Manipal International University: AirAsia Business Analytics Report

This report analyzes AirAsia's business analytics and information system strategies, focusing on how the airline leverages data to achieve its objectives. The study examines AirAsia's IT infrastructure, including its use of Google Cloud, BigQuery, and other business intelligence tools. It highlights the company's response to the Covid-19 pandemic, detailing the challenges faced and the impact on performance. The report also discusses the role of data analytics in fuel management, cost reduction, and operational efficiency, emphasizing the importance of adapting to new norms within the travel industry. Recommendations are provided on how AirAsia can enhance its business analytics to maintain competitiveness and ensure compliance with new industry standards. The analysis uses secondary data, including journal articles, books, and online resources, to provide insights into AirAsia's digital transformation and its pursuit of a 'frictionless' travel experience. The report concludes with an assessment of AirAsia's performance pre and post-pandemic, emphasizing the need for continued innovation and strategic use of data to navigate the evolving aviation landscape.

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AIR ASIA BUSINESS ANALYTICS INFORMATION SYSTEM
Article · December 2020
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AIR ASIA BUSINESS ANALYTICS
INFORMATION SYSTEM
Caroline Abraham 1*
Kisshen Nair Murali 2*
School of Management and Business
Manipal International University, 71800 Putera Nilai, Negeri
Sembilan, Malaysia.
[e-mail] 1*
[e-mail] 2*

ABSTRACT
The objective of this report is about analysing the AirAsia company and its information
technology strategy. The purpose is to understand the effectiveness of its business analytics
and the way that can be used to help it overcome the challenges brought about by Covid 19.
The analysis here shows that AirAsia is at the forefront of using business analytics and it has
utilised this to help it achieve greater success in the analysis has shown that the Covid 19
pandemic has taken its toll on the company and its performance. AirAsia’s performance before
the pandemic was very good and after the pandemic, it performed very. Even though AirAsia
has a sophisticated information technology infrastructure and utilises data analytics
extensively, nevertheless, more needs to be done in order to adapt and change to the new norm
created by the Covid 19 pandemic within the travel industry. The findings made suggests that
AirAsia can use business analytics in helping it to remain viable in light of this pandemic and
the recommendations were about how AirAsia should take steps to provide sophisticated
business analytics to ensure it can comply with, and take advantage of new standard operating
procedures initiated within the travel industry. This will possibly help ensure that AirAsia tries
its best to maintain better performance levels in the future.
Keywords: [ business analytic, e-commerce, project management, information systems
cultural usability]

INTRODUCTION
The AirAsia company is chosen for this analysis and it will be about the identification of
important trends, patterns and challenges as well as providing of important recommendations
and suggestions for addressing the various challenges and future information systems
development. AirAsia is a very fast-growing airline company with a strong reputation for low
costs and the no-frills concept. The company was initially owned by the government but was
purchased by Tony Fernandes in year 2001 and he managed to turn around the company with
a very innovative business model that resulted in the company becoming one of the most
popular brand names in sphere of commercial aviation travel. The company is a very special
and innovative company that capitalises on advanced technologies that are available and
integrated into its business model so that it can enjoy the advantages of such technology
(Fernandes, 2018).
AirAsia's fleet of aircrafts are growing quite steadily and operates more than three or 50,000
flights each year and serves more than 100 destinations in more than 20 countries across the
world. It is indeed a leader in the Asian civil aviation market. However, many other competitors
are threatening its market position, such as budget airlines from Singapore and Thailand (Ng
& Ze, 2020 ). This makes it imperative for AirAsia to utilise business analytics as well as
superior information system technologies to help them in their quest to achieve market
dominance in the region. Such information is very important and does play a role in helping
Asia to achieve better competitiveness (Laudon & Laudon, 2012).
AirAsia is on the right path towards becoming a data first business. The company has fully
exploited the potential of Google cloud which is underpinning its efforts to become a digital
first business which capitalise on the benefits of collaboration (Piccoli & Pigni, 2018). Tony
Fernandes had outlined a vision of what the future of air travel would be with airplanes that are
enabled by technology which serves to efficiently streamline the processes of check-in, bag
dropping and security processes for travellers (Fernandes, 2018). The main buzzword for Asia
is "frictionless" and they use of data to create a travel experience that is frictionless for their
travellers and employees. The main ambition of AirAsia is to achieve frictionless travel.
Over the years, many important trends relating to IT are observed when it comes to AirAsia. It
is understood that AirAsia is an avid user of the Internet of Things (IoT) sensors on its aircrafts

in order to perform predictive maintenance as well as the best sites to position its planes and
airports in order to lower the chances of passengers missing connecting flights (Yang, et al.,
2017). It also offers their passengers with the option to download their boarding pass to their
mobile devices and according to AirAsia CEO, there's also the likelihood of the use of
technology to eradicate the requirement for single use paper luggage tags (Fernandes, 2018).
The company wants to create better personalization to become a data first organisation and to
reposition the company into a digital travel organisation that provides passengers with much
more than merely budget air travel. In the pursuit of its digital strategy, AirAsia has effectively
overhauled its IT infrastructure and paved the way for the organisation to move to the Google
cloud platform (Yang, et al., 2017).
With regards to business intelligence, a very important part of Google cloud technologies
utilised by AirAsia is known as Big Query data warehousing services as well as its business
intelligence offerings which consists of Google Data Studio. The company also uses Google's
G – Sweet online productivity tools that has helped company maintain long-standing traditions
of operating in a very collaborative and transparent way. Such a commitment towards
transparency and openness can generate a wealth of other benefits such as keeping the morale
of staff much higher (Piccoli & Pigni, 2018).
METHODOLOGY
SCOPE
Concerning the scope of this paper, it will be about analysing the business analytics and
information system infrastructure of an AirAsia and its overall technology strategy. The paper
is meant to show the way that AirAsia is using advanced analytical tools in order to advance
its strategic business objectives to help it achieve its mission and vision. In essence, this
assignment is focused on making a research of the various tools and techniques implemented
and used by AirAsia to help it capitalise on data analytics for strategic enhancements and
success. The first section of this assignment outlined the various business analytics tools and
components of its IT strategy which is implemented to help it become more successful. After
that, the findings of the analysis will be provided and based on these findings, certain
recommendations will be given about how this company can further utilise data analytical tools
and techniques to help it achieve its strategic business objectives.

The qualitative research design is used for this analysis. Besides that, the data analysis will be
performed using secondary data that is already present about AirAsia company and its
information system as well as its business analytics. Such data will be obtained through
journals, books and websites on the Internet. This means the data will be collected using the
general Internet research method. A large amount of secondary data will be collected and then
processed using the thematic analysis method of data analysis in order to show important
findings. The data analysis will be done in accordance with certain themes which are connected
to AirAsia and their business analytics that pertain Information Systems initiatives that are
used. Important trends within the data analysis process will be highlighted and this information
will then be collected and then use to provide appropriate descriptions for this analysis. The
findings of the data analysis will be given below and diagrams will be used to support the
discussion.
FINDINGS & DISCUSSION
Figure 1: Air Asia Expansion Story
An analysis of secondary data connected to AirAsia shows that are present, the information
system infrastructure at AirAsia is quite effective but there is a lot of room for improvement
(Piccoli & Pigni, 2018). The Information Systems at AirAsia collects important data that is
generated by its aircrafts and its systems and the company uses proprietary technology to assist
the company to better manage its operations (Jean & Lohmann, 2016). A set of analytical tools

are capable of delivering actionable insights which facilitate saving of fuel, reduction of cost
and the driving out of inefficiencies. An example of this is the Fuel Management Dashboard
of Asia that was implemented by the company in 2014. This information system provides
important real-time analytics which facilitate the optimisation of client profiles, single engine
taxi operations, utilisation of sophisticated statistics and algorithms to plan the taxi as well as
contingency fuel requirements, optimising of departure tracks as well as the minimising of the
use of Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) (Belobaba, et al., 2015).
Figure 2: AirAsia’s dwindling performance in contrast to last year
It was found that one of the most important challenges facing AirAsia at the moment is the
Covid 19 global pandemic which has had the effect of crippling international airlines and travel
across the world. The analysis showed that AirAsia has suffered very bad losses due to the
Covid 19 pandemic and its performance has deteriorated badly in recent months in contrast to
the same period last year. This is quite apparent from figure 1 above. Many airlines across the
world are filing for bankruptcy and almost 25 billion jobs the aviation industry is placed at risk
(Aviation Tribune, 2020). Strict travel regulations, social distancing measures as well as
widespread quarantines have affected tourism very badly and thus resulting in this airline
company suffering very negative consequences.
Even though travel restrictions have been relaxed in certain countries, the demand for air travel
services continues to dwindle. This has left companies like AirAsia to have to resort to adapting
to the new norms of international travel. The future of the airline industry does appear bleak
and it now becomes imperative for AirAsia to do what it can to ensure that it is able to continue
to operate under such very troubling circumstances. Trying to do business in such an

environment is very challenging for AirAsia and this is because of various new requirements
and regulations imposed upon the air travel industry. Until a vaccine is widely available, the
main focus of a company like AirAsia would be to make an evaluation of risk level of every
passenger. This will impose upon it, new challenges in obtaining such data (IATA, 2020).
Information connected to flight navigation services, flight data analytics, fuel management
services etc are examples of very important information that are managed strategically at
AirAsia and for business analytical techniques are applied to such information to help the
company spot important trends, challenges and opportunities within the industry and which can
be acted upon to achieve better competitiveness (Jean & Lohmann, 2016). Such an information
systems does help Asia to achieve its aim of constant innovation as well as to help the company
do its best to make a contribution to the organisation and to help it capitalise on the existing
attributes of the aviation infrastructure in Malaysia (Whyte & Lohmann, 2015). By possessing
superior business analytics, such an information system helps save costs incurred by AirAsia
especially when it comes to fuel consumption and this will translate to lower fares for its guests.
This will help Asia stay true to its commitment that "Now Everyone Can Fly" (Budd & Ison,
2016 ).
Figure 3: Information system in Air Asia
Information System are actualized inside an association to improve the adequacy and
productivity of that association. Abilities of the data framework and qualities of the association,
its work framework, its kin, and its turn of events and usage strategies together decide the
degree to which that intention is accomplished. Air Asia has carried out four kind of

information system, for example, yield management system (YMS), customer reservation
system (CRS), enterprise resources planning (ERP) system and Akamai System. This system
makes Air Asia more viable and proficiency and perhaps ready to diminish the expense and
wiped out failure in their business. Akamai Technology helps AirAsia to provide a premium
online experience to their customers with the improvement of site speed and performance. This
system very significant to support AirAsia ever expanding fleet and route network.
Computer Reservation System (CRS) An integrated web-enabled reservation and inventory
system observed by Navitaire’s Open Skies technology that includes Internet, call centre,
overbooking management, flexible inventory booking capability, customer information
retained and generates confirmation numbers on all reservation. Yield Management System
(YMS) By using this system as revenue management system, the operating costs and aids will
be considered. It helps to allocate capacity and optimize prices to maximize expected revenues
by seat and route. Enterprise Resource Planning System (ERP) Helps to integrate business
process, reduce financial month-end closing processing time, speeds up reporting and data
retrieval process. It increases efficiency and integrity and also saves operational costs
RECOMMENDATION
The recommendation that will be made here will be for AirAsia to adopt a more sophisticated
information system infrastructure that will ensure that it is capable of coming up with better
customer-based business analytics that can help it weather the storm caused by Covid 19. The
unprecedented spread of Covid 19 is in the demanding very drastic action by airlines and
airports across the world. If the company is unable to operate under these new rules and
restrictions, then it will become even more regressive in terms of growth and may eventually
become bankrupt. Therefore, AirAsia should embrace a new Information Systems strategy that
is designed to facilitate the collection of strategic customer base information which it can then
apply business analytical techniques in order to come up with a way of doing business in light
of the Covid 19 pandemic.
It will be through the use of information systems that such business analytics can be obtained
(Jean & Lohmann, 2016). With the desired levels of transparency, AirAsia will be able to use
important travel related information in order to create risk profiles. What AirAsia needs to do
is to utilise technology to enhance air travel in its early stages (Netto, et al., 2018). Its
Information Systems must be capable of making an evaluation of passenger-based information

and the travel history as well as information that can facilitate contact tracing. AirAsia is
already pioneering the concept of paperless travel and in this situation, it must focus attention
on ensuring touchless travel. Even with strict sanitisation protocols in place, through the
exchange of travel documents, security check ins as well as baggage control can still give rise
to infections. Online checking and automation will be the new travel norm and which are
AirAsia are all too familiar with. However, they would need more sophisticated information
system to handle this on a wider scale. It will also need to keep up with other modifications
that may take place such as contactless figure and scanning, as well as face recognition devices.
An additional challenge will be for AirAsia to ensure that such technologies are secure and safe
and are not intrusive (Neumann, et al., 2014).
AirAsia must redesign its strategy by enabling passengers to carry out self-service related
activities through the Internet, mobile devices, social media, kiosk, email, smartphone apps as
well as interactive voice response services. It is also recommended for AirAsia to offer what is
termed as Data as a Service (DaaS) for its passengers and to create new and improved ways for
which data is capable of being used to monetise. For instance, passenger volume data is capable
of being shared with other retailers for the company to be capable of creating very relevant
offers and promotions. It is very essential for AirAsia to view data as a strategic asset for not
only internal decision support but to create revenues and provide value to thrive within the
digital economy. The Information Systems of AirAsia must be fine-tuned to be capable of
utilising large amounts of operational, situational passenger data so that it is capable of offering
very powerful opportunities to passengers in these very troubling times.
AirAsia must revitalise and accelerate its various digital transmission initiatives by focusing
on fast digitisation and digital experiences which encompass enhancing passenger flows for
real-time flow monitoring and control and geolocation solutions, as well as contactless
passenger journey. AirAsia must implement cloud-based digital infrastructure more
extensively such as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), cloud-based solutions as well as
implementation of an effective distributed cloud and multi-cloud services for the purposes of
business agility (Piccoli & Pigni, 2018). The company should also leverage new age hyper
automation platforms and improve the ecosystem as a means of reducing costs as well as human
interactions while enhancing efficiencies. AirAsia should also leverage big data and digital
business intelligence more extensively to be capable of creating a very integrated source of
data using an enterprisewide data strategy and also data driven real-time analytics (Yang, et

al., 2017). This can improve overall levels of precision, fidelity and also improve costs in the
service delivery. This improvement can also provide very important insights into the supply
chain operations and customers are AirAsia. The company will be able to fashion its operations
to meet sudden and drastic changes in demand and also maintain a continuous flow of
passengers while avoiding problems (Ng & Ze, 2020 ).
AirAsia is also recommended to fine tune its Information Systems so it is capable of leveraging
advanced technologies that can facilitate faster passage identification and processing, improved
situational awareness as well as resource management, optimal use of resources as well as
greater automation to make a prediction of future scenarios as well as the best course of action
to take. For instance, AirAsia could use IoT centres as well as video-based analytics to provide
the capabilities to monitor the workforce, to carry out real-time inspections without risking the
personnel while being able to keep in touch with what is taking place on the ground. These
advanced business analytics can help enhance operational efficiency, lower costs, lower
damages and also satisfy the regulatory requirements imposed by the situation of Covid 19
(Yang, et al., 2017).
CONCLUSION
This analysis was about the AirAsia company and its information technology strategy. The
objective is to analyse its strategy and determine the effectiveness of its business analytics.
What this discussion has shown is that AirAsia is at the forefront of using business analytics
with the objective of ensuring greater success and this analysis also showed that the Covid 19
pandemic has taken its toll on the company and its performance. It is quite clear that the
performance of the company before the pandemic was very good and after the pandemic, its
performance dwindled very badly. The finding showed that although AirAsia has a
sophisticated information technology infrastructure and utilises data analytics extensively,
nevertheless, more needs to be done in order to adapt and change to the new norm created by
the Covid 19 pandemic within the travel industry. Once again, it is found that business analytics
will be at the forefront of the fight to remain viable in light of this pandemic and the
recommendations provided were about the way that AirAsia should take steps to provide
sophisticated business analytics to be in compliance with the new standard operating
procedures initiated within the travel industry and to ensure that the company continues to
perform optimally even in very troubling and challenging times.

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