In fact, Mark Sims, managing architect at Projekt202, says that “Southwest is going through an exercise of upgrading their technology and applications that are 15, 20, and even 25 years old.
Southwest airlines app software#
As a result, upgrading systems and software is much more complicated because the systems they are replacing are older. This means that older systems stay in place longer at airlines than they might at, say, an e-commerce company. Harteveldt notes that, due to aviation’s unique nature, the commercial airline industry does not invest as much in technology as a percentage of revenue than some other industries. Changing out any one of them is equivalent to doing a simultaneous heart transplant, brain transplant, and face-lift.”Īs OpsSuite rolls out, it replaces the complicated and antiquated web of tech and communications systems that were already in place. Henry Harteveldt of Atmosphere Research Group, an industry analyst, says, “These systems are incredibly complex. Software replacements or upgrades at airlines often resemble a game of Jenga. ”A Simultaneous Heart Transplant, Brain Transplant, And Face-Lift” Putting together OpsSuite involved a large number of steps for Southwest and Projekt202. Because airlines rely on complex IT systems to keep track of planes, passengers, and cargo, IT outages can increase the likelihood of pilots or air traffic personnel making errors. IT errors at airlines can significantly delay travelers or even risk lives. On the other hand, airlines can’t afford major disruption from software issues, which makes software deployments especially challenging. On the one hand, airlines serve millions of travelers daily and need to keep massive amounts of data flowing between colleagues who may be hundreds or thousands of miles apart. Before OpsSuite’s deployment, employees at Southwest used a complex web of older software programs, paper logbooks, and phone communications for these tasks.Īirlines like Southwest need products like OpsSuite because of the unique challenges they face.
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Indeed, OpsSuite deals with a massive amount of data–according to a Slideshare presentation published by Southwest, the platform consumes more than 10 million messages posted daily both by employees and the software they use. Because Southwest’s employees work in extremely busy airports, switching to apps–something the airline industry has been slow to adopt compared to similarly complicated fields like health care–significantly eases the behind-the-scenes communications process, since employees often turn to whiteboards or faxes when phone calls are rendered impractical by noisy airport working conditions. “A lot of what help with is being able to find time stamps or ways to start tracking that,” Bean says. Even though the change costs money, Southwest needs such innovations to stay competitive–and the airline does expect, by 2020, to see significant earning boosts as a result of the software and related workflow improvements. For instance, unlike Southwest, JetBlue and Delta employees frequently use tablets to record information. Southwest, which prides itself on low consumer costs and therefore is hesitant to overspend on operations, has been slower to migrate to digital solutions than many of its rivals. OpsSuite is part of a larger $800 million technological overhaul at Southwest that includes $300 million invested in new technology for operations and $500 million in a new reservation system. This change will make employee communications significantly easier at the airline, which has operations spread across dozens of airports. Currently based over the web on conventional PCs and laptops, Southwest plans to bring OpsSuite’s functionality to phones and tablets in the coming years. A whole lot of data goes through OpsSuite–data the airline needs to know in order to operate.
![southwest airlines app southwest airlines app](http://cdn.macrumors.com/article-new/2013/11/southwestairlines_ios7.jpg)
If workers at LAX want to know what the logistical ramifications are of a storm in Dallas, they use OpsSuite. If an employee inside an airport needs information from a plane that is sitting at the gate, they use OpsSuite. With OpsSuite tools, Southwest’s employees monitor gate assignments and use, ensure luggage is loaded onto aircraft, and track a myriad amount of other traveler data.
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Now this busy airport and the 8 million fliers it serves each year are at the center of an amazingly complicated project: Southwest’s effort to digitize massive swaths of the airline experience and migrate employees used to working with ancient tools like logbooks, radio, pneumatic tubes, and whiteboards to 21st century-style digital communications.Ī big part of this migration is a project called OpsSuite–a web-based app package that handles many of the tasks that ensure travelers make it safely from destination A to destination B.