IBM Software Transportation

IBM Travel and Transportation

Framework for airlines
2 IBM Travel and Transportation Framework for airlines
Airlines and the smarter planet
Transportation is the circulatory system of our economy. Essen-
tially all tangible goods — food, clothing, medicine, fuel and con-
sumer products — have been transported to us from somewhere
else. This ecosystem of vehicles, infrastructure and terminals is
undergoing dramatic changes driven by a worldwide population
explosion, urbanization, globalization and technological innova-
tion. Airlines, instrumental in the creation of our global economy,
are also facing skyrocketing fuel prices, rising operational costs
and increased regulation around safety and security.
By taking a smarter approach, by marrying digital technology
with physical infrastructure, airlines can face down these difficult
challenges. Airlines must more accurately predict demand and
optimize capacity, assets and infrastructure. They must improve
the end-to-end passenger experience. They need to increase oper-
ational efficiency while at the same time reducing their environ-
mental impact. And finally, they must assure passengers and
government regulators that operations are safe and secure.
Building a framework for transformation
The IBM Travel and Transportation Framework is a combination
of IBM software products and assets that can help airlines deal
with complex sales and delivery channels, optimize passenger
and cargo operations, and improve asset management to deliver on
the promise of a more efficient, safe and secure cargo and passenger
experience. The framework, built on open standards and common
software building blocks, supports advanced information man-
agement, analytics, automation and integration of processes such
as reservations; multichannel sales and service; asset management;
operational control; and safety, security and surveillance.
Addressing the business challenges of the
airline industry
The IBM Travel and Transportation Framework focuses on
five key business domains that are specific to today’s commer-
cial airlines.
• Reservation system modernization: IBM provides innovative
tools to help modernize core airline reservation systems. We
can help create a highly reliable, performance-optimized res-
ervation system that can help airlines deliver a wide variety of
innovative customer services while modernizing their pricing
and service models. IBM’s approach to modernizing reserva-
tion systems is aligned with widely accepted industry standards.
• Multichannel sales and service: The framework can help
airlines provide a more seamless customer experience across
pretravel sales channels and on-trip touch points by creating a
“single view” of a passenger. The single view is accomplished
by integrating information from disparate data sources and
making it available to customer-centric processes.

• Asset optimization: The framework provides airlines with
the capability to better manage capital assets throughout their
revenue-producing life cycle, including acquisition, utilization,
maintenance, repair, overhaul and disposition. Assets can
include aircraft, parts, crews, machinery, airspace, crew expe-
rience and marketplace presence.
• Operations control systems: The framework provides solu-
tions that can help airlines improve operational effectiveness
and reduce environmental impact through better planning of
schedules, load plans, facilities, crews and equipment. For air-
lines, this includes optimizing flight schedules and flight crews.
The solutions use business rules and business intelligence tools
for decision support.
• Security, safety and surveillance: The framework can
help airlines integrate data from video and other monitor-
ing devices and apply advanced analytics to improve secu-
rity, reduce security overhead and move from a reactive to a
more proactive response.
IBM Software 3
Creating an agile, profitable airline for the
twenty-first century
The IBM Travel and Transportation Framework offers solu-
tions that improve responsiveness to the marketplace, stream-
line core operational processes, and help airlines become healthier
and more profitable. A scalable, modular, integrated platform
built on industry standards, the IBM Travel and Transportation
Framework enables airlines to start by solving a particular busi-
ness problem in one of the five domains — for example, reser-
vation system modernization — and then move on to execute a
multichannel sales and service system that enables a single view
of the passenger. By leveraging the first project to develop a
second, then a third and so on, economies of scale are achieved.
This incremental path to modernization, built on open standards
and designed to integrate with existing applications, can lower
costs and mitigate risk while improving the speed, safety, reliabil-
ity and profitability of today’s global airline companies.
For more information
To learn more about the IBM Travel and Transportation
Framework, please contact your IBM sales representative or
IBM Business Partner, or visit:
ibm.com/software/industry/transportation
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