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CABIN CREW
Enterprises everywhere are evaluating at how
tablet applications can improve their staff productivity.
The air transport industry is no different. Airline
cabin crews, in particular, face much inefficiency
in their day-to-day operations:
- High volumes of time-consuming paperwork.
- Manual onboard sales and inventory management,
leading to revenue loss.
- Limited passenger information on paper lists.
- Double data entry, data errors and delayed
information.
- Heavy reliance on reference paperwork that
is unwieldy.
- The last barrier to onboard connectivity
‘AN EXPLOSION OF
TABLET USE’
“That’s why we’re hearing weekly
of yet another airline rolling out tablets to
their crews,” says Jim Peters, Chief Technology
Officer at SITA. “Airline crews are using
them for everything from electronic flight bags
to customer service in the cabin. Right now the
majority of airlines are issuing company-owned
devices but we’ve seen some initial discussions
around BYOD for specific applications.”
Not surprisingly, cabin crew is one of the key
areas of adoption.
“By using digital passenger lists, airlines
are getting critical information into the hands
of the crew who need it in order to meet their
passengers’ needs,” Boyle says. “Not
only is this improving crew productivity and efficiency,
it’s also improving the passenger experience,
increasing customer satisfaction, driving repeat
business and ultimately growing profits.”
DUAL FUNCTIONS
The BYOD phenomenon will likely be supported
by virtualisation technologies that enable dual
functions on the same device: one for ‘work’,
one for ‘play’.
The dual function allows security, data, usage
policies, device management and so on, to be split
between the enterprise and the end-user. Access
to enterprise VPNs, for instance, would be allowed
only in the ‘work’ mode, ensuring security
for apps and assets. SITA is looking at how different
tiers of devices - enterprise-owned devices through
to subsidised devices to personal BYOD - impact
app development for air transport.
OPERATIONAL CHALLENGES
Operationally, no matter who owns the device,
the challenge is getting the data from it to the
back-end systems. “It seems a little pointless,”
Peters says, “to move from a paper form to
mobile applications only to print out the data
so it can be pushed through the same old paper-based
business processes.”
What would be optimal is to re-engineer those
processes to integrate the data-flow from the
tablets or smartphones into the relevant back-end
systems.
FLEXIBILITY NEEDED
“IT departments need to understand how
to support employees using their own devices to
access work functions,” says Boyle.
“It’s critical that airlines have
BYOD policies in place, and that the policies
are aligned with their overall mobility and cloud
strategies. This will allow airlines to capitalise
on this change in the industry.”
THREE I’S
Whether devices are company supplied or employee-owned
BYOD, any successful mobile application development
strategy needs to focus on three areas:
- Interface - a better interface means
less training which means faster adoption that
means a better business case.
- Iterate - agile methodologies that
continuously evolve the platform allow for quick
integration of new requests and features.
- Integrate - back-end integration coupled
with end-to-end device management and connectivity.
In his role as VP of Aircraft Services for SITA,
Philip Clinch sees the Three I’s as critical:
“In-flight use of tablet computers will enable
cabin crew to offer a more personalised service.
But the device will need to automatically provide
crew with the information they need, or its use
could become an extra load, stopping crew from
carrying out all their normal tasks.”
He adds: “The tablet interface should be
something like airport arrival kiosks, with a
bar code reader to read passengers’ boarding
passes and automatically bring up the reservations
offering new connections, in case of delay allowing
acceptance with one click on a virtual screen
button. Crew will not like typing passenger names
and e-ticket numbers or looking up the next flights
in a schedule list.”
PASSENGERS
Just as with cabin crews, providing onboard
connectivity to passengers is no longer a luxury
- it’s quickly becoming a necessity.
According to the 2012 Passenger Self-Service
Survey, 70 per cent of passengers are traveling
with a smartphone. That’s up from 54 per
cent in 2011 and 28 per cent in 2010. The trend
is clear. And that doesn’t take into account
tablets.
THE TIME IS NOW
How long do you suppose passengers will tolerate
not having Internet access in-flight?
“If you look at a big aircraft,” says
OnAir Chief Executive Officer Ian Dawkins, “statistically
on an A380, over 400 people onboard will have
a mobile phone. “For them, being connected
in-flight will be just as essential as it is on
the ground. It’s normal to be online, so
why wouldn’t you be when you’re on an
aircraft?” (Dawkins predicts: “In the
next five years, we’ll see nearly every single
long-range aircraft coming off the production
line with onboard connectivity as standard. And,
in the coming years, most existing long-range
aircraft with a reasonable lifespan remaining
will be converted to onboard connectivity.”
The author is Paul Boyle,
Portfolio Director Mobility, SITA
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