Qantas cabin staff go blackberrying!
A news.com.au report says that Qantas cabin staff are toting BlackBerry smartphones in a trial of new customer service techniques.
The airline has bought 400 BlackBerrys to investigate replacing paper-based customer service forms, according to Qantas chief information officer Jamila Gordon.
Onboard the plane, a customer service manager records information on the BlackBerry and after landing the device is synchronised with computers to download the data.
The trial, which kicked off in mid-June, was expected to last until the end of the year, Ms Gordon said.
Productivity gains would be more transparent by then, she said. Qantas plans to purchase more BlackBerrys as the project progresses.
The airline spent considerable time on its quest for a chief information officer after losing long-time technology executive Fiona Balfour in early 2006.
Ms Balfour left to become Telstra’s CIO but she resigned from the telco 10 months later.
When she jumped ship, John Willet stepped in as Qantas tech chief but his term was always meant to be temporary due to his approaching retirement.
After a worldwide search Qantas announced Ms Gordon’s appointment in August 2007, poaching her from IBM Europe.
Ms Gordon had left her home base of Sydney a few years earlier to work in France and The Netherlands, and has extensive information technology transformation strategy and end-to-end IT service delivery experience.
Qantas has outsourcing agreements with Satyam Computer Services and Tata Consultancy Services worth about $180 million.
The carrier is in the midst of revamping its core business software platform, eQ.
Another key project for Ms Gordon is Project Marlin, which involves replacing Jetsmart – a long-running $40 million engineering and maintenance platform.
Jetsmart had been labelled Dumbjet by engineering staff. In February 2005, Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association members threatened to strike over the system because it required engineers to carry out additional data entry and accounting work.
Project Marlin was on track for phase one, Ms Gordon said, in time for the arrival of the new Airbus A380 superjumbos later this year.
A Report by The Mole from news.com.au
John Alwyn-Jones
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