Virtual Queue App for a proactive approach to disruption Management

About the Client

Leading international Airline group company in Europe

Problem statement

Flight delay and cancellation is a common issue faced by passengers wherein the rebooking process is not always hassle free or efficient. In the event of a disruption, passenger itineraries get seriously hampered and Airline personnel scramble to reschedule flights and rebook passengers on other flights. Not being able to get a transparent view of their rebooking status further adds to the passenger’s anxiety.

Business need

The airline therefore needed to enable a more proactive approach to disruption management and deliver a hassle-free booking/rebooking experience which can eradicate the passenger anxiety by allowing the passengers to track their rebooking flight status in real time.

Solution overview

Coforge accepted this task as a challenge and delivered a POC within a week. An app was developed that enabled Airport agents to register the disrupted passengers at airports with their rebooking preferences. This information is passed to the back-office agents for rebooking.

A virtual queue number is then assigned and sent on email/SMS and a real time status of the request can be tracked using a URL. This registered customer information is further used by back-office agents for rebooking and sending further communications.

The dashboard also provides a view of the various metrics including ticketing and baggage metrics such as Number of PNRs processed, average handling time, Tickets pending etc. to enable efficient resource management and better decision making.

Based on Microservice architecture with Angular 13 and hosted on AWS, the App was Production ready within 2 months with all major features and successful trial done on T5 at Heathrow Airport serving over 5000 disrupted passengers.

Benefits

The solution has not just the end passenger but also the airlines, airports and travel agents by offering a common platform to all stakeholders for seamless communication with better visibility of events thereby lowering the overall cost of disruption.

Passengers

 

• Improves the customer experience in disruption times by reducing the rebooking processing time and providing real time status of the rebooking to customers.
• Provides standby flight(s) options to the customers stranded at airports thereby reducing the airport wait time

Airlines and Airports

 

• Enables better visibility of events and increased ability to make resources available when most needed.
• Lower costs of disruption due to better customer satisfaction and loyalty.
• De risks IT/DC failures, as it is hosted on the cloud

Travel Agents and Partners

 

• Provides better visibility of events to deliver a smooth rebooking experience further enabling a faster resolution of disruption.