Impact of Information Technology on Emirates Airlines

This report discusses the impact of information technology on Emirates Airlines, including its benefits, significance, and implementation requirements.

Running head: INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY FOR BUSINESS
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY FOR BUSINESS
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Table of Contents
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................3
IT impact upon Emirates Airlines:..................................................................................................4
Significance of IT in Airline Business:...........................................................................................7
IT implementation Requirements:...................................................................................................9
IT benefits:.....................................................................................................................................11
Conclusion:....................................................................................................................................11
References:....................................................................................................................................13

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Introduction:
IT or the Information Technology acts as the core aspect of the airline operation which is
having a significant impact upon the business and operations of the airlines. This mainly includes
the retention of the customer loyalty along with the building of a high quality operation
associated with cost competitive by providing of employee empowerment (Hills, 2018). The
figure provided below depicts the general operations of the airlines. There are five segments and
each of the segment is associated with including the IT so as to fulfill the requirements like the
usage of e-Commerce so as to sell tickets, usage of big data for market analysis and many more
(Xiang, Magnini & Fesenmaier, 2015). Besides this three of the major trends which are having
the capability of changing the operations of the airlines industry includes the big data
technology, CRM and switching to the digitalization from the tradition paper based works.
Source: (Hills, 2018)
Figure 1. Airline operation segment that require information technology to be emerged
From this it can be stated that the IT is associated with having a significant impact upon
the airline industry in terms of marketing and planning, sales and services and operations of the
enterprise. The report is aimed at discussing the impact of IT upon the Emirates airlines along

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with the evaluation of the benefits, potentials and the limitations related to the future
developments depending upon the latest technological trends (emirates.com, 2019). Emirates
Airlines was founded in the year of 1985 in the month of March 25th. Dubai Government has
been associated with making huge investments upon this airlines so as to help it in becoming the
biggest airline of the Middle East. The airline operates around 3600 flights every week in more
than 81 countries.
IT impact upon Emirates Airlines:
The IT is associated with playing a major role in the Emirates airlines in terms of the
safety, capacity, efficiency and capability. Substantial impact of IT is also seen in the
environment as well as the financial performance. Which means it is possible to integrate the IT
with the business processes of the airlines (emirates.com, 2019). Depending upon the Emirates
airline services the process can be classified into three different categories which includes the
customer sales and services, marketing and planning and lastly the operations of the enterprise.
The IT in the marketing and sales is associated with helping the operator in managing,
planning and analysis along with the evaluation towards the pricing setup, prediction of revenue,
scheduling of the airplane, management of the cargo and optimization of the cost related to the
operations. IT is associated with boosting up of the efficient operations along with being
associated with analyzing the problems faced because of the large amount of data (Bose, 2018).
The dynamic pricing strategy has seen to have become critical and the reason behind this is the
low-cost airline which is having a price leading competitiveness towards the full service of the
airline. Because of the maximized profitability along with revenues the dynamic pricing would
be associated with responding in accordance to the market demands and for gaining of

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competitiveness. The IT is capable of helping in analyzing the price which is most suitable
because of the strategy and objectives of the enterprise.
The IT involvement in the customer sales and services in mainly associated with
involving the offline reservation along with the customer services, public relation, and many
more.
Figure 2. Overview of IT implementation on business process in Emirate Airline
Source: (Xiang, Magnini & Fesenmaier, 2015)
Below is the figure illustrating the Emirate airlines existing online reservation channel.

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Figure 3. Example of online reservation of Emirates airline
Source: (emirates.com, 2019)
Besides this the figure provided below depicts the existing hybrid sale channels; along
with the call centres, mobile, website, Kiosk, meta search, OTA or online travel agents,
corporate, direct portal, agent through direct portal, and aggregator.
Figure 4: Hybrid sale channels for Emirate Airline
Source: (emirates.com, 2019)

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Additionally it is also possible to apply the customer service with the technology like the
online and offline complaints which are capable of helping in communicating by the customers
with the airlines in a rapid manner so as to receive quick response (Taneja, 2017). At the
enterprise stage the IT would be associated with helping in managing the employees along with
the entire schedule, operations of the flight, operations at the airport and maintenance of the
airplanes. Another major role played by the IT in this field is associated with including the
storage of information along with having a communication all across the airport or outside the
airline and displaying of the Business Intelligence usage (Alshubaily, 2017). There exists many
products, software and solutions which can be integrated by the airlines industry with the
products which are already existing in the business processes. Another option is the development
and deployment of the in house systems in case when there exists no match with the business
processes.
From the above discussion it can be concluded that IT has become the core tool used for
managing, communicating and analyzing the various business operations of the airlines. One of
the major benefit of the IT is associated with including the improvements in the speed of
operations assisted with lower costa and the capability related to the evaluation of the complex
problems. Emirates is surely in need of IT as this has become one of the most important function
of the business (Redpath, O'Connell & Warnock-Smith, 2017). The customers are associated
with seeking for higher support of technology like the self-service check-in, online-reservation,
finding cheap ticket prices, no delay flight operation, and many more.
Significance of IT in Airline Business:
There exists few studies which are associated with finding the correlation which seen to
be existing between the usage of the information technology and the profitability of the airlines

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industry. The studies in the investigations and the recommendations for the airlines is associated
with bringing a conclusion for the studies, and the airline managers should essentially be
associated with paying attention to the IT investments and the reason behind this is that it is
having an impact upon the financial performance (SADIK, 2018). Besides this the clear strategy
related to the usage of the IT should be established in order to move the entire business towards
success. Besides this the usage of the current technology is being done so as to manage along
with communicating and analyzing those which can be perceived as the immediate return but
some other technologies such as IoT technology would be associated with benefitting in the
upcoming years.
From this it can be stated that the IT significance is dependent upon the usage strategy of
the IT along with understanding the topology that is to be used. It is also possible to capture the
failure along with the risks by making use of the real-time financial monitoring and analysis
(emirates.com, 2019). This in turn is associated with providing of troubleshooting techniques for
solving the problems on time, technology along with helping the customers and operators is also
associated with helping in making the complex process become simple (O'Connell & Williams,
2016). Such simplicity includes the self-check in service along with increased speed of checking
in reduction of the loads related to tasks of the ground operators which initially leads to better
customer service. The figure provided below depicts the self-check in in kiosk along with the
trends of usage the technology in the check in process.

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Figure 5: Example of self-check-in kiosk
Source: (emirates.com, 2019)
Figure 6: Mobile technology for scan ticket
Source: (emirates.com, 2019)
Figure 7: On-flight free Wi-Fi for Emirate passenger

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Source: (emirates.com, 2019)
IT implementation Requirements:
The IT infrastructure should remain physically present before the software along with the
other systems and solutions are being implemented. In addition to this there is also a need of
recruiting IT specialists so as to support and maintain the entire infrastructure. The entire design
is to be done by the IT professionals or by consultant companies so as to ensure an effective IT
infrastructure which would be deployed in the airport (Delgado, 2016). After implementation of
the physical infrastructure the process of airline management solution implementation can be
done, one such example has been presented below where the orange box depicts the software
system, grey box depicts the layer of integration and the green box depicts the software
platforms. It is also to be made sure that before usage of the system the staffs are being provided
with proper training which would help in making them work efficiently and the level of mistakes
would be minimized.

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Figure 8. NDC reference architecture for airline
Source: (Whyte & Lohmann, 2016)
Emirates have been associated with signing a contract with IBM for 10 years services and
this made them pay an amount of $300 million. So from here it can be stated that the cost related
to IT infrastructure implementation is dependent upon the size of the business. Along with the
importance of IT the users are also important and are responsible for the driving the entire usage
of the IT so as to make the benefits get maximized (Whyte & Lohmann, 2016). Training should
be essentially attended by all employees. However it can be stated that the cost of IT for airlines
is very high and is lacking in specialist developers along with having lower competitive in IT
providers and massive users.

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IT benefits:
The IT usage is associated with bring a lot of benefits for the Airline industry and the
reason behind this that it helps a lot in operating the different processes in an efficient way along
with helping in optimization or accelerating the revenues. Besides this the existence of the Rapid
communication, processing, storing digital information and higher security protection is
associated with providing of additional benefits (Whyte & Lohmann, 2016). The usage of the
smart applications helps the organization in better management of the daily operations in an
efficient manner. The technology is also associated with helping in changing the way by which
the customers interact with the company by usage of the online platforms (emirates.com, 2019).
Automation is also associated with reducing the costs related to high number of staff’s
recruitment for providing customer service. Customers are also capable of accessing the updated
information along with other offers by the organization by usage of the company’s website
which includes the ticket fare and many more (Taneja, 2016). The most important benefits
gained by the airlines by usage of the IT is the security and privacy of the information along with
the protection by usage of the high performance network security along with the data encryption
technology.
Conclusion:
Information technology is associate with acting as a critical tool and factor responsible
for the business success. The entire report has been associated with discussing about the benefits
of IT in the airline industry by taking into consideration of the major organization that is
Emirates airlines. The report has also been associated with discussing about the significance and
the benefits of the IT in the airlines industry. One of the major benefits which is included is the
automation of the business processes along with making it easy to analyze the comprehensive

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and the complex data. Besides this the report also highlights some of the major requirements
related to the implementation of the Information Technology in this industry.

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References:
Alshubaily, A. (2017). Exploring the key success factors for young airlines. A focus on emirates
airlines and its regional competitors' strategy for success. Saudi Journal of Business and
Management Studies, 2(1), 30-37.
Bose, I. (2018). The Strategic Environment of the Aviation Industry in UAE: A Case Study on
Etihad Airways. IIUM Journal of Case Studies in Management, 9(1), 21-27.
Delgado, P. A. A. D. L. (2016). The United Arab Emirates case of economic success: the
Federal Government Economic Policies (Doctoral dissertation).
emirates.com. (2019). Emirates flights – Book a flight, browse our flight offers and explore the
Emirates Experience. Retrieved from https://www.emirates.com/in/english/
O'Connell, J. F., & Williams, G. (2016). Airline Strategy: Keeping the Legacy Carrier
Competitive. How Can Mature Airlines Stay Ahead in the Low-fare Airline Era?. In Air
Transport in the 21st Century (pp. 179-194). Routledge.
Redpath, N., O'Connell, J. F., & Warnock-Smith, D. (2017). The strategic impact of airline
group diversification: The cases of Emirates and Lufthansa. Journal of Air Transport
Management, 64, 121-138.
SADIK, R. M. (2018). Implementation of Total Quality Management in Airline (Case Study
Emirates Airline). International Journal, 7(5).
Taneja, N. K. (2016). Creating Information-Driven and Technology-Enabled Solutions for
Airlines and Passengers. In The Passenger Has Gone Digital and Mobile (pp. 71-92). Routledge.
Taneja, N. K. (2017). Simpli-Flying: optimizing the airline business model. Routledge.

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Whyte, R., & Lohmann, G. (2016). Airline business models. Air Transport Management: An
International Perspective; Budd, L., Ison, S., Eds, 107-121.
Xiang, Z., Magnini, V. P., & Fesenmaier, D. R. (2015). Information technology and consumer
behavior in travel and tourism: Insights from travel planning using the internet. Journal of
Retailing and Consumer Services, 22, 244-249.
Hills, J. (2018). Information technology and industrial policy. Routledge.