queues,’ he said. ‘We want people to use BA.com to do many of the things that used to be done at the gate, such as checking in, paying for excess baggage or choosing seats.
‘Once they are inside the terminal, passengers will check in at 96 self-service kiosks and use fast bag drops. Check-in desks will be only for those who need extra help.’
Coby says increased self-service for customers and employees is a priority for the world’s most profitable airline.
BA has adopted tools that allow its staff across the world to manage much of their day-to-day administration themselves over the internet.
It also recently introduced an internal search engine on its employee portal to enable staff to access key information, such as training manuals, much faster.
The other major theme aired at the IT Fair was a programme called Lean that was initially adopted by the automotive industry to eliminate waste, cut costs and improve processes.
Coby says Lean involves using simple, repeatable processes and only adopting complex technology when there is no alternative. The company has already used the Lean process in server deployment, the engineering supply chain and work at Terminal 5.
Gartner analyst Mark Raskino says the company’s move to Terminal 5 could prove to be the most significant and highly visible test of BA’s IT competence.
‘The IT department is right to put much of its focus on Terminal 5 because it is also the most important project for BA’s board,’ he said.
‘There is a strong alignment between the IT department and the management team.’
Raskino says integrating the new systems at Terminal 5 with older airport operations systems will also be a big challenge because all systems managing flights are of vital importance.
‘Every system at an airline is mission-critical and needs to be working perfectly from day one,’ he said.
‘BA is wise to build in significant testing. It is vital to test the resilience of live airport operation systems before putting it into a real-life environment. But although it is such a massive project, it is running on time because the BA management has been very good. The IT team has a number of large-scale projects under its belt, so the management team should be confident that it is up to the task.’
Raskino says BA will continue to push hard to improve its web site and work on the simplicity of its technology.
‘BA is using technology internally to reduce costs and in customer service to keep prices low and compete with low-cost airlines,’ he said. ‘Its automation drive is delivering well and empowering the customer.’
BA IT strategy... in 30 seconds
z BA will be the main occupant of Heathrow Terminal 5, which will handle up to 35 million passengers a year when it opens in March 2008. BA is implementing two IT systems a week and aims to complete installation by April 2007.
z BA is also using staff and customer self-service technology to reduce operating costs. It intends to move to 100 per cent e-ticketing, 100 per cent barcode tickets, 80 per cent self-service check-in and 50 per cent online sales.
z Online check-in and e-ticketing, has already saved BA more than £100m. Its employee self-service programme, which includes tools to allow staff to manage day-to-day administration tasks, is on track to deliver savings of about £55m a year.
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Further reading
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