The Re-Think in Aviation

The Aviation Industry has a long history of pioneering technology and has the most mature systems in place and a great safety record. However, with time, many peripheral but critical software solutions have come up and the application suite now resembles a patchwork that is becoming increasingly more difficult to manage and may be in imminent danger of becoming obsolete.

Platforms : Many of these applications are hosted on premise and in silos and data is difficult to share. A simple example would be the many Covid response and contact tracing applications deployed over the last 18 months. They are mostly standalone and import data from Excel downloads from flight manifests and crew roster software with many manual data entries still being done. A platform led approach would place most systems on one platform and this would interface with aviation specific applications forming clusters for cross application data sharing, reducing cycle time, and improving productivity.

The emergence of new digital operations platforms has led the change, reducing cost and time to deployment, allowing a rethink on the many dated concepts that Aviation had to carry as part of a legacy application. The digital shift will boost operational excellence and lean and agile are now the new mantra to survival.

New Products: There is a need to re-invent and deliver digital products and services to meet the challenges of the new models that businesses are adopting to meet the disruption. Google continues to redefine search. Social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram etc need the attention and involvement of any public facing industry. Applications now have to be synced with such platforms to provide management an early view on breaking events or trends.

Delivery models are also changing, and Airport Operators will try to squeeze that one extra flight, that one last extra arrival and adapt to sudden surges, like the surge Porto Airport in Portugal faced when the UK temporarily relaxed its quarantine and travel restrictions.

Airlines will want to win back business customers in the depleted Business Traveller segment which was the most profitable segment for Aviation. One can already see models where fully vaccinated travellers are being given discounts and incentives to start flying again. Customer patterns need to be spotted early so that changes can be made to meet the new model.

Patterns and Models and Customer Behaviour: It is everybody’s dream to be able to accurately predict customer behaviour and while AI is the new buzzword, simulation and modelling are the underlying foundation of any AI application. Tools and the computational ability of new CPUs and Computer systems have become more powerful and are able to sift through petabytes of data and are increasingly able to accurately predict individual customer behaviour. There is probably no major airline in the world that does not employ large number of data scientists whose only job is predictive analytics.

Digital Transformation: Veoci offer a full digital transformation solution for Aviation. This combines infrastructure transformation and application transformation and that comes from understanding customer business and organisational problems and applying technology to provide appropriate solutions. Using Veoci we can digitize business processes examining every process and application to see how they can be rationalized, consolidated, and reprioritized.

With software being critical to survival, most CEOs will transform legacy IT departments to a Digital Division that will be part of the core enterprise. This new digital business integrated command centre would conceive and launch disruptive products that will redefine the organisation across the full ecosystem adopting agile practices that range from planning, operations, and technology to building a new generation of mission critical business applications.

To learn more about how we can support you in your digital transformation journey, write to us at arpita.bohra@notephi.com.