British Airways Big Data Case Study

3.3 Big Data British Airways is one of the early adopters of big data in the airline industry. British Airways wants to improve customer centricity and in order to do this, the airline created a program called “Know Me” powered in part by analytics software from Opera Solutions. Know Me will collect loyalty information with data on the online behavior and buying habits of 20 million British Airways customers. The program uses Google Image search to help staff recognize pilot, captains, and their frequent fliers in order to provide tailored attention to those customers as soon as they enter the airport or first-class lounge. Moreover, the app also uses customer information to create a service that rewards passengers with loyalty points and

The airline is utilizing big data in various ways such as maximizing revenues through pricing strategy optimization, forecasting maintenance, and improving the passenger’s in-flight experience. Etihad believes that big data will help the company sustain growth in the future. Etihad uses the pricing and revenue management software developed by PROS to add new destinations and grow their connections that best fit the needs of their target group. Etihad also adopted the SITA CrewTablet which will enable the crew to access any operational or passenger data via tablets anytime. Lastly, Etihad is using their loyalty program “House of Brands” to analyze the flying habits of their frequent flyer in order to gain insight that will help in determining the best price and timing to send an upgrade offer in order to boost sales and develop strategic

Lufthansa leveraged big data in order to manage the entire customer engagement cycle by predicting and meeting the customers’ needs beyond their expectations from pre-travel to post-travel experience. CIO of Lufthansa stated that “Travel is a trigger for the opportunity to provide services to customers. We are competing, in this way, with Google and Amazon”. Aside from personalizing the passenger’s experience, big data is also used to improve operational efficiency and disruption management (handle irregular situations and predict departure delays and proactive recovery), discover innovative service provision and operational optimizations (predictive and preventive aircraft maintenance). By utilizing big data Lufthansa was able to predict what their customer is going to need or want and to do or buy. It is also interesting to note the 7 critical success factors in innovating with big data at Lufthansa as presented by Chen et al. (2016) in their research which includes: effective value discovery process, direct involvement of the CEO, service-orientation mindset, not blindly following IT fashion, architectural foundation for integration and growth, confident outsourcing and vendor management and lastly talent planning (Chen et al.