Julian Fish, senior vice-president and head of aviation operations solutions at IBS Software, says accurate customer communication is the most effective way of mitigating issues for passengers
Passenger numbers bounced by nearly a quarter in 2023, but CAA data shows that only 64% of flights operated ‘on time’, in other words within 15 minutes of scheduled departure or arrival times.
Seven out of 10 British travellers were impacted by delayed or cancelled flights abroad last year. Air travel workers experience significant levels of abuse, with over half reporting negative mental health impacts due to the resulting fallout.
Extreme weather, industrial action, global technical outages and everyday operational challenges also seem to be increasing, not decreasing.
Communication is key
Transparent, accurate, timely customer communication is the single most effective way of mitigating the impact of disruption for passengers. Passengers state that they would be more understanding of delays if they were simply kept in the loop.
For context, nearly six in 10 of those affected by delays having struggled to find out why their plans have been thrown into turmoil, with 16% turning to airline social media channels to voice their displeasure.
The reality on the ground is that the patchwork of old IT that airlines groups frequently rely on is a major bottleneck that stands in the way of delivering a coordinated, collaborative response.
At critical times airlines rely on disjointed systems that amplify the challenge of managing disruptions. Staff have an incomplete or delayed operational view, impacting schedules, networks, rosters, connecting flights, and costs. Recovery relies on individual expertise and experience and manual intervention, rather than automation and efficiency.
The joined-up alternative
Integrating and modernising core airline IT systems has been a hot topic in the travel industry for over a decade, and is fundamental to delivering more coordinated and transparent customer communication.
The complexities of airline group consolidation makes this process even more challenging, with multiple operations control centres leaning on a mix of IT systems for schedule management, flight planning, operations, maintenance control, hub management and crew tracking.
Cost reductions mandated for these consolidation exercises require leaner, simpler, more modern IT solutions to meet organizational efficiency goals.
Managing disruption confidently and efficiently has become a major source of competitive advantage and is a high profile way to prevent damage to brand and reputation when the worst case scenarios occur.
Instead of relying on a patchwork of disjointed systems, a single, digital operations platform can support day of operations activities, and enables airlines to respond confidently and with far more flexibility to disruptions.
Information sharing can be massively improved if airline operational teams have access to a common platform that integrates all relevant operations data across reservations, flight planning, weather, maintenance, and airport, passenger, aircraft and crew.