Airline BMI will this week finish rolling out a new
electronic ticket purchasing and payment
system.
The conclusion of the eight- month project will help the airline to
meet challenging targets for adopting electronic processes. Like
companies in other sectors, the airline is trying to boost customer
self-service as a way of driving down costs.
BMI plans to drive e-ticket volumes up from 63% to 100 % by the end
of next year.
It also plans to push up online sales from 38% to 54% by mid-2006
and boost customer self-service from 30% of passengers to 64% by
the end of 2006.
By the end of this year, BMI will allow customers to check in over
the web. It is also preparing for customers to buy their tickets
through smartphones and Blackberry devices.
Over the past four years, BMI has cut its IT spend by more than 30%
through a major systems overhaul and outsourcing programme. BMI
group IT director Richard Dawson said overhauling the IT department
was essential for the firm to recover from the impact on the
airline industry of the World Trade Center attacks.
The IT department has shrunk from 128 people to 20, with
third-party service providers running core IT systems.
BMI has swapped its mainframe for a client-server architecture, and
now runs Windows Datacentre Server 2003, and Oracle Financials and
Procurement. This is hosted and maintained by Oracle, and Fujitsu
Siemens provides infrastructure support and business systems
maintenance.
It replaced its core financial systems last October and a third
party now scans all invoices, and integrates them into Oracle,
removing the need for BMI to handle any paper invoices. BMI has
also adopted a web-based expense tool, making more savings.
Many of the core systems, such as reservation and check-in, are
owned by BMI but run by Star Alliance partner Lufthansa.
Outsourcing had brought some problems, said Dawson. At least one
relationship had not work out as BMI hoped. "When you work with a
third-party supplier, you have got greater control and high
quality, but it takes a lot longer to do things because you have to
go through a process," he said. "I would like to see the same
quality, but with more speed."