FTE Airline Digital Transformation Power List Asia-Pacific 2024

Singapore Airlines takes a collaborative approach to technological advancements and customer-centric innovation. As part of this, it recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding to collaborate on the International Aviation Lab established by the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore to jointly explore, initiate and undertake innovation projects.

Singapore has an updated national Artificial Intelligence (AI) strategy – National AI Strategy 2.0 – with the aim of becoming a world leader in AI. National carrier Singapore Airlines is at the forefront of this AI revolution, and George Wang, Senior Vice President Information Technology, leads the team driving the airline’s incorporation of AI to optimise operations. The airline works closely with open innovation communities, startups and entrepreneurs through its Digital Innovation Lab, KrisLab. An example is Singapore Airlines’ partnership with a startup to develop a crew language competency app that leverages AI and speech recognition technology. This offers crew a platform to enhance their delivery of onboard announcements through asynchronous learning, enabling them to enhance their language skills and improve their enunciation.

Singapore Airlines is also embracing Generative AI (Gen AI) and has developed a blueprint for its implementation across the organisation. The blueprint is a strategic plan aimed at identifying impactful Gen AI use cases, exemplifying the airline’s commitment to leverage emerging technologies to improve operations and enhance customer experiences.

IndiGo is on a comprehensive digital transformation journey, with efforts driven via the team led by Neetan Chopra, Chief Digital and Information Officer. The airline is leveraging advanced cloud technologies, including Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning, and data analytics to deliver pioneering solutions and adapt to new industry trends. As part of this process, IndiGo recently concluded its ambitious and intensive cloud migration initiative. This strategic transition enhances scalability, performance and customer service agility.

The airline also recently announced a strategic collaboration with GMR Hyderabad International Airport, with the aim of transforming the passenger experience. The initiative forms the beginning of a digital consortium whose objective is to reshape the landscape of the Indian aviation industry. The consortium is focused on deploying cutting-edge technologies to enhance operational efficiency, passenger experiences, and overall industry sustainability, including AI and the Internet of Things (IoT) as well as Blockchain and Data Mesh. While IndiGo and GMR are the founding partners of this industry consortium, the initiative aims to collaborate with multiple stakeholders in the aviation ecosystem to advance the key objectives of driving technological innovation, enhancing passenger services, achieving operational excellence, and embracing sustainable practices to minimise environmental impact.

Meanwhile, IndiGo recently launched a conversational AI booking assistant, 6Eskai, on WhatsApp. This addition to the airline’s digital ecosystem is built on the Generative AI assistant platform developed by Riafy, a Google partner. It allows customers to book tickets, check-in, generate boarding passes, check their flight status, and ask their queries on WhatsApp.

AirAsia has fast-tracked its digital transformation with the mission of pivoting from being primarily an airline into an all-in-one digital company with close to 20 travel and lifestyle products and services creating the “AirAsia way of life”. Central to these efforts is MOVE Digital – the digital arm of Capital A, which encompasses two transformative businesses – AirAsia MOVE and BigPay.

AirAsia is on a transformative journey “to elevate every traveller’s experience”. As the first step on this journey, AirAsia MOVE – formerly known as airasia Superapp and led by CEO Nadia Omer – has unveiled an updated, refreshed look for its app. From the app layout, to exciting new products, services and deals, the new AirAsia MOVE is designed to help customers “go all the way” seamlessly when they travel. AirAsia MOVE envisions travel complemented by a community-led experience through features such as AirAsia Chat, games, gifting, and a strong loyalty programme that rewards users across its expansive ecosystem.
AirAsia MOVE has swiftly become a one-stop travel platform offering value and convenience through seamless end-to-end booking experiences. It works closely with BigPay, which has established itself as an innovative fintech provider, to offer seamless access to travel and financial services on one single platform with integrated financial features.

Cathay Pacific is continuously pursuing the development of new technologies that enable the airline to give customers more choice and control over their journeys, whether on the ground, in the air, or on digital channels. As part of these efforts, Cathay is embracing advanced conversational Artificial Intelligence (AI) to enhance customers’ digital experience. Under the airline’s conversational AI roadmap, Cathay is optimising its digital customer experience with the most cutting-edge language AI technologies.

The airline has also launched an intuitive booking platform, contactless boarding, and high-speed Wi-Fi. Indeed, customers travelling in First or Business class onboard connected Cathay Pacific aircraft can now enjoy a complimentary Wi-Fi service on their flight – the latest enhancement the airline is making to the inflight customer experience.

Cathay places significant emphasis on collaboration and continuous learning to enhance digital transformation efforts. It recently hosted Tech Leaders Connect – a roundtable event bringing together digital and IT leaders from some of Hong Kong’s largest organisations for meaningful discussions on emerging tech trends and innovative solutions. The airline also hosts a large-scale annual hackathon, bringing in external technology, ideas, and suggestions into Cathay.

All Nippon Airways (ANA) is continuing its digital transformation journey, with plans to streamline its passenger service systems from FY2025 for “a seamless travel experience”.

ANA is seeking to innovate and reimagine how the travel experience can be improved by harnessing the potential of technological innovation. This includes comprehensive smart ramp efforts, with advanced autonomous vehicle testing.

The airline has also entered the Metaverse with ANA NEO and, as part of this, has launched ANA Granwhale – a virtual travel platform. Leveraging the power of virtual travel, this platform aims to enhance the number of inbound travellers to Japan, as well as promoting and facilitating the sale of specialty and regional products through e-commerce. Meanwhile, ANA Smart Travel aims to provide customers with a smooth and stress-free travel experience. The service model enables passengers to use their smartphones throughout their journey, with the intention of improving convenience and promoting contactless travel. Through these efforts, ANA aims to improve customer experience value, while strengthening its competitiveness and pursuing business efficiencies at the same time.

Air New Zealand is on a mission to be “the world’s leading digital airline” and the team led by Nikhil Ravishankar, Chief Digital Officer, is increasingly looking to digital technologies to enhance the experiences it delivers to customers.

The airline recently launched a new-look digital experience for members of its Airpoints loyalty programme, as part of its investment in technology to enhance CX.

It is also leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a core component of its strategy to the “the world’s leading digital airline”, including using AI to empower digital teams to be more autonomous in their efforts to modernise and digitalise customer experiences.

Meanwhile, last year Air New Zealand launched a baggage tracking feature in its app to make the travel experience more seamless and provide customers with peace of mind about the location of their bags. The app now provides customers with the ability to report delayed or damaged baggage, as well as monitor the status of an existing report, further simplifying the reunification process and allowing travellers to easily monitor their bags’ delivery.

Air India is on a five-year transformation journey known as Vihaan.AI. Vihaan.AI, which in Sanskrit signifies the dawn of a new era, is a detailed roadmap for Air India with clear milestones focusing on dramatically growing both its network and fleet, developing a completely revamped customer proposition, improving reliability and on-time performance, and taking a leadership position in technology, sustainability, and innovation. The first two phases of this transformation, ‘Taxi’ and ‘Take-off’, were focused on fixing the basics and building foundations for growth. The airline has now entered the ‘Climb’ phase, which focuses on achieving excellence in operations and customer experience.

The airline has also introduced AEYE Vision – an innovative feature in the Air India mobile app, which is designed to elevate the customer experience using Artificial Intelligence (AI), Augmented Reality, and advanced camera technology. This feature leverages the mobile device’s camera to streamline various travel-related tasks, transforming passenger interactions with the Air India app. Air India is the first airline to integrate these technologies in a single platform.

Additionally, Air India is harnessing AI for operational excellence with Copilot for Microsoft 365.

Satya Ramaswamy, Chief Digital and Technology Officer, leads the team responsible for Air India’s digital transformation efforts. He also plays a leadership role within the industry as a member of IATA’s Digital Transformation Advisory Council.

As national carrier of one of the world’s most digitally connected countries, Korean Air is spearheading its digital transformation journey. The team led by Kenneth Chang, Executive Vice President, CMO (Marketing, IT, e-Commerce, Cabin Crew & Global Customer Service Division), Korean Air, is the driving force behind these efforts.

The airline is incorporating innovative Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies to improve the customer experience, notably through a recent partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to develop an AI Contact Center (AICC) platform that incorporates innovative AI tech. The AICC is a cloud-based intelligent customer service platform that uses AI to power voice-bots and chatbots to answer customer enquiries. By utilising an AICC, it can offer more personalised and efficient customer support through innovative AI and cloud technologies, surpassing basic call centre services. Following this, the airline aims to further refine its services with the integration of Machine Learning and Generative AI by February 2025.

To build a culture of cloud innovation, Korean Air introduced the AWS Innovation Builder Program during its cloud migration to give employees the right skillsets to become data- and customer-centric and create a cloud-first culture. As part of this company-wide effort, Korean Air equipped 500 employees with basic cloud technology skills and brought the business and technology teams together to validate new ideas with speed and agility using AWS.

Malaysia Aviation Group (MAG) – comprising Malaysia Airlines, Firefly, MASwings, and AMAL by Malaysia Airlines – is reinforcing its commitment to digital empowerment and embracing cutting-edge technologies. In a strategic move towards advancing its digital transformation journey, MAG has expanded its work on the Microsoft platform in Malaysia to enhance the Group’s suite of offerings, enrich user experiences, and fortify its technology platforms. As part of this extended collaboration, MAG is innovating in the areas of autonomous vehicles, data analytics, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning, Augmented Reality, robotics and more.

Malaysia Airlines recently unveiled an innovative collaboration with Google, which is designed to further drive digital evolution. By harnessing cutting-edge digital marketing and AI marketing solutions to enhance its commercial operations, streamline processes and provide tailored experiences to travellers, this collaboration aims to foster ongoing growth and innovation, cultivating a holistic ecosystem that prioritises a seamless customer experience.

Clarence Lee, Group Chief Digital and IT Officer, leads the team responsible for MAG’s comprehensive digital transformation efforts.

Qantas Group is exploring the power of technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), big data, cloud, Internet of Things (IoT) and more to enhance operational efficiency and improve the customer experience.

The airline’s digital transformation efforts focus on technology and data, with the digitisation of operations designed to enhance efficiency and decision-making processes. Tools such as AI and Machine Learning are enabling sophisticated optimisation of the workforce and asset deployment, while rapid learning from actual performance is refining planning models and driving further continuous improvement. The airline’s Jetstar subsidiary has also backed AI technology as an enabler for its own transformation.

Indeed, Qantas Group is embracing a number of use cases for AI, such as a better ticketing process, better-informed agents, and the chance to compress the time between the identification of customer problems and their resolution. Qantas Group is also considering the impact of the Large Language Models that underpin Generative AI.

Meanwhile, the overhauled Qantas app, launched towards the end of 2023, gives customers more control over their bookings, as well as including the introduction of baggage tracking and better integration of Qantas Loyalty.

The team led by Keisuke Suzuki, CIO & SVP of IT Planning Department, is the driving force behind Japan Airlines’ digital transformation efforts. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning technologies are central to the airline’s efforts to personalise the customer experience. It is also leveraging automation and autonomous vehicles to enhance both operational efficiency and passenger experience. Japan Airlines is also testing NFTs, as a way of deepening its customer relationships.

As part of the strategy to provide passengers with a connected inflight experience closer to that on the ground, Japan Airlines recently expanded its free inflight Wi-Fi service to all cabins on all international flights. First and Business Class passengers receive unlimited free Wi-Fi to browse the web, stay connected on social media, and send/receive photos and texts throughout their flight. Meanwhile, Premium Economy and Economy Class passengers can take advantage of one hour of free Wi-Fi to use when they wish.

Earlier this year, Japan Airlines and Panasonic Avionics Corporation revealed features of the inflight entertainment (IFE) system, digital solutions, and connectivity service installed on the carrier’s new Airbus A350-1000 fleet. The IFE system provides 4K screen technology, faster network speeds, higher storage capacity than previous generation systems, and the ability for travellers to design their own personalised journey. It also seamlessly integrates with the airline’s mobile app, allowing passengers to create a ‘favourites’ list pre-flight.

Japan Airlines is also entering the Urban Air Mobility space, in partnership with Volocopter, and plans to operate eVTOL demonstration flights during Expo 2025 in Osaka, Kansai, Japan.

Virgin Australia has a significant pipeline of tech programmes as part of a $300 million digital investment to deliver a more integrated, personalised and dynamic experience for travellers. The airline is undergoing a significant transformation to further enhance its guest experience, with technology investment being an important part of this. It has prioritised upgrades to internal and external digital interfaces and to commercial tools and platforms, with the team led by Chief Information Officer David Hogarth driving these efforts.

Virgin Australia recently announced a strategic partnership with Sabre Corporation to modernise the airline’s retailing capabilities through the phased implementation of the SabreMosaic Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven platform built to transform airline retailing. The collaboration underscores the airline’s commitment to innovation, as well as its aim to be an early mover in the industry transition to offer-and-order based modern retailing.

Virgin Australia has also launched a baggage tracking tool across more than two-thirds of its domestic network, allowing travellers to know where their bag is at every step of the journey. With digital tracking now part of everyday life, it is the latest instalment of Virgin Australia’s broader transformation programme to deliver a seamless travel experience.

The airline’s tech enhancement also includes the introduction of digital wallet payments with Apple Pay and Google Pay, meaning physical bank cards are no longer needed when purchasing food & beverage onboard, as well as app upgrades and Rapid Rebook – a self-service tool that lets travellers view their revised flight details, choose an alternative flight within three days of their original flight, and if disrupted overnight, organise a hotel stay and meal voucher at the tap of a button.