Spicing Up With IT

The

low-cost airline travel revolution was started by Air Deccan in India. Today

SpiceJet has emerged as its closest rival with others such as Jet and Indian

Airlines trying every trick of the trade to eat into the market. 

SpiceJet launched its

India operations on April 15, 2005. On the day of launch, the portal received 8

mn hits and registered 37,000 bookings in four hours. Despite the huge traffic,

the website was fully operational and running and this is what makes

SpiceJet's e-ticketing system appropriate for a case study. 

SpiceJet's

e-Ticketing portal www.spicejet.com has

been developed in-house, by its 10-member IT team. The website is based on the

philosophy-Keep It Simple and Stupid. The idea is to make the website as

friendly and simplified as possible. The portal acts as an

information-cum-booking engine for the carrier. It took the team around 45 days

to develop the website. The payment gateway took nearly two-third of the overall

time. The pilot was done on April 15 last year followed by comprehensive load

testing. The website was launched a month later.

Currently, SpiceJet

operates flights to 11 destinations. Connectivity to these happens through the

carrier's own virtual private network. This has helped SpiceJet reduce its

distribution expenses to 3% of the operating expenditure. Creation of its own

VPN also allows SpiceJet to use VOIP on its network without depending on a

vendor for additional services and support facilities.

At a Glance

Issue: e-ticketing Reason: To reduce cost Vendor/Solution: In house portal Benefits Reduction in distribution expenses to 3% of the operating expenditure The portal acts as an information-cum-booking engine for the carrier Lower communication cost

SpiceJet also has a

100-member call center operation out of Gurgaon headquarters. The website is

hosted on a high-speed network through 40 Mbps Internet pipes. SpiceJet has a

TelNet-based system that uses minimum bandwidth.

The official website is

hosted on the HP Unix server which makes it more robust and helps handle huge

website traffic without crashes. It has chosen Linux for its proxy servers and

mail servers.

SpiceJet plans to roll

out web-based check-in in the near future. The IT team is also in the process of

developing several in-house applications. The company is also planning an

internal Linux based helpdesk. Says Virender Pal, general manager, IT (Special

Projects), an Air-Deccan veteran and currently heading the IT operations in the

company after the departure of its CIO, “We are trying to create a synergy

between a conventional IT organization and an airline company.” 

Kiosks are also being

planned to facilitate self-check-ins to passengers. The application, again built

in-house, is ready and the kiosks should take off by the end of the year

if things go according to plans.

Applications have been

developed in-house that captures mobile numbers and PNR at the time of booking

to generate instant SMS alerts to passengers. If mobile numbers are not

available, the call center takes up the responsibility of keeping the passengers

posted with the latest information.

Cost is an important

component of any business and more so with respect to low cost carriers like

SpiceJet. There is a fixed cost involved in case of Navitaire which is based on

a per segment arrangement. The IT infrastructure cost for setting up an airport

is in the Rs 4-5 lakh range as compared to traditional airlines that spends

around Rs 10-15 lakh. SpiceJet has lowered the communication cost significantly,

thanks to its own VPN and VOIP.

SpiceJet like all

low-cost carriers has its own Airline Distribution System wherein Navitaire, an

Accenture-owned company, hosts the inventory in the UK. Royal Airways has

selected Navitaire's Open Skies host reservation system and revenue management

system to help operate its new low-cost airline, SpiceJet. Navitaire's

technology allows direct Internet distribution and ticketless travel.

Bhaswati Chakravorty  



bhaswatic@cybermedia.co.in