customized service offerings on a flight-to-flight basis. It is critically .... global standards of software development
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In-flight Customer Experience
NIIT Technologies White Paper
CONTENTS Introduction
3
Need of the Hour: Technology in In-flight Catering
3
Conclusion
4
TRANSPORTATION TRAVEL CARGO
PACKAGING
TOURTRANSPORTATION TRAVEL GUIDE TRANSPORTATIONTRAVEL
CARGO CARGO LOGISTICS TRAVEL
JOURNEY GUIDE TRANSPORTATION CARGO JOURNEY
CARGO
GUIDE
LOGISTICS
TRAVEL
Introduction The Millennial traveler is better informed and spoilt for choice! While this brings a whole new set of challenges, it also presents novel opportunities for the travel industry. In order to outperform competitors, airlines need to seek new differentiators or ways to improve brand awareness.
Need of the Hour: Technology in In-flight Catering The in-flight catering services market is expected to reach at a value of US $16.5 billion by 2018 (Report: companiesandmarkets.com). With emerging technology and huge competition between the airline companies, passengers associate quality of catering services with better flight experience. Recycled and light weight food packages
‘Customer Experience’ has taken center stage and every touch point of the customer lifecycle is an opportunity to enhance
are used by airlines to reduce the overall cost and establish an enhanced brand experience.
customer experience and increase brand engagement. A significant part of that experience is in-flight where there is a captive audience to make a positive impression. Airlines have introduced several new products and services to enhance operational efficiencies and customer experience over the years. Today, in-flight catering has become a key service offered by full service carriers while low cost carriers/hybrid airlines have turned it into a major source of ancillary revenue. Serving meals to passengers may appear fairly straightforward to most, but it involves clockwork precision and coordination between the airline
The in-flight catering industry is growing at a moderate rate with emphasis on customers and their needs, menus, shelf life of the cooked food and transportation. Transportation involves moving packaged meals from the production unit to the aircraft, uploading and storing it on-board. Technological advancements can help ease the entire inflight catering process. IT management systems and inventory management systems are few of the tools that are available today. These tools help make processes and systems efficient.
team and multiple external partners. As per IATA, 2-3% of the airlines’ operational spend is on in-flight catering, which is supported by flight kitchens spread globally, serving millions of meals every day. Aggressive growth plans of airlines and increasing cost pressures require a highly optimized process to manage smooth in-flight catering.
Process Planning The process of serving meals 30,000 feet in the air starts well in advance with airlines setting up complex contracts for food and equipment with other suppliers. Whilst the airlines work on how to serve thousands of passengers flying every day across time zones to different destinations, kitchens are equally challenged by the
This paper outlines what is required to succeed with passengers. It also discusses in short a solution that can help address the key pain points in the in-flight catering process.
need to innovate meals for their clients. The equipment manufacturer’s constant endeavor is to optimize the supply chain starting from kitchen equipment, aircraft galleys, trolleys and trays all the way to cutlery in order to create a unique passenger experience. The complexities are multiplied with different aircraft types flying on different sectors with different galley configurations and loads. Adding to these complexities are numerous meal types or preferences offered across different regions.
3
With increasing pressure to optimize cost, lean teams within the
In-flight Experience
airline are tasked with the responsibility of handling the entire
Once the meal is on board and in the air, it comes down to the final
planning process from vendor selection to designing complex
test. The cabin crew is trained to utilize every minute operating out
customized service offerings on a flight-to-flight basis. It is critically
of limited spaces whilst trying to deliver a unique brand experience
important to get this step right in order to ensure that the rest of
to each passenger. A new dimension is added to their service if
the process runs smoothly and the airline delivers an enhanced
they have instant access to relevant information at their fingertips
onboard customer experience. While some carriers manage the
via smart devices - whether it’s access to galley plans for meal
process manually, others leverage technology in the shape of
quantities and their storage location or knowing passenger
complex ERP, legacy systems or custom solutions. The challenge
preferences without having to ask. With the use of in-flight devices
is to find the right technology solution that is comprehensive yet
the customer experience is enhanced whereby the cabin crew is
flexible enough to handle the end-to-end complexities of the
no longer serving seat 12A with a AVML (Asian Hindu Vegetarian
evolving business process. Lack of the right tools to aid team’s
Meal), but referring to the passenger by name and describing the
decision-making process often leads to human error, extra costs
meal options with details such as calories, ingredients and a
and eventually, an unsatisfactory customer experience that could
reference image of what’s going to be served.
do irreparable damage to the airline’s brand.
Meal Planning
The passenger interaction does not end at the destination as passengers carry the travel experience with them and are most
Like most business processes, in-flight catering also requires
likely to share it via different mediums, acting as brand
granular information which is the building block for success.
ambassadors for the airline. The capturing and tracking of in-flight
Dealing with multiple customized product offerings, special meals
meal related feedback generated onboard or post the journey to
and preferences requires visibility at the ingredient level for each
closure is highly important to ensure that passengers return to the
menu item. Based on passenger numbers and food items
airline or even better, share their positive experience with others.
accompanied by equipment, beverages and dry items are clubbed together to form a meal tray. These are calculated and stored scientifically in different trolleys that are checked, loaded and signed off for billing before departure. When dealing with a large
Conclusion
number of passengers, it becomes a challenging task to track and
Managing in-flight catering processes manually can only be
maintain details on a flight-to-flight basis without the aid of
possible up to a certain size/scale beyond which technology has a
technology. This often leads to human error in the form of incorrect
key role to play. Accurate ordering can help reduce potential losses
meal quantities being uplifted, mishandling of last minute orders and incorrect invoicing by suppliers/vendors which adds to the effort of each resource involved in the process. It gets even more challenging in situations of irregular operations i.e. delays, cancellations and last minute aircraft changes. The impact on the entire process due to irregular operations is even more drastic and
caused by incorrect procurement, meal wastage and fuel burn to create a viable and competitive business model. In-flight catering is a time-bound process that requires efficient management and control of operations including lean manufacturing, budgetary control and just-in-time production.
cost prohibitive. Technology should ensure visibility and sharing of information Due to the nature of its operation, in-flight catering demands dynamic flow of information between departments, this adds to the complexities of collaboration. Getting it right manually every time without defects or leakages is next to impossible while operating in a complex and time-bound environment where accuracy of the highest degree is a must.
amongst multiple internal and external stakeholders. Additionally, it should enable actionable analytics based on available data to improve this business process further. Every airline and flight kitchen follows a different process and as such should choose a solution that can be tailored to their needs. Teams can no longer work in silos hence it is highly critical for the solution to enable collaboration, be flexible for integration with existing systems and at the same time incorporate new functionality based on evolving business needs.
4
About NIIT Technologies NIIT Technologies is a leading IT solutions organization, servicing customers in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. It offers services in Application Development and Maintenance, Enterprise Solutions including Managed Services and Business Process Outsourcing to organizations in the Financial Services, Travel & Transportation, Manufacturing/Distribution, and Government sectors. With employees over 8,000+ professionals, NIIT Technologies follows global standards of software development processes.
Over the years the Company has forged extremely rewarding relationships with global majors, a testimony to mutual commitment and its ability to retain marquee clients, drawing repeat business from them. NIIT Technologies has been able to scale its interactions with marquee clients in the BFSI sector, the Travel Transport & Logistics and Manufacturing & Distribution, into extremely meaningful, multi-year "collaborations.
NIIT Technologies follows global standards of development, which include ISO 9001:2000 Certification, assessment at Level 5 for SEI-CMMi version 1.2 and ISO 27001 information security management certification. Its data center operations are assessed at the international ISO 20000 IT management standards.
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