Case Study: Self Service Baggage Drop

For Cathay Pacific and Dragonair to remain at the forefront of delivering the highest quality service both now and into the future, our business needs to be quick to adopt the latest technological trends. This means that there are many great opportunities for you to be part of a team delivering interesting and innovative IT projects that make a positive impact on the customer journey.

IT Project Focus:

Today’s airline passengers want more control of their journeys than ever before, and as a result, the demand for self-service travel experiences is increasing. As the world’s best airline, we’re proud to provide premium experiences for our customers, from the ground to the air. In response to the demand for self-service in air travel, our IT experts have developed the Self Service Bag Drop (SSBD), an innovative technology solution that empowers our passengers and enables their evolving needs for more convenient, controlled and efficient experiences.

The SSBD helps customers to save up to half the time they would ordinarily spend processing their bags at check-in counters. The SSBD kiosks allow them to print and apply luggage tags and dispatch their luggage themselves. It’s a highly complex process, and our role in IT is to work closely with the Cathay Pacific business teams and airport authorities to deliver the solution.

From a technical perspective, the SSBD involves several systems. The SSBD application manages process flow control and user interface presentations. The Customer Management (CM) system provides the passenger and baggage information that’s required for each successful transaction. Middleware stores the business logic and is the interaction layer between the SSBD application and CM.

To develop SSBD successfully, we’ve engaged in thoroughly collaborative processes with other experts at and outside of Cathay Pacific. We’ve learned about the customers’ needs from our business teams, and worked with the SSBD vendors to customise their products to suit those needs. We’ve adjusted our other IT systems to accommodate the SSBD technology, and created management systems for troubleshooting. We’re also accountable to the quality and safety standards of both Cathay Pacific and the various airport authorities we work with.

To date, SSBD has been rolled out successfully in several airports, including our own hub. Customer adoption of the system is growing steadily, and so is their satisfaction. SSBD is just one of many IT-driven innovations being developed at Cathay Pacific; we’re working to equip our customers with everything they need for a simply enjoyable travel experience with us.

Case Study: PAX Insight – Onboard Service List

Our passionate IT teams are committed to delivering innovative business solutions that provide significant improvements to the efficiency of our airline operations. Join us and you can help to design and deliver innovative solutions that assist our in-flight teams in providing passengers with a superior service.

IT Project Focus:

Pax Insight – Onboard Service List application for Tablets

A core focus of Cathay Pacific IT is creating world-class solutions that improve our customer experience. One of the team’s most recent accomplishments is Pax Insight, an application that enables Cabin Crew to download a Onboard Service List up to 90 minutes before departure.

Onboard Service Lists capture important customer details and requirements for every flight, such as passengers’ loyalty program details, dietary needs, special needs and onward journey details, as well as airport messages and information about unaccompanied minors. It is a critical document that enables our Cabin Crew to provide the world-class customer service that we are renowned for.

The driver

Onboard Service List originally took the form of a paper document that was printed before every flight for Cabin Crew use. These manual lists are often long, not user friendly and annotated with hand-written notes for last minute changes and therefore opportunities for improvements were identified.

The solution

The Cathay Pacific IT team’s Pax Insight application overcame the above challenges by providing a paperless, accurate and detailed list of passenger needs for every flight. A graphical seat plan allows Cabin Crew teams to obtain passengers detailed information. Various filters and search functions allow for the easy identification of tasks that can be undertaken pre-flight and inflight to provide value added service to customers.

Using middleware, Pax Insight extracts passenger information from the Cathay Pacific departure control system and delivers it to various mobile devices used by Cabin Crew. It successfully streamlines the in-flight service and allows crew members to better prepare, physically and mentally, for flights.

With tablets and other mobile technologies increasingly being adopted by employees and passengers alike, there is great potential for Pax Insight to expand our customer service offering. We anticipate that in the future it will enable our Cabin Crew to deliver personalised customer services.

Pax Insight is rapidly gaining recognition in the IT and aviation industries. It was recently awarded the Best Business Solution Application Silver Award at the 2014 Hong Kong ICT Awards.