The pace of change that easyJet inflicts on the sector is unrelenting. EasyJet CIO Trevor Didcock explains the company continuing to unbundle every aspect of air travel and ensure that IT is in place to drive that change.
"The cause is to make travel easy for customers by making the costs transparent. By the time a customer adds the extra bits, they still have a lower price," Didcock says of the original and existing business model foundations of easyJet, where customers can select what elements of a flight. hold luggage, priority boarding or insurance, for example, that they pay for.
"We don't bundle and that is the DNA of easyJet. The more frequent the traveller and easyJet customer, the more they are adding," he reveals of how regular travellers choose more of the bundle.
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EasyJet and its brash rival Ryanair helped create the low-cost airline sector in this country and the model is being copied across the planet by everyone from Formula One team owners in Asia to flag-carrying airlines creating budget models in Australia.
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Unbundling services to customers benefits the latest easyJet business strategy which is to extract more revenue from its customer base, a business model that broadcaster BSkyB has demonstrated really works.
"Our load factor is fantastic. Our planes are 85 per cent full, and 90 per cent in the summer. But it is not a question of filling planes: the key is high revenue to seat."
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EasyJet CIO Trevor Didcock insists that unlike its headline-grabbing and controversial Irish rival, easyJet has customer service at its heart too.
Didcock admits the entire boarding process is being analysed by the airline, although a recent academic study did reveal that the existing method used by the low-cost airlines was one of the most efficient.
EasyJet hopes to capture a sizeable chunk of the business travel market and Didcock believes the airline's strategy of flying to key hub airports at the most convenient times rather than to disused military airbases will enable it to deliver that strategy.
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EasyJet is also targeting travellers it lost after the difficult 2010 the travel industry faced in the face of the Icelandic ash cloud, an air traffic control strike and December's severe snow, all of which closed airports.
From a technology standpoint Trevor Didcock, CIO of easyJet is assessing how the airline delivers disruption information to travellers as well as examining the possibility of allowing them to check in using mobile devices.
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EasyJet CIO Trevor Didcock explains that every one of the 204 Airbus planes easyJet operates converses with the company's IT, telling it when the door's shut, when the aircraft leaves and sharing a host of other data.
This has allowed the airline to assess fuel usage, ground control service levels and implement single-engine taxi propulsion to save on expensive fuel.
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EasyJet CIO Trevor Didcock's operational plans will also improve the lives of its customers. The airline is already comfortable with cloud computing, using hosted staff roster and flight route planning and bookings systems from Aims, Lufthansa and Amadeus respectively.
As a Microsoft house easyJet plans to use Redmond's Azure cloud platform to release the airline from fixed terminals at airports for boarding and check in.
Halo is an Azure-developed application for self-service kiosks and handheld devices. It enables easyJet to operate independently of the airport infrastructure so saving costs but also to carry out functions such as boarding and upselling away from desks and desktops, making the whole process more customer-friendly and flexible.
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"Boarding is quite archaic at present," EasyJet CIO Trevor Didcock explains.
"The airline industry has a lack of collaboration. We have a good relationship with airports like Gatwick, but it is still hard to find ways to collaborate.
Halo is an application to circumvent some of the services offered by airports as it is mobile and creates a direct relationship with the customer."
Didcock doesn't stop there with his assessment of how airlines can use technology to change the relationships they have with suppliers and increase the costs they can take out of the business.
"Ground handling at airports is changing and we are working with Menzies Aviation, our outsourced handler, on this. We are all trying to deliver a great customer experience. Why wouldn't you work together? If you take cost out you can share that."
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EasyJet CIO Trevor Didcock joined easyJet in September 2010. He sits on the airline management board and heads the 'Turn Europe Orange' transformation programme: a testament to the faith easyJet has in the ability of technology to improve business and services.
Didcock describes the board meetings as "dripping in detail" and the weekly airline management board meetings as requiring the CIO and his peers as having to have a "finger on the pulse".
"It is a nice management team that is there to beat the competition," he says.
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