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JetBlue and WestJet: A Tale of Two IS USUALLY Projects Enough time had come for equally JetBlue and WestJet to upgrade their very own reservation systems. Each company had started out using a system designed for small start-up air carriers, and equally needed even more processing power to manage a far greater amount of customers. In addition they needed features like the capability to link rates and couch inventories to other airlines with to whom they cooperated. Both JetBlue and WestJet contracted with Sabre Holdings, one of the most widely used airline THAT providers, to upgrade their particular airline reservation systems
The difference between WestJet and JetBlue’s implementation of Sabre’s SabreSonic CSS reservation system demonstrates the dangers natural in any large-scale IT overhaul.
It also serves as yet another tip of how successfully planning for and implementing new-technology is just as useful as the technology alone. Sabre’s most recent system, SabreSonic CSS, functions a broad assortment of services for any airline. That sells seating, collects repayments, allows customers to shop for routes on the airline’s Web site, and supplies an interface for interaction with reservation agents.
Customers canuse it to get into airport kiosks, select certain seats, examine their luggage, board, rebook, and get refunds for flight cancellation. All of the data generated by simply these ventures are stored centrally within the system. JetBlue selected SabreSonic CSS more than its heritage system produced by Sabre rival Navitaire, and WestJet was upgrading via an older Sabre reservation approach to its own. The first of the two airlines to implement SabreSonic CSS was WestJet. When WestJet travelled live with the modern system in October 2009, customers had trouble to place bookings, and the WestJet Web site crashed repeatedly.
WestJet’s call centers were also overwhelmed, and clients experienced slowdowns at airfields. For a firm that developed its organization on the durability of good customer support, this was a nightmare. Just how did WestJet allow this to happen? The critical concern was the copy of WestJet’s 840, 500 files that contain data upon transactions to get past WestJet customers who had already bought flights, coming from WestJet’s outdated reservation program servers in Calgary to Sabre computers in Ok. The immigration required WestJet agents to go through complex steps to process the data. WestJet hadn’t anticipated the transfer timerequired to move the files and failed to reduce its traveler loads upon flights functioning immediately after the changeover. Thousands of reservations for foreseeable future flights that were made ahead of the changeover had been Essentials of Management Details Systems, Tenth Edition, simply by Kenneth C. Laudon and Jane S. Laudon. Printed by Prentice Hall. Copyright laws 2013 by Pearson Education, Incorporation. ISBN 1-269-41688-X In recent years, the airline sector has viewed several cheap, high-efficiency providers rise to prominence utilizing a recipe of extremely competitive fares and outstanding customer support.
Two instances of this business model in action are JetBlue and WestJet. Both equally companies were founded in the past 2 decades and have quickly grown in to industry powerhouses. But when these companies need to generate sweeping THIS upgrades, their relationships with customers and the brands could be tarnished if things become a mistake. In 2009, both airlines upgraded their flight reservation systems, and one of the two discovered this lesson the hard way. JetBlue was incorporated over 10 years ago and founded in 1999 by David Neeleman. The company is definitely headquartered in Queens, New york city and lures to 63 destinations in 21states and eleven countries in the Caribbean, South America and Latin America. JetBlue’s objective has been to provide low-cost travel and leisure along with unique amenities like TV SET in every chair, and its heavy reliance about information technology throughout the business was a critical aspect in achieving that goal. JetBlue met with early success and continued to grow in a rapid pace, consistently rating at the top of customer satisfaction surveys for U. T. airlines. Based in Calgary, Canada, WestJet was founded with a group of flight industry experts in 1996, including Neeleman, who left to start JetBlue shortly
afterwards. The company commenced with around 40 personnel and three aircraft. Today, the company offers 7, 800 employees and operates four-twenty flights each day to 71 destinations in Canada, the United States, the Caribbean, and Mexico. Previous in this 10 years, WestJet went through rapid growth spurred by simply its early success and began adding more Canadian destinations and then U. S. cities for its plane tickets. By 2010, WestJet held nearly forty five percent in the Canadian airline market, with Air Canada dropping to 55 percent. JetBlue can be slightly greater, with 167 aircraft in use compared to WestJet’s 88, although both have applied the samelow-cost, good-service method that helped bring profitability in the notoriously shifty airline market. The speedy growth of each airline delivered their existing information devices obsolete, which includes their aircarrier reservation devices. Upgrading bookings systems bears special hazards. From a buyer perspective, merely one of two things can happen: Either the flight successfully completes its change and the client notices no difference in the ability to publication flights, or perhaps the implementation can be botched, angering customers and damaging the airline’s company.
Chapter 11: Building Data Systems and Managing Jobs handle these problems. JetBlue ended up featuring a backup internet site several times. JetBlue had the advantage of seeing WestJet begin the implementation months before, therefore it was able to prevent many of the stumbling blocks that WestJet endured. Nevertheless JetBlue acquired also skilled similar customer support debacles in past times. In Feb . 2007, JetBlue tried to operate flights during a blizzard once all other major airlines acquired already canceled their flights. This turned out to be a poor decision, as the elements conditions eliminated theflights coming from taking off and passengers were stranded pertaining to as long as ten hours. JetBlue had to continue canceling travel arrangements for days soon after, reaching a total of 1, 100 flights terminated and a loss of $30 million. JetBlue management realized in the awaken of the turmoil that the airline’s IT system, although satisfactory to deal with normal day-to-day conditions, was not strong enough to manage a crisis with this magnitude. This experience, along with the statement of WestJet’s struggles once implementing their new system, motivated JetBlue’s cautious way of its own THIS implementation.
Sabre had to adapt the flights using the new system. This kind of delay provoked a deluge of buyer dissatisfaction, a rarity for WestJet. In addition to the increase in buyer complaint telephone calls, customers likewise took to the net to express their displeasure. Upset flyers expressed outrage about Facebook and flooded WestJet’s site, triggering the repeated crashes. WestJet quickly offered an apology to customers on their site when it came back up, outlining why the errors acquired occurred. WestJet employees had trained together with the new system for acombined 150, 000 hours before the upgrade, although WestJet public spookesperson Robert Palmer explained the fact that company “encounter(ed) some complications in the live environment that simply would not appear in quality environment, foremost such as issues adjacent the massive document transfer. WestJet’s latest profits reports show that the firm weathered the storm effectively, remained rewarding, and rates just below JetBlue and South west in aircarrier customer satisfaction. Neverthless, the incident forced the airline to slow down the rollout of the frequent hazard program, as well as code-sharing planswith other flight companies, such as American Airlines and Cathay Pacific cycles. These programs allow a single airline to market flights beneath its own brand on plane operated by simply other flight companies. In contrast, JetBlue learned from WestJet’s errors, and created a back-up Web site to get ready for the worst case scenario. The company also hired 500 non permanent call center employees to manage potential spikes in customer service telephone calls. WestJet as well ended up selecting temporary overseas call center workers, but only after the problem had gotten beyond control. JetBlue ensured to switch it is files to Sabre’s machines on a Thursday night, mainly because
Saturday trip traffic is normally very low. JetBlue also offered smaller amounts of seats on the flights that did remove that day time. JetBlue knowledgeable a few glitches”call wait instances increased but not all airport terminal kiosks and ticket printers came online right away. In addition , JetBlue should add some arranging functions. Yet compared to what WestJet suffered, the company was extremely well ready to 403 Essentials of Supervision Information Devices, Tenth Release, by Kenneth C. Laudon and Anne P. Laudon. Published by Prentice Area. Copyright 2013 by simply Pearson Education, Inc.
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