New horizons

Founded in 2001, AirAsia has expanded rapidly and today boasts an extensive network with 113 routes to over 58 destinations including all ASEAN countries with 43 unique routes. This highly successful carrier has focused on short-haul high frequency point-to-point flights complemented by long-haul flights undertaken by an associate carrier AirAsia X.

AirAsia believes in a no-frills, hassle-free, low fare business concept and knows that to keep costs low requires high efficiency in every part of the business. Efficiency creates savings which are then passed on to passengers so that affordable air travel becomes the norm for everyday travellers. AirAsia has a modern fleet with low acquisition costs. In fact it offers one of the lowest per-seat costs and highest margins in the industry with extremely high aircraft utilisation.

With the help of DAV Management, AirAsia has embarked upon a Navitaire Open Skies to New Skies migration, in order to continue to improve the airline's passenger experience across all customer touchpoints. This includes everything from web bookings to daily reservations, fast check-in and other facets of the operational side of the booking and passenger management system. There are substantial enhancements to the new system with many new features and functionality.

The upgrade will involve a significant programme of work as the business transitions from old to new. Knowing that AirAsia could not afford for this programme to interrupt the day-to-day running of the business, it required hands-on, practical external expertise and called upon DAV Management to help successfully deliver the programme. DAV is skilled in handling large-scale business and technology change and will work alongside the technology supplier, Navitaire and AirAsia in order to meet the tough implementation schedule which is expected to be completed in June this year.

According to the company, Navitaire's New Skies solution enables carriers to generate higher revenues, reduce costs and streamline operations. Today over 75 airlines rely on Navitaire, including six of the 10 largest low-cost carriers. Last year airlines using Navitaire's reservation systems booked more than 70 percent of all sales transactions via the Internet. This is important because the airline business is highly competitive and any cost savings enable one carrier to inch ahead of another - the more the process is automated, the bigger savings this delivers.

Yet, low-cost carriers are increasingly augmenting online sales with travel agency bookings via the Global Distribution Systems (GDS). AirAsia, along with more than 60 percent of Navitaire's reservation customers, also sell seats through one or more GDS channels. Navitaire's New Skies will enable AirAsia to deliver the best benefits of low-cost with traditional network airline models by pairing Internet sales with its fully integrated travel sales platform enabling the airline to continue to grow.

Lau Kin Choy, Regional Head, Innovations Commercial and Technology at AirAsia who heads up the whole technology group for the airline adds: 'We know that DAV Management has a wealth of experience of working with Navitaire systems and on these types of technology implementations. Working as an integral part of the AirAsia team, DAV will be in the thick of everything, managing and pulling together the teams of external and internal people and driving the programme to a successful outcome in 2010. We have every confidence this programme will meet our desired business outcomes with the assistance of DAV.'

DAV Management is on the ground in Sepang in Malaysia and will remain on the client site as part of the implementation team working with Navitaire and AirAsia for the next nine months when the project is expected to be successfully completed. This new client further demonstrates DAV's unique capability of delivering successful programmes in the airline sector and confirms its strong presence in South East Asia, arguably one of the fastest growing regions of the airline market.

To find out more about our clients and our approach, please on the adjacent links.